THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Peter Scott
 
 THE NOVELS AND ROMANCES 
 
 OF 
 
 EDWARD BULWER LYTTON 
 
 (LORD LYTTON) 
 
 i^antip Eibrarp €tiitioti 
 
 HAROLD
 
 She haa ,^one from them alone, and was lost in that 
 dreadful wilderness. 
 
 Harold.
 
 THE • NOVELL 
 
 AND • ROM/\NCE.S 
 
 Sf 
 EDWARD • BULWER 
 
 LYTTON 
 
 (LORD LYTTON) 
 HAROLD 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE • BROWN 
 and COMPANY
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. C. T. D'EYNCOURT, M.P. 
 
 I DEDICATE to jou, my dear friend, a work, principally 
 compoyed under your hospitable roof ; and to the mate- 
 rials of which your library, rich, in the authorities I most 
 needed, largely contributed. 
 
 The idea of founding an historical romance on an event 
 so important and so national as the Norman Invasion, I 
 had long entertained, and the chronicles of that time had 
 long been familiar to me. But it is an old habit of mine 
 to linger over the plan and subject of a work, for years, 
 perhaps, before the work has, in truth, advanced a sen- 
 tence ; " busying myself," as old Burton saith, " with 
 this playing labor — otiosdque dilige7itid id vitarem tor- 
 por em feriandi." 
 
 The main consideration which long withheld me from 
 the task, was in my sense of the unfamiliarity of the 
 ordinary reader with the characters, events, and, so to 
 speak, with the very physiognomy of a period ante 
 Agaiiiemtiona ; before the brilliant age of matured chiv- 
 alry, which has given to song and romance tlie deeds of 
 the later knighthood, and the glorious frenzy of the Cru- 
 sades. The Norman Conquest was our Trojan War, an 
 epoch beyond which our learning seldom induces our 
 imagination to ascend. 
 
 999.7r>fi2
 
 Vm DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 reasons for my alterations will be sufficiently obvious in a 
 work intended not only for general perusal, but which on 
 many accounts, I hope, may be intrusted fearlessly to the 
 young; Avhile those alterations are in strict accordance 
 with the spirit of the time, and tend to illustrate one of 
 its most marked peculiarities. 
 
 More apology is perhaps due for the liberal use to 
 which I have applied the superstitions of the age. But 
 with the age itself those superstitions are so interwoven 
 — they meet us so constantly, whether in the pages of 
 our own chroniclers, or the records of the kindred Scan- 
 dinavians — they are so intruded into the very laws, so 
 blended with the very life, of our Saxon forefathers, that 
 without employing them, in somewhat of the same credu- 
 lous spirit with which they were originally conceived, no 
 vivid impression of the People they influenced can be 
 conveyed. Not without truth has an Italian writer 
 remarked, " that he who would dei)ict philosoi>hically an 
 unphilosophical age, shouhl remember that, to be familiar 
 with children, one must sometimes think and feel as a 
 child." 
 
 Yet it has not been my main endeavor to make these 
 ghostly agencies conducive to the ordinary poetical pur- 
 poses of terror ; and if that effect be at all created by 
 them, it will be, I apprehend, rather subsidiary to the 
 more historical sources of interest, than in itself a leading 
 or popular characteristic of the work. My object, indeed, 
 in the introduction of the Danish Vala especially, has 
 been perhaps as much addressed to the reason as to 
 the fancy, in showing what large, if dim, remains of 
 the ancient " heatlienesse " still kept their ground on the 
 Saxon soil, contending with, and contrasting the monkish 
 superstitions, l)y wliich they were nltimately replaced. 
 Hilda is not in liistory ; but witliout the romantic imper-
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. IX 
 
 sonation of that ■which Hilda represents, the history of 
 the time would be imperfectly understood. 
 
 In the character of Harold — while I have carefully 
 examined and weighed tlie scanty evidences of its distin- 
 guishing attributes which are yet preserved to us ; and, 
 in spite of no unnatural partiality, have not concealed 
 what appear to me its deficiencies, and still less the great 
 error of the life it illustrates — I have attempted, some- 
 what and slightly, to shadow out the ideal of the pure 
 Saxon character, such as it was tlien, with its large quali- 
 ties undeveloped, but marked already by patient endur- 
 ance, love of justice, and freedom — the manly sense of 
 duty rather than the chivalric sentiment of honor — and 
 that indestructible element of practical purpose and cour- 
 ageous will, which, defying all conquest, and steadfast in 
 all peril, was ordained to achieve so vast an influence 
 over the destinies of the world. 
 
 To the Norman Duke, I believe, I have been as lenient 
 as justice will permit, though it is as impossible to deny 
 his craft as to dispute his genius ; and so far as the scope 
 of my work would allow, I trust that I have indicated 
 fairly the grand characteristics of his countrymen, more 
 truly chivalric than their lord. It has happened, unfor- 
 tunately for that illustrious race of men, that they have 
 seemed to us, in England, represented by the Anglo- 
 Norman kings. The fierce and plotting William, the 
 vain and worthless Rufus, the cold blooded and relentless 
 Henry, are no adequate representatives of the far nobler 
 Norman vavasours, whom even the English Chronicler 
 admits to have been "kind masters," and to whom, in 
 spite of their kings, the after-liberties of England were so 
 largely indebted. But this work closes on the Field of 
 Hastings ; and in that noble struggle for national inde- 
 pendence, the sympathies of every true son of the land,
 
 X DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 even if tracing his lineage back to the ISTorman victor, 
 must be on the side of the patriot Harold. 
 
 In the notes, which I have thought necessary aids to 
 the better comprehension of these volumes, my only wish 
 has been to convey to the general reader such illustrative 
 information as may familiarize him more easily with the 
 subject-matter of the book, or refresh his memory on 
 incidental details not without a national interest. In the 
 mere references to authorities I do not pretend to arrogate 
 to a fiction the proper character of a liistory ; the refer- 
 ences are chiefly used either where wishing pointedly to 
 distinguish from invention what was borrowed from a 
 chronicle, or, when differing from some popular historian 
 to whom the reader might be likely to refer, it seemed 
 well to state the authority upon which the difference 
 was founded.^ 
 
 In fact, my main object has been one that compelled 
 me to admit graver matter than is common in romance, 
 but which I would fain hope may be saved from the 
 charge of dulness by some national sympathy between 
 author and reader ; my object is attained, and attained 
 only, if in closing the last page of this work, the reader 
 shall find, that in spite of the fictitious materials admitted, 
 he has formed a clearer and more intimate acquaintance 
 with a time, heroic though remote, and characters which 
 ought to have a household interest to Englishmen, than 
 the succinct accounts of the mere historian could possibly 
 afford him. 
 
 Thus, my dear DEyncourt, under cover of an address 
 to yourself, have I made to the Public those explanations 
 which authors in general (and I not the least so) are often 
 over-anxi ous t(j render. 
 
 1 Notes less immediately neces.sary to the context, or too lon^ 
 not to interfere with the cunx'iit of the narrative, are thrown to tlie 
 end of each volume.
 
 DEDICATORY EPISTLE. XI 
 
 This task done, my thoughts naturally fly back to the 
 associations I connected with your name when I placed it 
 at the head of this epistle. Again I seem to find myself 
 luider your friendly roof ; again to greet my provident 
 host entering that Gothic chamber in which I had been 
 jjermitted to establish my unsocial study, heralding the 
 advent of majestic folios, and heaping liliraries round the 
 unworthy work. Again, pausing from my labor, I look 
 through that castle casement, and beyond that feudal 
 moat, over the broad landscapes, which, if I err not, took 
 their name from the proud brother of the Conqueror him- 
 self : or when, in those winter nights, the grim old tapes- 
 try waved in the dim recesses, I hear again the Saxon 
 thegn winding his horn at the turret door, and demand- 
 ing admittance to the halls from which the prelate of 
 Bayeux had so unrighteously expelled him -^ — what mar- 
 vel that I lived in the times of which I wrote, Saxon 
 with the Saxon, Norman with the Norman — that I entered 
 into no gossip less venerable than that current at the 
 Court of the Confessor, or startled my fellow-guests (when 
 I deigned to meet them) with the last news which 
 Harold's spies had brought over from the Camp at St. 
 Valery ? With all those folios, giants of the gone world, 
 rising around me daily, more and more, higher and higher 
 — Ossa upon Pelion — on chair and table, hearth and 
 floor ; invasive as Normans, indomitable as Saxons, and 
 tall as the tallest Danes (ruthless host, I behold them 
 still!) — with all those disburied spectres rampant in the 
 chamljer, all the armor rusting in thy galleries, all those 
 mutilated statues of early English kings (including St. 
 Edward himself) niched into thy gray, ivied walls — say 
 
 1 There is a legend attached to my friend's house, that on cer- 
 tain nights in the year, Eric the Saxon winds liis horn at the dooi: 
 and, in forma spectri, serves his notice of ejectment.
 
 Xir DEDICATORY EPISTLE. 
 
 in thy conscience, host, (if indeed that conscience be 
 not wholly callous !) shall I ever return to the nineteenth 
 century again ? 
 
 But far beyond these recent associations of a single 
 winter (for which heaven assoil thee !) goes the memory 
 of a friendship of many winters, and proof to the storms 
 of all. Often have I come for advice to your wisdom, 
 and sympathy to your heart, bearing back with me, in all 
 such seasons, new increase to that pleasurable gratitude 
 which is, perhaps, the rarest, nor the least happy senti- 
 ment, that experience leaves to man. Some differences, 
 it may be, — whether on those 2:)ublic questions which we 
 see every day alienating friendships that should have 
 been beyond the reach of laws and kings; — or on the 
 more scholastic controversies which as keenly interest the 
 minds of educated men, — may at times deny to us the 
 idem velle, atque idern nolle ; but the firma amicitia needs 
 not those common links : the sunshine does not leave the 
 wave for the slight rii)ple which the casual stone brings 
 a moment to the surface. 
 
 Accept in this dedication of a Avork which has lain so 
 long on my mind, and been endeared to me from many 
 causes, the token of an affection for you and yours, 
 siiong as the ties of kindred, and lasting as the belief 
 in iruth. 
 
 E. B. L.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The author of an able and learned article on Mabillon,* 
 in the " Edinburgh Review," has accurately described my 
 aim in this work ; although, with that generous courtesy 
 which characterizes the true scholar, in referring to the 
 labors of a contemporary he has overrated my success. 
 It was indeed my aim " to solve the problem how to pro- 
 duce the greatest amount of dramatic effect at the least 
 expense of historical truth," — I borrow the words of the 
 reviewer, since none other could so tersely express ray 
 design, or so clearly account for the leading characteristics 
 in its conduct and completion. 
 
 There are two ways of employing the materials of his- 
 tory in the service of romance : the one consists in lend- 
 ing to ideal personages, and to an imaginary fable, the 
 additional interest to be derived from historical group- 
 ings ; the other in extracting the main interest of romantic 
 narrative from history itself. Those who adopt the for- 
 mer mode are at liberty to exclude all that does not con- 
 tribute to theatrical effect or picturesque composition ; 
 their fidelity to the period they select is towards the 
 manners and costume, not towards the precise order of 
 
 1 The "Edinburgh Review," No. CLXXIX., January, 1849, 
 Art. I. " Correspoudauce iuedite, de Mabillou et de Moutfaucon, 
 avec ritalie." Par M. Valery. Paris, 1848.
 
 XIV PREFACE, 
 
 events, the moral causes from which the events pro- 
 ceeded, and the pliysical agencies by w^hich they were 
 influenced and controlled. The plan thus adopted is 
 unquestionably the more popular and attractive ; and, 
 being favored hj the most illustrious writers of historical 
 romance, there is presumptive reason for supposing it to 
 1)6 also that which is the more agreeable to the art of 
 fiction. 
 
 But he who wishes to avoid the ground preoccupied by 
 others, and claim in the world of literature some spot, 
 however humble, which he may " plough with his own 
 heifer," will seek to establish himself not where the land 
 is the most fertile, but where it is the least enclosed. 
 So, when I first turned m}-^ attention to historical 
 romance, my main aim was to avoid as much as possible 
 those fairer portions of the soil that had been appropri- 
 ated by the first discoverers. The great author of " Ivan- 
 hoe," and those amongst whom, abroad and at home, his 
 mantle was divided, had employed history to aid 
 romance ; I contented myself with the humbler task to 
 employ romance in the aid of history, — to extract from 
 authentic but neglected chronicles, and the unfrequented 
 storehouse of archteology, the incidents and details that 
 enliven the dry narrative of facts to which the general 
 historian is confined, — construct my plot from the actual 
 events themselves, and place the staple of such interest 
 as I could create in reciting the struggles, and delineating 
 tiie characters, of those who had been the living actors in 
 the real drama. For the main materials of the three his- 
 torical romances I have composed, I consulted the original 
 authorities of the time with a care as scrupulous as if 
 intending to write not a fiction, but a history. And hav- 
 ing formed tlie best judgment I could of the events and 
 characters of the age, I adhered faithfully to what, as an
 
 PREFACE, XV 
 
 historian, I should have held to be the true coxirse and 
 true causes of the great political events, and the essential 
 attributes of the principal agents. Solely in that inward 
 life Avhich, not only as apart from the more public and 
 historical, but which, as almost wholly unknown, becomes 
 the fair domain of the poet, did I claim the legitimate 
 privileges of fiction ; and even here I employed the 
 agency of the passions only so far as they served to illus- 
 trate what I believed to be the genuine natures of the 
 beings who had actually lived, and to restore the warmth 
 of the human heart to the images recalled from the 
 grave. 
 
 Thus, even had I the gifts of my most illustrious pre- 
 decessors, I should be precluded the use of many of the 
 more brilliant. I shut myself out from the wider scope 
 permitted to their fancy, and denied myself the license to 
 choose or select materials, alter dates, vary causes and 
 eti'ects according to the convenience of that more imperial 
 fiction vidiich invents the probable where it discards the 
 real. The mode I have adopted has perhaps only this 
 merit, that it is my own, — mine by discovery and mine 
 by labor. And if I can raise not the spirits that obeyed 
 the great master of romance, nor gain the key to the fairy- 
 land that opened to his spell, at least I have not rifled 
 the tomb of the wizard to steal my art from the book 
 that lies clasped on his breast. 
 
 In treating of an age with which the general reader is 
 so unfamiliar as that preceding the Norman conquest, it 
 is impossible to avoid (especially in the earlier portions of 
 my tale) those explanations of the very character of the 
 time which would liave been unnecessary if I bad only 
 sought in history the picturesque accompaniments to 
 romance. I have to do more than present an amusing 
 picture of national manners, — detail the dress, and de-
 
 XVI PREFACE. 
 
 scribe the banquet. According to the plan I adopt, I 
 have to make the reader acquainted with tlie imperfect 
 fusion of races in Saxon England, familiarize him witli 
 the contests of parties and tlie ambition of chiefs, show 
 him the strength and the weakness of a kindly but igno- 
 rant Church ; of a brave but turbulent aristocracy ; of a 
 people partially free, and naturally energetic, but dis- 
 united by successive immigrations, and having lost much 
 of the proud jealousies of national liberty by submission 
 to the preceding conquests of the Dane ; acquiescent in 
 the sway of foreign kings, and with that bulwark against 
 invasion which an hereditary order of aristocracy usuall}'' 
 erects, loosened to its very foundations by the copious 
 admixture of foreign nobles. I have to present to the 
 reader, here, the imbecile priestcraft of the illiterate 
 monk ; there, the dark superstition that still consulted 
 the deities of the North by runes on the elm-bark and 
 adjurations of the dead. And in contrast to these pic- 
 tures of a decrepit monarchy and a fated race, I have to 
 bring forcibly before the reader the vigorous attributes 
 of the coming conquerors, — the stern will and deep guile 
 of the Norman chief, the comparative knowledge of the 
 rising Norman Church, the nascent spirit of chivalry in 
 tlie Norman vavasours ; a spirit destined to emancipate 
 the very people it contributed to enslave, associated, as 
 it imperfectly was, with the sense of freedom ; disdainful, 
 it is true, of the villein, but proudly curbing, though into 
 feudal limits, the domination of the liege. In a word, I 
 must place fully before the reader, if I would be faithful 
 to the plan of my work, the political and moral features 
 of the age, as well as its lighter and livelier attributes, 
 and so lea<l him to perceive, when he has closed the book, 
 why England was conquered, and how P^ngland survived 
 the Conquest.
 
 PRKFACE. XVU 
 
 In accomplishing this task, I inevitably incur the 
 objections which the task itself raises up, — objections to 
 the labor it has cost ; to the information which the 
 labor was undertaken in order to bestow ; objections to 
 passages which seem to interrupt the narrative, but which 
 in reality prepare for the incidents it embraces, or explain 
 the position of the persons whose characters it illustrates, 
 whose fate it involves ; objections to the reference to 
 authorities, where a fact might be disputed, or mistaken 
 for fiction ; objections to the use of Saxon words, for 
 ■which no accurate synonyms could be exchanged ; objec- 
 tions, in short, to the coloring, conduct, and composition 
 of the whole work ; objections to all that separate it from 
 the common crowd of romances, and stamp on it, for 
 good or for bad, a character peculiarly its own. Objec- 
 tions of this kind I cannot remove, though I have care- 
 fully weighed them all. And with regard to the objection 
 most important to story-teller and novel-reader, — namely, 
 t)ie dryness of some of the earlier portions, — ■ though I 
 have thrice gone over those passages, with the stern de- 
 termination to inflict summary justice upon every unne- 
 cessary line, I must own to my regret that I have found 
 but little which it was possible to omit without rendering 
 the after-narrative obscure, and without injuring whatever 
 of more stirring interest the story, as it opens, may afford 
 to the general reader of romance. 
 
 As to the Saxon words used, an explanation of all those 
 that can be presumed unintelligible to a person of ordi- 
 nary education is given either in the text or a foot-note. 
 Such archaisms are much less numerous than certain 
 critics would fain represent them to be ; and they have 
 rarely indeed been admitted where other words could 
 have been employed without a glaring anachronism or a 
 tedious periphrase. "Would it indeed be possible, for 
 
 VOL. I. — I,
 
 XVlll PREFACE. 
 
 instance, to convey a notion of the customs and manners 
 of our Saxon forefathers without employing words so 
 mixed up with their daily usages and modes of thinking, 
 as " weregeld " and " niddering " 1 Would any words 
 from the modern vocabulary suggest the same idea or 
 embody the same meaning? 
 
 One critic good-humoredly exclaims, " We have a full 
 attendance of thegns and cnehts, but we should have 
 liked much better our old friends and approved good 
 masters, thanes and knights." Nothing could be more 
 apposite for my justification than the instances here 
 quoted in censure ; nothing could more plainly vindicate 
 the necessity of employing the 8axon words. For I 
 should sadly indeed have misled the reader, if I had used 
 the word knight in an age when knights were wholly 
 unknown to the Anglo-Saxon ; and cneht no more means 
 what we understand by knight, than a templar, in modern 
 phrase, means a man in chain-mail vowed to celibacy, and 
 the redemption of the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of 
 the Mussulman, While, since thegn and thane are both 
 archaisms, I prefer the former, not only for the same 
 reason that induces Sir Francis Palgrave to prefer it, — 
 namely, because it is the more etymologically correct, — 
 but because we take from our neighbors the Scotch not 
 only the word thane, but the sense in which we apply it, 
 and that sense is not the same that we ought to attach 
 to the various and complicated notions of nobility which 
 the Anglo-Saxon comprehended in the title of thegn. It 
 has been peremptorily said by more than one writer 
 in periodicals, that I have overrated the erudition of 
 William in permitting him to know Latin; nay, to have 
 read the Comments of Csesar at the age of eight. Where 
 these gentlemen find the authorities to confute my state- 
 ment I know not ; all I know is that in tlie statement I
 
 PREFACE. XIX 
 
 have followed the original authorities usually deemed the 
 best. And I content myself with referring the disputants 
 to a work not so difficult to procure as (and certainly 
 more pleasant to read than) the old Chronicles. In ^liss 
 Strickland's " Lives of the Queens of England " (Matilda 
 of Flanders), the same statement is made, and no doubt 
 upon the same authorities. 
 
 More surprised should I be (if modern criticism had 
 not taught me in all matters of assumption the nil adtnir- 
 ari) to find it alleged that I have overstated not only the 
 learning of the Norman duke, but tbat which flourished 
 in Normandy under his reign ; for I should have thought 
 that the fact of the learning which sprung up in the most 
 thriving period of that principality — the rapidity of its 
 growth, the benefits it derived from Lanfranc, the encour- 
 agement it received from William — had been pheno- 
 mena too remarkal)le in the annals of the age, and in the 
 history of literature, to have met with an incredulit}'' 
 which the most moderate amount of information would 
 have sufficed to dispel. Not to refer such sceptics to 
 graver authorities, historical and ecclesiastical, in order 
 to justify my representations of that learning which, 
 under "William the Bastard, made the schools of Nor- 
 mandy the popular academies of Europe, a page or two 
 in a book so accessible as Villemain's " Tableau de Moyen 
 Age " will perhaps suffice to convince them of the hastiness 
 of their censure, and the error of their impressions. 
 
 It is stated in the " Athenseum," — and, I believe, by a 
 writer whose authority on the merits of opera-singers I 
 am far from contesting, but of whose competence to 
 instruct the world in any other department of human 
 industry or knowledge I am less persuaded, — "that I am 
 much mistaken when I represent not merely the clergy, 
 but the young soldiers and courtiers, of the reign of the
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 Confessor, as well acquainted with the literature of Greece 
 and Rome." 
 
 The remark, to say the least of it, is disingenuous. I 
 have done no such thing. This general animadversion 
 is only justified by a reference to the pedantry of the 
 Norman, Mallet de Graville, — and it is expressly stated 
 in the text that Mallet de Graville was originally intended 
 for the Church, and that it was the peculiarity of his 
 literary information, rare in a soldier (but for which 
 his earlier studies for the ecclesiastical calling readily 
 account, at a time when the Norman convent of Bee was 
 already so famous for the erudition of its teachers and 
 the number of its scholars), that attracted towards him 
 the notice of Lanfranc, and founded his fortunes. Pedantry 
 is made one of his characteristics (as it generally was the 
 characteristic of any man wath some pretensions to 
 scholarship in the earlier ages) ; and if he indulges in 
 a classical allusion, whether in taunting a courtier or 
 conversing with a " Saxon from the wealds of Kent," it 
 is no more out of keeping with the pedantry ascribed to 
 him than it is unnatural in Dominie Sampson to rail at 
 Meg Merrilies in Latin, or James the First to examine 
 a young courtiei in the same unfamiliar language. Nor 
 should the critic in question, when inviting his readers 
 to condemn me for making Mallet de Graville quote 
 Horace, have omitted to state that De Graville expressly 
 laments that he had never read, nor could even procure, 
 a copy of the Roman poet, —judging only of the merits 
 of Horace by an extract in some monkish author, who 
 was equally likely to have picked up his quotation 
 second-hand. 
 
 So, when a reference is made either by Graville or by 
 any one else in the romance to Homeric fables and per- 
 sonages, a critic who had gone tlirough tlie ordinary
 
 PREFACE. XXI 
 
 education of an English gentleman would never thereby 
 have assumed that the person so referring had read the 
 poems of Homer themselves, — he would have known 
 that Homeric fables or personages, though not the Homeric 
 poems, were made familiar by quaint travesties^ even to 
 the most illiterate audience of the Gothic age. It was 
 scarcely more necessary to know Homer then than now 
 in order to have heard of Ulysses. The writer in the 
 " Athenaeum " is acquainted with Homeric personages, 
 but who on earth would ever presume to assert that he is 
 acquainted with Homer? 
 
 Some doubt has been thrown upon my accuracy in 
 ascribing to the Anglo-Saxons the enjoyments of certain 
 luxuries (gold and silver plate, the use of glass, etc.), 
 Avhich were extremely rare in an age much more recent. 
 There is no ground for that doubt ; nor is there a single 
 article of such luxury named in the text for the mention 
 of which I have not ample authority. 
 
 I have indeed devoted to this work a degree of 
 research which, if unusual to romance, I cannot consider 
 superfluous when illustrating an age so remote, and 
 events unparalleled in their influence over the destinies 
 of England. Nor am I without the hope, that what the 
 romance-reader at first regards as a defect, he may ulti- 
 mately acknowledge as a merit, — forgiving me that 
 strain on his attention by which alone I could leave dis- 
 tinct in his memory the action and the actors in that 
 solemn tragedy which closed on the field of Hasting.s 
 over the corpse of the Last Saxon King. 
 
 ^ And lon^ before the date of the trave.><ty known to ns, and 
 most popular amongst our medieval ance^itors, it miglit be sliown 
 that some rude notion of Homer's table and personages had crept 
 into the Xorth.
 
 HAROLD, 
 
 THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE NORMAN VISITOR, THE SAXON KING, AND THE DANISH 
 
 PROPHETESS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Merry was the month of May in the year of our Lord 
 1052. Few were the boys, and few the lasses, who over- 
 sle])t themselves on tlie first of that buxom month. Long 
 ere the dawn the crowds had sought mead and woodland 
 to cut poles and wreathe flowers. Many a mead then 
 lay fair and green beyond the village of Charing, and 
 behind the isle of Thorney (amidst the brakes and briars 
 of which were then rising fast and fair the Hall and 
 Abbey of Westminster) many a wood lay dark in the 
 starlight, along the higher ground that sloped from the 
 dank Strand, with its numerous canals or dykes, — and 
 on either side of the great road into Kent ; flutes and 
 horns sounded far and near through the green places, 
 and laughter and song, and the crash of breaking boughs. 
 As the dawn came gray up the east, arch and blooming 
 faces bowed down to bathe in the May dew. Patient 
 
 VOL. I. — 1
 
 2 HAROLD. 
 
 oxen stood dozing by the hedgerows, all fragrant with 
 blossoms, till the gay spoilers of the May came forth from 
 the woods with lusty poles, followed by girls with laps 
 full of flowers, which they had caught asleep. The poles 
 were pranked with nosegays, aud a chaplet was hung 
 round the horns of every ox. Then towards daybreak 
 the processions streamed back into the city, through all 
 its gates ; boys with their May-gads (peeled willow wands 
 twined with cowslips) going before ; and clear through the 
 lively din of the horns and flutes, and amidst the moving 
 grove of branches, choral voices, singing some early Saxon 
 stave, precursor of the later song, — 
 
 " We have brought the summer home." 
 
 Often in the good old days before the Monk-king 
 reigned, kings and ealdermen had thus gone forth a-may- 
 ing ; but these merriments, savoring of heathenesse, that 
 good prince misliked : nevertheless, the song was as 
 blithe and the boughs were as green as if king and ealder- 
 man had walked in the train. 
 
 On the great Kent road, the fairest meads for the cow- 
 slip and the greenest woods for the bough surrounded a 
 large building that once had belonged to some voluptuous 
 Koman, now all defaced and despoiled ; but the boys and 
 lasses shunned those demesnes ; and even in their mirth, 
 as they passed homeward along the road, and saw near 
 the ruined walls and timbered outbuildings gray Druid 
 stones (that spoke of an age before either Saxon or 
 Roman invader) gleaming through the dawn, the song 
 was hushed, the very youngest crossed themselves; and 
 the elder, in solemn whispers, suggested the precaution 
 of changing the song into a psalm. For in that old build- 
 ing dwelt Hilda, of famous and dark repute, — Hilda, 
 ■who, despite all law and canon, was still believed to prao-
 
 HAROLD. 3 
 
 tise the dismal arts of the Wicca and Morthwyrtha (the 
 witch and worshipper of the dead). But once out of 
 sight of those fearful precincts, the psalm was forgotten, 
 and again broke, loud, clear, and silvery, the joyous 
 chorus. 
 
 So, entering London about sunrise, doors and win- 
 dows were duly wreathed with garlands ; and every vil- 
 lage in the suburbs had its May-pole, which stood in 
 its place all the year. On that happy day labor rested ; 
 ceorl and theowe had alike a holiday to dance and tumble 
 round the May-pole; and thus, on the 1st of May, Youth 
 and Mirth and Music " brought the summer home." 
 
 The next day you might still see where the buxom 
 bands had been ; you might track their way by fallen 
 flowers, and green leaves, and the deep ruts made by 
 oxen (yoked often in teams from twenty to forty, in the 
 wains that carried home the poles) ; and fair and frequent 
 throughout the land, from any eminence, you might behold 
 the hamlet swards still crowned with the May trees, and 
 the air still seemed fragrant with their garlands. 
 
 It is on that second day of May, 1052, that my story 
 opens, at the House of Hilda, the reputed Morthwyrtha. 
 It stood upon a gentle and verdant height ; and, even 
 through all the barbarous mutilation it had undergone 
 from barbarian hands, enough was left strikingly to 
 contrast the ordinary abodes of the Saxon. 
 
 The remains of Roman art were indeed still numer- 
 ous throughout England, but it happened rarely that 
 the ^axon had chosen his home amidst the villas of 
 those noble and primal conquerors. Our first forefathers 
 were more inclined to destroy than to adapt 
 
 By what chance this building became an exception to 
 the ordinary rule it is now impossible to conjecture, but 
 from a very remote period it had sheltered successive 
 races of Teuton lords.
 
 4 HAKOLD. 
 
 The changes wrought in the edifice were mournful and 
 grotesque. What was now the hall had evidently been 
 the atrium; tlie round shield, with its pointed boss, the 
 spear, sword, and small curved sa?x of the early Teuton, 
 were suspended from the columns on wliich once had 
 been wreathed the flowers ; in the centre of the floor, 
 where fragments of the old mosaic still glistened from 
 the hard-pressed paving of clay and lime, what now was 
 the fireplace had been the impluvium, and the smoke 
 went sullenly tiirough the aperture in the roof, made of 
 old to receive the rains of heaven. Around the hall were 
 still left the old cubicula or dormitories (small, high, and 
 ligiited but from the doors), which now served for the 
 sleeping-rooms of the humbler guest or the household 
 servant ; while at the farther end of the hall, the wide 
 space between the columns, which had once given ample 
 vista from graceful awnings into tabliuum and viridarium, 
 was filled up with rude rubble and Roman bricks, leav- 
 ing but a low, round, arched door that still led into the 
 tablinum. But that tabliuum, formerly the gayest state- 
 room of the Roman lord, was now tilled with various 
 lumber, piles of fagots, and farming uteusils. On cither 
 side of this desecrated apartment, stretched, to the right, 
 the old lararium, stripped of its ancient images of ances- 
 tor and god ; to the left, what had been the gynoecium 
 (women's apartment). 
 
 One side of the ancient peristyle, which was of vast 
 extent, was now converted into stabling, sties for swine, 
 and stalls for oxen. On the other side was constru.Hed a 
 Christian chapel, made of rough oak planks, fastened by 
 plates at the top, and with a roof of thatched reeds. The 
 columns and wall at the extreme end of the peristyle 
 were a mass of ruins, through the gigantic rents of which 
 loomed a grassy liillock, its sides partially covered with
 
 HAKOLD. 5 
 
 clumps of furze. On this hillock were the mutilated 
 remains of an ancient Druidical croramel, in the centre of 
 which (near a funeral mound, or barrow, with the bantas- 
 tean, or gravestone, of some early Saxon chief at one end) 
 had been sacrilegiously placed an altar to Thor, as was 
 apparent both from the shape, from a rude, half-obliterated, 
 sculptured relief of the god, with his lifted hammer, and 
 a few Runic letters. Amidst the temple of the Briton 
 the Saxon had reared the shrine of his triumphant war- 
 god. 
 
 Now still, amidst the ruins of that extreme side of the 
 peristyle which opened to this hillock, were left, first, an 
 ancient Roman fountain, that now served to water the 
 swine, and next, a small sacellum, or fane to Bacchus (as 
 relief and frieze, yet spared, betokened), Thus the eye, 
 at one survey, beheld the shrines of four creeds : the 
 Druid, mystical and symbolical ; the Roman, sensual but 
 humane; the Teutonic, ruthless and destroying; and, 
 latest risen and surviving all, though as yet with but little 
 of its gentler influence over the deeds of men, the edifice 
 of the Faith of Peace. 
 
 Across the peristyle, theowes and swineherds passed to 
 and fro: in the atrium, men of a higher class, half armed, 
 were, some drinking, some at dice, some playing with 
 huge hounds, or caressing the hawks that stood grave 
 and solemn on their perches. 
 
 The lararium was deserted ; the gynoecium was still, as 
 in the Roman time, the favored apartment of the female 
 portion of the household, and indeed bore the same 
 name,^ — and with the group there assembled we have 
 now to da 
 
 The appliances of the chamber showed the rank and 
 
 ' " The apartment in which the Anglo-Saxon women lived was 
 called Gyueciura." — Tosbruoke, vol. ii. p, 570.
 
 6 HAROLD. 
 
 wealth of the owner. At that period the domestic luxury 
 of the rich was infinitely greater than has been generally 
 supposed. The industry of the women decorated wall 
 and furniture with needlework and hangings ; and as a 
 thegn forfeited his rank if he lost his lands, so the higher 
 orders of an aristocracy rather of wealth than birth, had 
 usually a certain portion of superfluous riches, which 
 served to flow towards the bazaars of the East and the 
 nearer markets of Flanders and Saracenic Spain. 
 
 In this room the walls were draped with silken hang- 
 ings richly embroidered. The single window was glazed 
 with a dull, gray glass.-^ On a beaufet were ranged horns 
 tipped with silver, and a few vessels of pure gold. A 
 small, circular table in the centre was supported by sym- 
 bolical monsters quaintly carved. At one side of the 
 wall, on a long settle, some half-a-dozen handmaids were 
 employed in spinning ; remote from them, and near the 
 window, sat a woman advanced in years, and of a mien 
 and aspect singularly majestic. Upon a small tripod 
 before her was a Runic manuscript, and an inkstand of 
 elegant form, with a silver grapliium, or pen. At her 
 feet reclined a girl somewhat about the age of sixteen, 
 her long, fair hair parted across her forehead, and falling 
 far down her shoulders. Her dress was a linen under- 
 tunic, with long sleeves, rising high to the throat, and, 
 without one of the modern artificial restraints of the 
 
 1 Glass, introduced about tlie time of Bede. was more common 
 then in the iiouses of the wealthy, whether for vessels or windows, 
 than in the nuudi later age of the gorgeous Plantagenets. Alfred, 
 in one of his poems, introduces jrlass as a familiar illustration: — 
 
 So oft Llie mild sea 
 WiUi south wind 
 As «niy ul.'iss clear 
 Becoiues grimly troubled. 
 
 Sharon Turnhr.
 
 HAROLD. 7 
 
 shape, the simple belt sufficed to show the slender pro- 
 portions and delicate outline of the wearer. The color of 
 the dress was of the purest white, but its hems, or bor- 
 ders, were richly embroidered. This girl's beauty was 
 something marvellous In a land proverbial for fair 
 women, it had already obtained her tlie name of " the 
 fair." In that beauty were blended, not as yet without a 
 struggle for mastery, the two expressions seldom united 
 in one countenance, — the soft and the noble ; indeed, in 
 the whole aspect there was the evidence of some internal 
 struggle ; the intelligence was not yet com])lete ; the soul 
 and heart were not yet united : and Edith, the Christian 
 maid, dwelt in the home of Hilda, the heathen prophetess. 
 The girl's blue eyes, rendered dark by the shade of their 
 long lashes, were fixed intently upon the stern and 
 troubled countenance which was bent upon her own, but 
 bent with tliat abstract gaze which shows that the soul is 
 tiljsent from the sight. So sat Hilda, and so reclined her 
 grandcliild Pldith. 
 
 " Grandam," said the girl in a low voice and after 
 a long pause ; and the sound of her voice so startled 
 the handmaids, that every si)indle stopped for a moment 
 and then plied with renewed activity, — -"grandam, 
 what troubles you : are you not thinking of the great 
 Earl and his fair sons, now outlawed far over the wide 
 seas ? " 
 
 As the girl spoke, Hilda started slightly, like one 
 awakened from a dream ; and when Edith had concluded 
 her question, she rose slowly to the height of a statue, 
 unbowed by her years, and far towering above even the 
 ordinary standard of men ; and, turning from the child, 
 her eye fell upon the row of silent maids, each at her 
 rapid, noiseless, stealthy work. " Ho ! " said she, her 
 cold and haughty eye gleaming as she spoke, — " yester
 
 8 HAROLD. 
 
 day tliey brought home the summer ; to-day ye aid to 
 bring home the winter. Weave well, — heed well warf 
 and woof; Skulda^ is amongst ye, and her pale hngers 
 guide the web ! " 
 
 The maidens lifted not their eyes, though in every 
 cheek the color paled at the words of the mistress. The 
 spindles revolved, the tliread shot, and again there was 
 silence more freezing than before, 
 
 " Askest thou," said Hilda at length, passing to tlie 
 child, as if the question so long addressed to her ear had 
 only just reached her mind, — "askest thou if I thought 
 of the Earl and his fair sons 1 — yea, 1 heard the smith 
 welding arms on the anvil, and the hammer of the shii)- 
 wright shaping strong ribs for the horses of the sea. Ere 
 the reaper has bound his sheaves. Earl Godwin will scare 
 the Normans in the halls of the JNIduk-king as the hawk 
 scares the brood in the dovecot. Weave well, heed well 
 warf and woof, nimble maidens, — strong be the texture, 
 for biting is the worm." 
 
 "AV hat weave they, then, good grandmother?" asked 
 the girl, with wonder and awe in lier soft, mild eyes. 
 
 " Tlie winding-sheet of the great ! " 
 
 Hilda's lips closed, but her eyes, yet brighter than 
 before, gazed upon space, and her pale hand seemed trac- 
 ing letters, like runes, in the air. 
 
 Then slowly she turned, ami looked forth through the 
 dull window. "Give me my coverchief and my stall'" 
 said she, quickly. 
 
 Every one of the handmaids, Ijlithe for excuse to quit 
 a task which seemed recently commenced, and was 
 certainly not endeared to them by the knowledge of 
 its purpose communicated to them by the lady, rose to 
 obey. 
 
 ^ SkulJa, the Xoriia, or P'ate, tliat presided over the future.
 
 HAROLD. 9 
 
 Unheeding the hands that vied with each other, Hilda 
 took the hood, and drew it partially over her brow. Lean- 
 ing lightly on a long staff, the head of which formed a 
 raven, carved from some wood stained black, she passed 
 into the hall, and thence, through the desecrated tablinum, 
 into the mighty court formed by the shattered peristyle ; 
 there she stopped, mused a moment, and called on Edith. 
 The girl was soon by her side. 
 
 " Conio vvith me. There is a face you shall see but 
 twice in life, — this day ; " and Hilda paused, and the 
 rigid and almobt colossal beauty of her countenance 
 softened. 
 
 "And when again, ray grand motlier ?" 
 
 " Child, put thy warm hand in mine. So ! the vision 
 darkens from me. When again, suidst thou, Edith '? — 
 alas, I know not." 
 
 ^Vhile thus speaking, Hilda passed slowly by the 
 Roman fountain and the heathen fane, and ascended 
 the little hillock. There, on the opposite side of the 
 sunnnit, backed by the Druid crommel and the Teuton 
 altar, she seated herself deliberately on the sward. 
 
 A few daisies, primroses, and cowslips grew around : 
 these Edith began to pluck. Singing, as she wove, a 
 simple song, that, not more by the dialect than the senti- 
 ment, betrayed its origin in the ballad of the Norse,^ 
 which had, in its more careless composition, a character 
 
 ^ Tlie historians of our literature have not done justice to the 
 great influence which the poetrv of the Danes has had upon our 
 early national muse. I have little douVit but that to that source 
 may be traced the minstrelsy of our borders, and the Scottish Low- 
 lands ; while, even in the central counties, the example and exer- 
 tions of Canute must have liad considerable effect on the taste and 
 spirit of our Scops That great prince afforded the amplest 
 encouragement to Scandinavian poetry, and Glaus names eight 
 Danish poets who fiourislied at his court.
 
 10 HAROLD. 
 
 quite distinct from the artificial poetry of the Saxons. The 
 song may be thus imperfectly rendered : — 
 
 Merrily the throstle sings 
 
 Amid the merry May ; 
 The throstle sings but to my ear, — 
 
 My heart is far awa}^ ! 
 
 Blithely bloometh mead and bank, 
 
 And blithely buds the tree ; 
 And hark ! — they bring the Summer home.' 
 
 It has no home with me I 
 
 They have outlawed him, — my Summer 1 
 
 An outlaw far away ! — 
 The birds may sing, the flowers may bloom,-— 
 
 Oh, give me back my May ! 
 
 As she came to the last line, her soft low voice seemed 
 to awaken a chorus of sprightly horns and trumpets, and 
 certain other wind-instruments peculiar to the music of 
 that day. The hillock bordered the high-road to London, 
 which then wound through wastes of forest land ; 
 and now emerging from the trees to the left appeared a 
 goodly company. First came two riders abreast, each 
 holding a banner. On the one was depicted the cross 
 and five martlets, the device of Edward, afterwards sur- 
 named the Confessor ; on the other, a plain, broad cross, 
 with a deep border round it, and the streamer shaped 
 into sharp points. 
 
 The first was familiar to Edith, who dropped her gar- 
 land to gaze on the approaching pageant ; the last was 
 strange to her. She had been accustomed to see the 
 banner of the great Earl Godwin by the side of the 
 Saxon king ; and she said, almost indignantly, — 
 
 " Who dares, sweet grandam, to place banner or pennon 
 where Earl Godwin's ought to float]" 
 
 •'Peace," said Hilda, — "peace, and look."
 
 HAROLD. 11 
 
 Immediately behind the standard-bearers came two 
 figures, — strangely dissimilar indeed in mien, in years, 
 in bearing : each bore on his left wrist a hawk. The one 
 Avas mounted on a milk-white palfrey, with housings inlaid 
 with gold and uncut jewels. Though nut really old, — 
 for he was much on this side of sixty, — both his counte- 
 nance and carriage evinced age. His complexion, indeed, 
 was extremely fair, and his cheeks ruddy ; but the visage 
 was long and deeply furrowed, and from beneath a bon- 
 net not dissimilar to those in use among the Scotch 
 streamed hair long and white as snow, mingling with a 
 large and forked beard. AVhite seemed liis chosen color. 
 White was the upper tunic, clasped on his shoulder with 
 a broad ouche, or brooch ; white the woollen leggings 
 fitted to somewhat emaciated limbs ; and white the man- 
 tle, though broidered with a broad hem of gold and pur- 
 ple. The fashion of his dress was that which well 
 became a noble person, but it suited ill the somewhat 
 frail and graceless figure of the rider. Nevertheless, as 
 Edith saw him, she rose, with an expressicni of deep 
 reverence on her countenance, and saying, " It is our lord 
 the king," advanced some steps down the hillock, and 
 there stood, her arms folded on her breast, and quite for- 
 getful, in her innocence and youth, that she had left the 
 house without the cloak and coverchief which were 
 deemed indispensable to the fitting appearance of maid 
 and matron when they were seen abroad. 
 
 " Fair sir, and brother mine," said the deep voice of 
 the younger rider, in the Komance or Norman tongue, 
 " I have heard that the small people of whom my neigh- 
 bors, the Bretons, tell us much, abound greatly in this 
 fair land of yours ; and if I were not by the side of one 
 whom no creature unassoilzied and unbaptized dare 
 approach, by sweet St. Yalery I should say, — yonder 
 stands one of those same gentille fees ! "
 
 12 HAROLD. 
 
 King Edward's eye followed the direction of bis com- 
 panion's outstretched hand, and his quiet brow slightly 
 contracted as he beheld the young form of Juiith standing 
 motionless a few yards before him, with the warm May 
 wind lifting and playing with her long, goLlen locks. 
 He checked his palfrey, and murmured some Latin words, 
 wdiich the knight beside him recognized as a prayer, and 
 to which, doffing his cap, he added an Amen, in a tone of 
 such unctuous gravity that the royal saint rewarded him 
 "with a faint approving smile, and an aifectionate " Bene, 
 betie, Ptosissime." 
 
 Then, inclining his palfrey's head towards the knoll, he 
 motioned to the girl to approach him. Edith, with a height- 
 ened color, obeyed, and came to the roadside. The stan- 
 dard-bearers halted, as did the king and his comrade. 
 The procession behind halted : thirty knights, two 
 bishops, eight abbots, all on fiery steeds and in Norman 
 garb ; squires and attendants on foot, a long and pompous 
 retinue, — they halted all. Only a stray hound or two 
 broke from the rest, and wandered into the forest land 
 ■with heads trailing. 
 
 " Edith, my child," said Edward, .still in Norman- 
 French, for he spoke his own language with hesitation, 
 and the Romance tongue, which had long been familiar 
 to the higher classes in England, had, since his accession, 
 become the only language in use at court, and as such 
 every one of " Eorl-kind " was supposed to speak it, — 
 " Edith, my child, thou hast not forgotten my lessons, I 
 trow ; thou singest the hymns 1 gave thee, and neglect- 
 est not to wear the relic round thy neck." 
 
 The girl hung her head, and spoke not. 
 
 " How comes it, then," continued the king, with a 
 voice to wdiich he in vain endeavored to impart an accent 
 of severity, — " how comes it, little one, that thou,
 
 HAROLD. 13 
 
 whose thoughts should be lifted already above this carnal 
 world, and eager for the service of Mary the chaste and 
 blessed, standest thus hoodless and alone on the waysides, 
 a mark for the eyes of men ? go to, it is naught." 
 
 Thus reproved, and in presence of so large and bril- 
 liant a company, the girl's color went and came, her 
 breast heaved high, but with an effort beyond her age 
 she checked her tears, and said meekly, " My grand- 
 mother, Hilda, bade me come with her, and I came." 
 
 " Hilda ! " said the king, backing his palfrey with ap- 
 parent perturbation ; " but Hilda is not with thee, — I 
 see her not." 
 
 As he spoke, Hilda rose, and so suddenly did her tall 
 form appear on the brow of the hill, that it seemed as 
 if she had emerged from the earth. With a light and 
 rapid stride she gained the side of her grandchild ; and 
 after a slight and haughty reverence, said, " Hilda is 
 here ; what wants Edward the king with his servant 
 Hilda ? " 
 
 "Nought, nought," said the king, hastily, and some- 
 thing like fear passed over his placid countenance ; 
 "save, indeed," he added, with a reluctant tone, as of 
 that of a man who obeys his conscience against his 
 inclination, " that I would pray thee to keep this child 
 pure to threshold and altar, as is meet for one whom 
 our Lady the A^irgin, in due time, will elect to her 
 service." 
 
 " A^ot so, son of Etheldred, son of Woden, the last 
 descendant of Penda should live, not to glide a ghost 
 amidst cloisters, but to rock children for war in their 
 father's shield. Few men are there yet like the men 
 of old ; and while the foot of the foreigner is on the 
 Saxon soil, no branch of the stem of Woden should be 
 nipped in the leaf."
 
 14 HAKOLD. 
 
 *' Per la resplendar I)e^ bold dame," cried the knight 
 by the side of Edward, while a lurid flush passed over his 
 cheek of bronze ; "but thou art too glib of tongue for a 
 subject, and pratest overmuch of Woden, the Paynim, 
 for the lips of a Christian matron." 
 
 Hilda met the flashing eye of the knight with a brow 
 of lofty scorn, on Avhich still a certain terror was visible. 
 
 " Child," she said, putting her hand upon Edith's fair 
 locks ; " this is the man thou shalt see but twice in thy 
 life, — look up, and mark well ! " 
 
 Edith instinctively raised her eyes, and, once fixed 
 upon the knight, they seemed chained as by a spell. 
 His vest, of a cramoisay so dark that it seemed black 
 beside the snowy garb of the Confessor, was edged by a 
 deep band of embroidered gold, leaving perfectly bare his 
 firm, full throat, — firm and full as a column of granite ; 
 a short jacket or manteline of fur, pendent from the 
 shoulders, left developed in all its breadth a breast that 
 seemed meet to stay the march of an army ; and on the 
 left arm, curved to support the falcon, the vast muscles 
 rose, round and gnarled, through the close sleeve. 
 
 In height, he was really but little above the stature of 
 many of those present ; nevertheless, so did his port, his 
 air, the nobility of his large proportions, till the eye, that 
 he seemed to tower immeasurably above the rest. 
 
 His countenance was yet more remarkable than his 
 form : still in the prime of youth, he seemed at the 
 first glance younger, at the second older, than he was. 
 At the first glance younger ; for his face was perfectly 
 shaven, without even the mustache which the Saxon 
 courtier, in imitating the Worman, still declined to sur- 
 render ; and the smooth visage and bare throat sufficed 
 in themselves to give the air of youth to that doiuinant 
 
 1 '-By the .picador of God."
 
 HAROLD. 15 
 
 and imperious presence. His small skull-cap left uncon- 
 cealed his forehead, shaded with short, thick hair, 
 uncurled, but black and glossy as the wings of a raven. 
 It was on that forehead that time had set its trace ; it 
 was knit into a frown over the eyebrows ; lines deep as 
 furrows crossed its broad but not elevated expanse. That 
 frown spoke of hasty ire and the habit of stern command •, 
 those furrows spoke of deep thought and plotting scheme : 
 the one betrayed but temper and circumstance ; the other, 
 more noble, spoke of the character and the intellect. 
 The face was square, and the regard lion-like ; the mouth 
 — small, and even beautiful in outline — had a sinister 
 expression in its exceeding firmness ; and the jaw, vast, 
 solid, as if bound in iron, showed obstinate, ruthless, 
 determined will : such a jaw as belongs to the tiger 
 amongst beasts, and the conqueror amongst men ; such as 
 it is seen in the effigies of Caesar, of Cortes, of Napoleon. 
 
 That presence was well calculated to command the 
 admiration of women not less than the awe of men. 
 Eut no admiration mingled with the terror that seized 
 the girl as she gazed long and wistful upon the knight. 
 The fascination of the serpent on the bird held her mute 
 and frozen. Xever was that face forgotten : often in 
 afterdife it haunted her in the noonday, it frowned upon 
 her dreams. 
 
 " Fair child," said the knight, fatigued at length by 
 the obstinacy of the gaze, while that snale peculiar to 
 those who have commanded men relaxed his brow, and 
 restored the native beauty to his lip, — " fair child, learn 
 not from thy peevish grandam so uncourteous a lesson as 
 hate of the foreigner. As thou growest into womanhood, 
 know that Norman knight is sworn slave to lady fair ; " 
 and, doffing his cap, he took from it an uncut jewel, set 
 in Byzantine filigree work. " Hold out thy lap, my
 
 16 HAROLD. 
 
 child ; and when thou hearest the foreigner scoffed, set 
 this bauble in thy locks, and think kindly of William, 
 Count of the Normans." -^ 
 
 He dropped the jewel on the ground as he spoke, for 
 Edith, shrinking and unsoftened towards him, held no 
 lap to receive it ; and Hilda, to whom Edward had been 
 speaking in a low voice, advanced to the spot and struck 
 the jewel with her staff under the hoofs of the king's 
 palfrey. 
 
 " Son of Emma, the Norman woman, who sent thy 
 youth into exile, trample on the gifts of thy Norman 
 kinsman. And if, as men say, thou art of such gifted 
 holiness that Heaven grants thy hand the power to heal 
 and thy voice the power to curse, heal thy country and 
 curse the stranger ! " 
 
 She extended her right arm to William as she spoke, 
 and such was the dignity of her passion, and such its 
 force, that an awe fell upon all. Then, dropping her 
 hood over her face, she slowly turned away, regained the 
 summit of the knoll, and stood erect beside the altar of 
 the Northern god, her face invisible through the hood 
 drawn completely over it, and her form motionless as a 
 statue. 
 
 " Ride on," said Edward, crossing himself. 
 
 " Now, by the bones of St. Valery," said William, 
 after a pause, in which his dark keen eye noted tlie 
 gloom upon the king's gentle face, " it moves much my 
 simple wonder how even presence so saintly can hear 
 "without wrath words so unleal and foul. Gramercy, an 
 
 1 It is noticeable that the Norman dukes did not call themselves 
 Counts or Dukes of Noriuaiidy, but of tlie Normans ; and the first 
 Anglo-Norman kings, till Richard I., styled tliemselves Kings of 
 the Eiiglisli, not of England. In both Saxon and Norman chroni- 
 cles, William usually bears the title of Count (Comes), but in tliis 
 tale he will be generally called " Uuke," as a title more familiar 
 to us.
 
 HAROLD. 17 
 
 tlie proudest dame in !N"ormandy (and I take her to be 
 wife to my stoutest baron, WilHam Fitzosborne) Lad 
 spoken thus to me — " 
 
 " Thou wouldst have done as I, my brother," inter- 
 rupted Edward, — " prayed to our Lord to pardon her, 
 and rode on pitying." 
 
 William's lip quivered with ire, yet he curbed tlie 
 reply that sprang to it, and he looked with affection 
 genuinely more akin to admiration than scorn upon his 
 fellow prince. For, fierce and relentless as the duke's 
 deeds were, his faith was notably sincere ; and while this 
 made, indeed, the prince's chief attraction to the pious 
 Edward, so, on the other hand, this bowed the duke in 
 a kind of involuntary and superstitious homage to the 
 man who sought to square deeds to faith. It is ever the 
 case with stern and stormy spirits, that the meek ones 
 which contrast them steal strangely into their affections. 
 This principle of human nature can alone account for the 
 enthusiastic devotion which the mild sufferings of the 
 Saviour awoke in the fiercest exterminators of the North. 
 In proportion, often, to the warrior's ferocity, was his 
 love to that divine Model, at whose sufferings he wept, to 
 whose tomb he wandered barefoot, and whose example of 
 compassionate forgiveness he would have thought himself 
 tlie basest of men to follow ! 
 
 " Now, by my halidame ! I honor and love thee, 
 Edward," cried the duke, with a heartiness more frank 
 than was usual to him; "and were I thy subject, woe to 
 man or woman that wagged tongue to wound thee by a 
 breath. But who and what is this same Hilda 1 one of 
 thy kith and kinl — surely not less than kingly blood 
 runs so bold ?" 
 
 "William, hien aime," ^ said the king, "it is true that 
 
 ^ The few expressions borrowed occasionally from the Romance 
 tongue, to give individuality to the speaker, will generally be trana- 
 
 VOL. I. — 2
 
 18 HAROLD. 
 
 Hilda, whom the saints assoil, is of kingly blood, though 
 not of our kingly line. It is feared," added Edward, in 
 a timid whisper, as he cast a hurried glance around him, 
 " that this unhappy woman has ever been more addicted 
 to the rites of her pagan ancestors than to those of Hol}^ 
 Church ; and men do say that she hath thus acquired 
 from fiend or charm secrets devoutly to be eschewed by 
 the righteous. Nathless, let us rather hope that her mind 
 is somewhat distraught with her misfortunes." 
 
 The king sighed, and the duke sighed too, but the 
 duke's sigh spoke impatience. He swept behind him a 
 stern and withering look towards the proud figure of 
 Hilda, still seen through the glades, and said, in a sinister 
 voice : " Of kingly blood ; but this witch of Woden hath 
 no sons or kinsmen, I trust, to pretend to the throne of 
 the Saxon 1 " 
 
 " She is sibbe to Githa, wife of Godwin," answered 
 the king ; " and that is her most perilous connection ; 
 for the banished earl, as thou knowest, did not pretend 
 to fill the throne, but he was content with nought less 
 than governing our people." 
 
 The king then proceeded to sketch an outline of the 
 history of Hilda ; but his narrative was so deformed both 
 by his superstitions and prejudices, and his imperfect 
 information in all the leading events and characters in 
 his own kingdom, that we will venture to take upon 
 ourselves his task ; and while the train ride on through 
 glade and mead, we will briefly narrate, from our own 
 special sources of knowledge, the chronicle of Hilda, the 
 Scandinavian Vala. 
 
 lated into modern French, for tlie same reason as Saxon is ren- 
 dered into modern English, — namely, that the words may b« 
 Intelligible to the reader.
 
 HAROLD, 19 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 A MAGNIFICENT race of men were those war sons of the 
 old North, whom our popular histories, so superficial in 
 their accounts of this age, include in the common name of 
 the " Danes." They replunged into barharism the nations 
 over which they swept ; but from that barbarism they 
 reproduced the noblest elements of civilization. Swede, 
 Norwegian, and Dane, differing in some minor points, 
 when closely examined, had yet one common character 
 viewed at a distance. They had the same prodigious 
 energy, the same passion for freedom, individual and 
 civil ; the same splendid errors in the thirst for fame 
 and the " point of honor ; " and above all, as a main 
 cause of civilization, they were wonderfully pliant and 
 malleable in their admixtures with the peoples they 
 overran. This is their true distinction from the stub- 
 "born Celt, who refuses to mingle and disdains to improve. 
 Frankes, the archbishop, baptized Rolf-ganger;^ and 
 within a little more than a century afterwards, the de- 
 scendants of those terrible heathens, who had spared 
 neither priest nor altar, were the most redoubtable defen- 
 ders of the Christian Church ; their old language forgot- 
 ten (save by a few in the town of Bayeux), their 
 ancestral names '^) save among a few of the noblest) 
 
 1 "Roman de Rou," part i. v. 1914. 
 
 ^ The reason why the Normans lost their old names is to be 
 found in their conversion to Christianity. They were baptized ; 
 and Franks, as their godfathers, gave them new appellations.
 
 20 HAPcOLD. 
 
 changed into French titles, and little else but the in- 
 domitable valor of the Scandinavian remained unaltered 
 amongst the arts and mannors of the Frankish-Norman. 
 
 In like manner their kindred tribes, who had poured 
 into Saxon-England to ravage and lay desolate, had no 
 sooner obtained from .Alfred tha Great permanent homes, 
 than they became perhaps the most powerful, and in a 
 short time not the least patriotic part of the Anglo-Saxon 
 population.^ At the time our story opens, these North- 
 men, under the common name of Danes, were peaceably 
 settled in no less than fifteen '■^ counties in England ; their 
 nobles abounded in towns and cities beyond the boundaries 
 
 Thu«, Charles the Simple insists that Eolf-ganger shall change hia 
 law (creed), and his namej and Rolf or Ron is christened Robert 
 A few of tho^;e who retained Scandinavian names at the time of 
 the Con()uest will be cited hereafter. 
 
 1 Thus in 991, about a century after the first settlement, the 
 Danes of East Angh"a gave the only efficient resistance to the host 
 of the Vikings under Justin and Gurthmuud; and Brithnoth, cele- 
 brated by the Saxon poet, as a Saxon, par e.rcellenre the heroic 
 defender of his native soil, was in all probability of Danish descent. 
 Mr Laing, in his preface to his translation of the Ile'imskrinqla, 
 truly observes, " that the rebellions against William the Conqueror, 
 and his successors, appear to have been almost always raised, or 
 mainly supported, in the counties of recent Uanisli descent, not ia 
 those peopled by the old Anglo-Saxon race," 
 
 The portion of Mercia consisting of the burghs of Lancaster, 
 Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby, became a Danish State 
 in A. D. 877; East Anglia, consisting of Cambridge, Suffoll?, Nor- 
 folk, and the Isle of Elv, in a. d. 879-80; and the vast territory of 
 Northumbria, extending all north the Humber, into all that part of 
 Scotland south of the Firth, in a. d. 876. — See Palgrave's 
 "Commonwealth." But, besides their more allotted settlements, 
 the Danes were interspersed as land owners all over England. 
 
 2 Bromton Chron., — namely, P^ssex, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk, 
 Herts, Cambridgeshire, Hants, Lincoln, Notts, Derby, Northamp- 
 ton, Leicestershire, Bucks, Beds, and the vast territory called 
 iiiortliumbria.
 
 HAROLD. 21 
 
 of those counties which bore the distinct appellation of 
 Danelagh. They were numerous in London, in the pre- 
 cincts of which they had their own burial-place, to the 
 chief municijDal court of which they gave their own appel- 
 lation, — the Hustings.' Their power in the national 
 assembly of the Witan had decided the choice of kings. 
 Thus, with some differences of law and dialect, these once 
 turbulent invaders had amalgamated amicably with the 
 native race.'^ And to this day the gentry, traders, and 
 farmers of more than one-tliird of England, and in those 
 counties most confessed to be in the van of improvement, 
 descend, from Saxon mothers indeed, but from Viking 
 fathers. There was in reality little difi'erence in race 
 between the Norman knight of the time of Henry I. and 
 the Saxon franklin of Xorfolk and York. Both on the 
 mother's side would most probably have been Saxon, both 
 on the father's would have traced to the Scandinavian. 
 
 But though this character of adaptability was general, 
 exceptions in some points were necessarily found, and 
 these were obstinate in proportion to the adherence to 
 the old pagan faith, or the sincere conversion to Christ- 
 ianity. The Norwegian chronicles, and passages in our 
 own history, show how false and hollow Avas the assumed 
 Christianity of many of these fierce Odin-worshippers. 
 They willingly enough accepted the outward sign of bap- 
 tism, but the holy water changed little of the inner man. 
 
 1 Palgrave's " History of England," p. 315. 
 
 2 The laws collected by Edward the Confessor, and in later 
 times so often and so fondly referred to, contain many intro- 
 duced by the Danes, which had grown popular with the Saxon 
 people. Much which we ascribe to the Norman Conqueror pre- 
 existed in the Anglo-Danish, and may be found both in Normandy 
 and parts of Scandinavia to this day. — See llakewell's " Treatise 
 on the Antiquity of Laws in this Island." in Hearne's " Curious 
 Discourses."
 
 22 HAROLD. 
 
 Even Harold, the son of Canute, scarce seventeen years 
 before the date we have now entered, being unable to 
 obtain from the archbishop of Canterbury, who had 
 espoused the cause of his brother Hardicanute, the conse- 
 crating benediction, lived and reigned as one " who had 
 abjured Christianity."^ 
 
 The priests, especially on the Scandinavian continent, 
 were often forced to compound with their grim converts, 
 by indulgence to certain habits, such as indiscriminate 
 polygamy. To eat horse-flesh in honor of Odin, and to 
 marry wives ad libitum, were the main stipulations of the 
 neophytes. And the puzzled monks, often driven to a 
 choice, yielded the point of the wives, but stood firm on 
 the graver article of the horse-flesh. 
 
 With their new religion, very imperfectly understood 
 even when genuinely received, they retained all that host 
 of heathen superstition which knits itself with the most 
 obstinate instincts in the human breast. Not many years 
 before the reign of the Confessor, the laws of the great 
 Canute against witchcraft and charms, the worship of 
 stones, fountains, runes by ash and elm, and the incanta- 
 tions that do homage to the dead, were obviously rather 
 intended to apply to the recent Danish converts than to 
 the Anglo-Saxons, already subjugated for centuries, body 
 and soul, to the domination of the Christian monks. 
 
 Hilda, a daughter of the royalty of Denmark, and cousin 
 to Githa (niece to Canute, whom that king had bestowed 
 in second espousals upon Godwin), had come over to 
 England with a fierce Jarl, her husband, a year after 
 Canute's accession to the throne, — both converted nomi- 
 nally, both secretly believers in Thor and Odin. 
 
 Hilda's husband had fallen in one of the actions in the 
 Northern seas between Canute and St. Olave, King of 
 
 1 Palgrave's " History of England," p. 322.
 
 HAEOLD. 23 
 
 Norway (that saint himself, by the by, a most ruthless 
 persecutor of his forefathers' faith, and a most unquali- 
 fied practical assertor of his heathen privilege to extend 
 his domestic affections beyond the severe pale which 
 should have confined them to a single wife. His natural 
 son Magnus then sat on the Danish throne). The Jarl 
 died as he had wished to die, the last man on board his 
 ship, with the soothing conviction that the Valkyrs would 
 bear him to Valhalla. 
 
 Hilda was left with an only daughter, whom Canute 
 bestowed on Ethelwolf, a Saxon earl of large domains 
 and tracing his descent from Penda, that old king of 
 Mercia who refused to be converted, but said so dis- 
 creetly, " that he had no objection to his neighbors being 
 Christians, if they w^ould practise that peace and forgive- 
 ness which the monks told him were the elements of the 
 faith." 
 
 Ethelwolf fell under the displeasure of Hardicanute, 
 perhaps because he was more Saxon than Danish ; and 
 though that savage king did not dare openly to arraign 
 him before the Witan, he gave secret orders by which he 
 was butchered on his own hearthstone, in the arms of his 
 wife, who died shortly afterwards of grief and terror. 
 The only orphan of this unhappy pair, Edith, was thus 
 consigned to the charge of Hilda. 
 
 It was a necessary and invaluable characteristic of 
 that "adaptability " Avhich distinguished the Danes, that 
 they transferred to the land in which they settled all the 
 love they had borne to that of their ancestors ; and, so 
 far as attachment to soil was concerned, Hilda had grown 
 no less in heart an Englishwoman than if she had been 
 born and reared amidst the glades and knolls from which 
 the smoke of her hearth rose through the old Roman 
 compluviura.
 
 24 HAKOLD. 
 
 But in all else she was a Dane. Dane in her creed 
 and her habits, — Dane in her intense and brooding 
 imagination ; in the poetry that filled her soul, peo[)led 
 the air with spectres, and covered the leaves of the trees 
 Avith charms. Living in austere seclusion after the death 
 of her lord, to whom she had borne a Scandinavian 
 woman's devoted but heroic love ; sorrowing, indeed, for 
 his death, but rejoicing that he fell amidst the feast of 
 ravens, — her mind settled more and more, year by year 
 and day by day, upon those visions of the unknown 
 M'orld which in every faith conjure up the companions of 
 solitude and grief. 
 
 Witchcraft in the Scandinavian Xorth assumed many 
 forms, and was connected by many degrees. There was 
 the old and withered hag, on whom, in our later mediaeval 
 ages, the character was mainly bestowed ; there was the 
 terrific witch-wife, or wolf- witch, who seems wholly 
 apart from human birth and attributes, like the weird sis- 
 ters of Macbeth, — creatures who entered the house at 
 night, and seized warriors to devour them, who might be 
 seen gliding over the sea, with the carcass of the wolf 
 dripping blood from their giant jaws ; and there was the 
 more serene, classical, and awful vala, or sibyl, wdio, 
 honored by chiefs and revered by nations, foretold the 
 future, and advised the deeds of heroes. Of these last, 
 the Norse chronicles tell us much. They were often of 
 rank and wealth, they were accompanied by trains of 
 handmaids and servants, — kings led them (when their 
 counsel was sought) to the place of honor in the hall, and 
 their heads were sacred, as those of ministers to the gods. 
 
 This last state in the grisly realm of the Wig-l;er 
 (wizarddore) was the one naturally appertaining to the 
 high rank, and the soul, lofty though blind and perverted, 
 of the daughter of warrior-kings. All practice of the art
 
 HAROLD. 25 
 
 to which now for long years she had devoted herself, that 
 touched upon the humble destinies of the vulgar, the 
 child of Odin ^ haughtily disdained. Her reveries were 
 upon the fate of kings and kingdoms ; she aspired to save 
 or to rear the dynasties which should rule the races yet 
 unborn. In youth proud and ambitious, — common faults 
 with her countrywomen, — on her entrance into the 
 darker world, she carried with her the prejudices and pas- 
 sions that she had known in that colored by the external 
 sun. 
 
 All her human affections were centred in her grand- 
 child Edith, the last of a race royal on either side. Her 
 researches into the future had assured her, that the life 
 and death of this fair child were entwined wilh the fates 
 of a king, and the same oracles had intimated a mysterious 
 and inseparable connection between her own shattered 
 house and the flourishing one of Earl Godwin, the spouse 
 of her kinswoman Githa ; so that with this great family 
 she was as intimately bound by the links of superstition as 
 by the ties of blood. The eldest-born of Godwin, Sweyn, 
 had been at first especially her care and her favorite ; and 
 he, of more poetic temperament than his brothers, had 
 willingly submitted to her influence. But of all the 
 brethren, as will be seen hereafter, the career of Sweyn 
 had been most noxious and ill-omened, and at that 
 moment, while the rest of the house carried with it into 
 exile the deep and indignant sympathy of England, no 
 man said of Sweyn " God ble.ss him ! " 
 
 But as the second son, Harold, had grown from child- 
 hood into youth, Hilda had singled him out with a 
 preference even more marked than that she had bestowed 
 
 1 The name of this god is spelt Odin when referred to as the 
 object of Scandiuaviau worship, — Woden when applied directly to 
 the deity of the Saxons.
 
 26 HAHOLD. 
 
 upon Sweyn. The stars and the runes assured her of his 
 future greatness, and the qualities and talents of the 
 young earl had, at the very onset of his career, confirmed 
 the accuracy of their predictions. Her interest in Harold 
 became the more intense, partly because whenever she 
 consulted the future for the lot of her grandchild Edith, 
 she invariably found it associated with the fate of Harold, 
 — partly because all her arts had failed to penetrate 
 beyond a certain point in their joint destinies, and left 
 her mind agitated and perplexed between hope and ter- 
 ror. As yet, however, she had wholly failed in gaining 
 any ascendancy over the young earl's vigorous and health- 
 ful mind ; and though, before his exile, he came more 
 often than any of Godwin's sons to the old Roman 
 house, he had smiled with proud incredulity at her vague 
 prophecies, and rejected all her offers of aid from invisible 
 agencies with the calm reply, "The brave man wants no 
 charms to encourage him to his duty, and the good man 
 scorns all warnings that would deter him from fulfilling 
 it." 
 
 Indeed, though Hilda's magic was not of the malevo- 
 lent kind, and sought the source of its oracles not in 
 fiends but gods (at least the gods in whom she believed), 
 it was noticeable that all over whom her influence had 
 prevailed had come to miserable and untimely ends ; — 
 not alone her husband and her son-in-law (both of whom 
 had been as wax to her counsel), but such other chiefs as 
 rank or ambition permitted to appeal to her lore. Never- 
 theless, such was the ascendancy she had gained over the 
 popular mind, that it would have been dangerous in the 
 highest degree to put into execution against her the laws 
 condemnatory of witchcraft. In her, all the more power- 
 ful Danish families reverenced, and would have protected, 
 the blood of their ancient kings, and the widow of cue of
 
 HAKOLD. 27 
 
 their most renowned heroes. Hospitable, liberal, and 
 beneficent to the poor, and an easy mistress over numer- 
 ous ceorls, while the vulgar dreaded, they would yet have 
 defended her. Proofs of her art it would have been hard 
 ' to establish ; hosts of compurgators to attest her inno- 
 cence would have sprung up. Even if subjected to the 
 ordeal, her gold could easily have bribed the priests with 
 whom the power of evading its dangers rested. And 
 with that worldly wisdom which persons of genius in 
 their wildest chimeras rarely lack, she had already freed 
 herself from the chance of active persecution from the 
 Church by ample donations to all the neighboring 
 monasteries. 
 
 Hilda, in fine, was a woman of sublime desires and 
 extraordinary gifts ; terrible, indeed, but as the passive 
 agent of the Fates she invoked, and rather command- 
 ing for herself a certain troubled admiration and myste- 
 rious pity : no fiend-hag, beyond humanity, in malice and 
 in power, but essentially human, even when, aspiring 
 most to the secrets of a god. Assuming, for the moment, 
 that, by the aid of intense imagination, persons of a 
 peculiar idiosyncrasy of nerves and temperament might 
 attain to such dim affinities with a world beyond our 
 ordinary senses, as forbid entire rejection of the magne- 
 tism and magic of old times, — it was on no foul and 
 mephitic pool, overhung with the poisonous nightshade, 
 and excluded from the beams of heaven, but on the living 
 stream on which the star trembled, and beside whose 
 banks the green herbage waved, that the demon shadows 
 fell dark and dread. 
 
 Thus safe and thus awful, lived Hilda ; and under 
 her care, a rose beneath the funeral cedar, bloomed her 
 grandchild Edith, goddaughter of the Lady of England. 
 
 It was the anxious wish, both of Edward and his
 
 28 HAROLD. 
 
 virgin wife, pious as himself, to save this orphan from 
 the contamination of a house more than suspected of 
 heathen faith, and give to her youth the refuge of the 
 convent. But this, without her guardian's consent or 
 her own expressed will, could not be legally done ; and 
 Edith as yet had expressed no desire to disobey her 
 grandmother, who treated the idea of the convent with 
 lofty scorn. 
 
 This beautiful child grew up under the influence, as 
 it were, of two contending creeds, — all her notions on 
 both were necessarily confused and vague. But her 
 heart was so genuinely mild, simple, tender, and devo- 
 ted, — there was in her so much of the inborn excel- 
 lence of the sex, that in every impulse of that heart 
 struggled for clearer light and for purer air the unquiet 
 soul. In manner, in thought, and in person, as yet 
 almost an infant, deep in her heart lay yet one woman's 
 secret, known scarcely to herself, but which taught her, 
 more powerfully than Hilda's proud and scoffing tongue, 
 to shudder at the thought of the barren cloister and the 
 eternal vow.
 
 HAROLD. 29 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 While King Edward was narrating to the Norman Duke 
 all that he knew, and all that he knew not of Hilda's 
 history and secret arts, the road wound through lands 
 as wild and wold-like as if the metropolis of England lay 
 a hundred miles distant. Even to this day, patches of 
 such land in the neighborhood of Norwood, may betray 
 what the country was in the old time, when a mighty 
 forest, " abounding with wild beasts," — " the bull and 
 the boar," — skirted the suburbs of London, and afforded 
 pastime to king and thegn. For the Norman kings have 
 been maligned by the popidar notion that assigns to them 
 all the odium of the forest laws. Harsh and severe were 
 those laws in the reign of the Anglo-Saxon, as harsh and 
 severe, perhaps, against the ceorl and the poor man as 
 in the days of Rufus, though more mild unquestionably 
 to the nobles. To all beneath the rank of abbot and 
 thegn, the king's woods were made, even by the mild 
 Confessor, as sacred as the groves of the Druids ; and no 
 less penalty than that of life was incurred by the low- 
 born huntsman who violated their recesses. 
 
 Edward's only mundane passion was the chase ; and 
 a day rarely passed, but what, after mass, he went forth 
 with hawk or hound. So that, though the regular season 
 for hawking did not commence till October, he had ever 
 on his wrist some young falcon to essay, or some old 
 favorite to exercise. And now, just as William was 
 beginning to grow weary of his good cousin's prolix
 
 30 HAROLD. 
 
 recitals, the hounds suddenly gave tongue, and from a 
 sedge-grown pool by the way-side, with solemn wing 
 and harsh boom, rose a bittern. 
 
 " Holy St. Peter ! " exclaimed the Saint King, spurring 
 his palfrey, and loosing his famous Peregrine falcon.^ 
 "William was not slow in following that animated ex- 
 ample, and the whole company rode at half-speed across 
 the rough forest-land, straining their eyes upon the soar- 
 ing quarry and the large wheels of the falcons. Riding 
 thus, with his eyes in the air, Edward was nearly pitched 
 over his palfrey's head, as the animal stopped suddenly, 
 checked by a high gate, set deep in a half-embattled wall 
 of brick and rubble. Upon this gate sat, quite unmoved 
 and apathetic, a tall ceorl, or laborer, while behind it 
 was a gazing curious group of men of the same rank, clad 
 in those blue tunics of which our peasant's smock is 
 the successor, and leaning on scythes and flails. Sour 
 and ominous wei'e the looks they bent upon that Norman 
 cavalcade. The men were at least as well clad as those 
 of the same condition are now ; and their robust limbs 
 and ruddy cheeks showed no lack of the fare that sup- 
 ports labor. Indeed, the working-man of that day, if 
 not one of the absolute theowes, or slaves, was, physically 
 speaking, better off, perhaps, than he has ever since been 
 in England, more especially if he appertained to some 
 wealthy thegn of pure Saxon lineage, whose very title 
 of lord came to him in his quality of dispenser of bread ;^ 
 and these men had been ceorls under Harold, son of 
 Godwin, now banished from the land. 
 
 1 The Peregrine hawk built on tlie rocks of Llandudno, and this 
 breed was celebrated, even to the davs of Elizabetli. Burlei2:h 
 thanks one of the Mostyns for a cast of hawks from Llandudno. 
 
 - lllaf, loaf, — Hlaford, lord, giver of bread, — Hleafdiau, lady, 
 server of bread. — Versikgan.
 
 HAIWLD. 31 
 
 " Open the gate, — open quick, my merry men," said 
 the gentle Edward (speaking in Saxon, though with a 
 strong foreign accent), after he had recovered his seat, 
 murmured a benediction, and crossed himself three times. 
 The men stirred not. 
 
 " No horse tramps the seeds we have sown for Harold 
 the Earl to reap.'' said the ceorl, doggedly, still seated on 
 the gate. And the group behind him gave a shout of 
 applause. 
 
 Moved more than ever he had been known to be 
 before, Edward spurred his steed up to the boor, and 
 lifted his hand. At that signal twenty swords flashed in 
 the air behind, as the Norman nobles spurred to the 
 place. Putting back with one hand his fierce attendants, 
 Edward shook the other at the Saxon. " Knave, knave," 
 he cried, " I would hurt you, if I could ! " 
 
 There was something in these words, fated to drift 
 down into history, at once ludicrous and touching. The 
 Normans saw them only in the former light, and turned 
 aside to conceal their laughter ; the Saxon felt them in 
 the latter and truer sense, and stood rebuked. That great 
 king, whom he now recognized, with all those drawn 
 swords at his back, could not do him hurt ; that king 
 had not the heart to hurt him. The ceorl sprang from 
 the gate, and opened it, bending low. 
 
 " Ride first, Count William, my cousin," said the king, 
 calmly. 
 
 The Saxon ceorl's eyes glared as he heard the Nor- 
 man's name uttered in the Norman tongue, but he kept 
 open the gate, and the train passed through, Edward lin- 
 gering last. Then .said the king, in a low voice, — 
 
 " Bold man, thou spokest of Harold the Earl and his 
 harvests ; knowest thou not that his lands have passed 
 from him, and that he is outlawed, and his harvests are 
 not for the scythes of his ceorls to reap 1 "
 
 32 HAROLD. 
 
 " May it please yon, dread Lord and King," replied the 
 Saxon, simply, "■ these lands that were Harold the Earl's 
 are now Clapa's, the sixhasndnian's." 
 
 "How is that?" quoth Edward, hastily; "we gave 
 them neither to sixhgendman nor to tSaxon. All the 
 lands of Harold hereabout were divided amongst sacred 
 abbots and noble chevaliers, — l^ormans all. ' 
 
 " Fuike the Norman had these laii fields, yon orchards 
 and tynen ; Fulke sold them to Clapa, the earl's six- 
 hjEndman, and what in mancusses and pence Clapa 
 lacked of the price, we, the ceorls of the earl, made up 
 from our own earnings in the earl's noble service. And 
 this very day, in token thereof, have we quaffed the 
 bedden-ale.^ Wherefore, please God and our Lady, we 
 hold these lands part and parcel with Clapa ; and when 
 Earl Harold comes again, as come he will, here at least 
 he will have his own." 
 
 Edward, who, despite a singular simplicity of charac- 
 ter, which at times seemed to border on imbecility, was 
 by no means wanting in penetration when his attention 
 was fairly roused, changed countenance at this proof of 
 rough and homely affection on the part of these men to 
 his banished earl and brother-in-law. He mused a little 
 while in grave thought, and then said, kindly, — 
 
 "Well, man, I think not the worse of you for loyal 
 love to your thegn, but there are those who would do so ; 
 and I advise you, brother-like, that ears and nose are in 
 peril if thou talkest thus indiscreetly." 
 
 " Steel to steel, and hand to hand," said the Saxon, 
 bluntly, touching the long knife in his leathern belt ; 
 
 ^ Bedden-ale. When any man was set up iu his estate by the 
 contributions of his friends, those friends were bid to a feast, and 
 the ale so drank was called the beddeuale, from bedden, to pray 
 or to bid. (See Braud's " Pop. Autiq. ")
 
 HAROLD. 33 
 
 " and he who sets gripe on Sexwolf, son of Elfhelm, shall 
 pay his weregeld twice over." 
 
 " Forewarned, foolish man, thou art forewarned. 
 Peace," said the king ; and, shaking his head, he rode 
 on to join the Normans, who now, in a broad field where 
 the corn sprang green, and which they seemed to deHglit 
 in wantonly trampling as they curvetted their steeds to 
 and fro, watched the movements of the bittern and the 
 pursuit of the two falcons. 
 
 " A wager. Lord King ! " said a prelate, whose strong 
 family likeness to William proclaimed him to he the 
 duke's bold and haughty brother, Odo,^ Bishop of Bay- 
 eux, — "a wager. My steed to your palfrey that the 
 duke's falcon first fixes the bittern." 
 
 " Holy father," answered Edward, in that slight change 
 of voice which alone showed his displeasure, "■ these 
 wagers all savor of heathenesse, and our canons forbid 
 them to mone^ and priest. Go to, it is naught." 
 
 The bishop, who brooked no rebuke, even from his 
 terrible brother, knit his brows, and was about to make no 
 gentle rejoinder, when William, whose profound craft or 
 sagacity was always at watch lest his followers should 
 displease the king, interposed, and, taking the word out 
 of the prelate's mouth, said, — 
 
 " Thou reprovest us well, sir and king : we Normans 
 are too inclined to such levities. And see, your falcon is 
 first in pride of place. By the bones of St. Valery, how 
 nobly he towers ! See him cover the bittern ! — see him 
 rest on the wing ! Down he swoops ! Gallant bird ! " 
 
 1 Herleve (Arlotta), William's mother, married Herluin de Conr 
 teville, after the death of Duke Robert, and had by him two sons, 
 Robert, Count of Morlaiu, and Odo, Bishop of Baj-eux. — Okd. 
 ViTAf.., lib. vii. 
 
 '^ Mune, monk. 
 
 VOL. I. — 3
 
 34 HAROLD. 
 
 " With his heart split in two on the bittern's bill," 
 said the bishop ; and down, rolling one over the otlier, 
 fell bittern and hawk, while William's Norway falcon, 
 smaller of size than the king's, descended rapidly, and 
 hovered over the two. Both were dead. 
 
 " I accept the omen," muttered the gazing duke ; " let 
 the natives destroy each other ! " He placed his whistle 
 to his lips, and his falcon flew back to his wrist. 
 
 *' Now home," said King Edward.
 
 HAROLD. 35- 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The royal party entered London by the great bridge 
 which divided Southwark from the capital ; and we 
 must pause to gaze a moment on the animated scene 
 which the immemorial thoroughfare presented. 
 
 The whole suburb before entering Southwark was 
 rich in orchards and gardens, lying round the detached 
 houses of the wealthier merchants and citizens. Ap- 
 proaching the river-side to the left, the eye might see 
 the two circular spaces set apart, the one for bear, the 
 other for bull, baiting. To the right upon a green mound 
 of waste, within sight of the populous bridge, the glee- 
 men were exercising their art. Here one dexterous 
 juggler threw three balls and three knives alternately 
 in the air, catching them one by one as they feU.-^ 
 There, another Avas gravely leading a great bear to dance 
 on its hind-legs, while his coadjutor kept time with a 
 sort of flute or flageolet. The lazy by-standers, in great 
 concourse, stared and laughed ; but the laugh was hushed 
 at the tramp of the Norman steeds, — and the famous 
 count by the king's side, as, with a smiling lip but obser- 
 vant eye, he rode along, drew all attention from the 
 bear. 
 
 On now approaching that bridge which, not many 
 years before, had been the scene of terrible contest be- 
 tween the invading Danes and Ethelred's ally, Olave of 
 
 1 Strutt's " Horda."
 
 36 HAKOLD. 
 
 Norway,-^ you might still see, though neglected and 
 already in decay, the double fortifications that had 
 wisely guarded that vista into the city. On both sides 
 of the bridge, which was of wood, were forts, partly of 
 timber, partly of stone and breastworks, and by the forts 
 a little chapel. The bridge, broad enough to admit two 
 vehicles abreast,^ was crowded Avith passengers, and 
 lively with stalls and booths. Here was the favorite 
 spot of the po})ular ballad-singer.^ Here, too, might be 
 seen the swarthy Saracen, with wares from Spain and 
 Afric* Here the German merchant from the Steel- 
 yard swept along on his way to his suburban home. 
 Here, on some holy office, went quick the muffled monk. 
 
 1 There is an animated description of this " Rattle of London 
 Bridge," which gave ample theme to the Scandinavian scalds, in 
 Snorro Stmieson : — 
 
 London Brirlge is broken down ; 
 Gold is won and briglit renown ; 
 Sliields resounding, 
 War-liorns sounding, 
 Hildur shouting in the din ; 
 Arrows singing, 
 Mail-coats ringing, 
 Odin malves our Olaf win. 
 
 L.4ing's Hcimskringla, vol. ii. p. 10. 
 
 2 Sharon Turner. ^ Hawkins, vol. ii. p. 94. 
 
 * Doomsday makes mention of the Moors and the Germans (the 
 Emperor's merchants) that were sojourners or settlers in London. 
 The Saracens at that time were among the great merchants of the 
 world ; Marseilles, Aries, Avignon, Montpellier, Toulouse, were the 
 wonted etapes of their active traders. What civilizers, what teachers 
 they were, — those same Saracens ! How much in arms and in arts 
 we owe them ! Fathers of the Proven9al poetry, they, far more 
 than even the Scandinavian scalds, have influenced the literature of 
 Christian Europe. The most ancient chronicle of the Cid was 
 written in Arabic, a little before the Cid's death, by two of his 
 pages, who were Mussulmans. The medical science of the Moors 
 for six centuries enlightened Europe, and their metaphysics were 
 adopted in nearly all the Chvistian universities.
 
 HAKOLD. 37 
 
 Here the city gallant paused to langh with the country 
 girl, her basket full of May-boughs and cowslips. In 
 short, all bespoke that activity, whether in business or 
 pastime, which was destined to render that city the mart 
 of the world, and which had already knit the trade of 
 the Anglo-Saxon to the remoter corners of commercial 
 Europe. The deep dark eye of William dwelt admir- 
 ingly on the bustling groups, on the broad river, and 
 the forest of masts which rose by the indented marge 
 near Belin's Gate.^ And he to wdiom, whatever his 
 faults, or rather crimes, to the unfortunate people he 
 not only oppressed but deceived, London at least may 
 yet be grateful, not only for chartered franchise,^ but for 
 advancing, in one short vigorous reign, her commerce 
 and wealth, beyond what centuries of Anglo-Saxon dom- 
 ination, with its inherent feebleness, had effected, ex- 
 claimed aloud, — 
 
 " By rood and mass, dear king, thy lot hath fallen 
 on a goodly heritage ! " 
 
 " Hem ! " said Edward, lazily ; " thou knowest not how 
 troublesome these Saxons are. And vphile thou speakest, 
 lo ! in yon shattered walls, built first, they say, by Alfred 
 of holy memory, are the evidences of the Danes. Bethink 
 thee how often they have sailed up this river. How 
 know I but what the next year the raven flag may stream 
 over these waters 1 Magnus of Denmark hath already 
 
 1 Billingsgate. 
 
 2 Londou received a charter from William at the instigation of 
 the Norman Bishop of London ; but it probably only confirmed the 
 previous municipal constitution, since it says briefly, " I grant you 
 all to be as law-worthy as ye were in the days of King Edward." 
 The rapid increase, however, of the commercial prosperity and 
 political importance of London after the Conquest is attested in 
 many chronicles, and becomes strikingly evident even on the sur- 
 face of history.
 
 38 HAROLD. 
 
 claimed my crown as heir to the royalties of Canute, and " 
 (here Edward hesitated) " Godwin and Harold, whom 
 alone of my thegns, Dane and Northman fear, are far 
 away." 
 
 " Miss not them, Edward, my cousin," cried the duke, 
 in haste. " Send for me if danger threat thee. Ships 
 enow await thy hest in my new port of Cherbourg. AmiI 
 I tell thee this for thy comfort, that were I king of the 
 English, and lord of this river, the citizens of London 
 might sleep from vespers to prime without fear of the 
 Dane. Never again should the raven flag be seen by this 
 bridge ! Never, I swear, by the Splendor Divine ! " 
 
 Not without purpose spoke William thus stoutly ; and 
 he turned on the king those glittering eyes {niicantes 
 oculos), which the chroniclers have praised and noted. 
 For it was his hope and his aim in this visit that his 
 cousin Edward should formally promise him that goodly 
 heritage of England. But the king made no rejoinder, 
 and they now neared the end of the bridge. 
 
 " AVhat old ruin looms yonder ? " ^ asked William, 
 hiding his disappointment at Edward's silence : " it 
 seemeth the remains of some stately keep, which, by 
 its fashion, I should pronounce Roman." 
 
 "Ay ! " said Edward, — " it is said to have been built 
 
 1 There seems good reason for believing that a keep did stand 
 where the Tower stands, before the Conquest, and that William's 
 edifice spared some of its remains. In the very interesting letter 
 from John Bayford relating to the city of London (Lei. Collect., 
 Iviii), the writer, a thorough master of his subject, states that " the 
 Eomans made a puldic military way, that of Watling Street, from 
 the Tower to Ludgate, in a straight line, at the end of which they 
 built stations or citadels, one of which was where the White Tower 
 now stands." Bayford adds that, " when the White Tower was 
 Utted up for the reception of records, there remained many Saxon 
 inscriptions."
 
 HAROLD. 39 
 
 by the Romans ; and one of the old Lombard freemasons 
 employed on my new palace of "Westminster giveth that, 
 and some others in my domain, the name of the Juillet 
 Tower." 
 
 " Those Romans were our masters in all things gallant 
 and wise," said William ; "and I predict that, some day 
 or other, on that site, a king of England will re-erect 
 palace and tower. And yon castle towards the West 1 " 
 
 "Is the Tower Palatine, where our predecessors have 
 lodged, and ourself sometimes ; but the sweet loneliness 
 of Thorney Isle pleaseth me more now." 
 
 Thus talking, they entered London, a rude, dark city, 
 built mainly of timbered houses : streets narrow and 
 winding; windows rarely glazed, but protected chiefly 
 by linen blinds ; vistas opening, however, at times into 
 broad spaces, round the various convents, where green 
 trees grew up behind low palisades. Tall roods and holy 
 images, to which we owe the names of existing thorough- 
 fares (Rood-lane and Lady-lane ^), where the ways crossed 
 attracted the curious and detained the pious. Spires 
 there were not then, but blunt cone-headed turrets, pyram- 
 idal, denoting the Houses of God, rose often from the 
 low, thatched, and reeded roofs. But every now and 
 then, a scholar's if not an ordinary eye could behold the 
 relics of Roman splendor, traces of that elder city which 
 now lies buried under our thoroughfares, and of which, 
 year by year, are dug up the stately skeletons. 
 
 Along the Thames still rose, though much mutilated, 
 the wall of Constantine.^ Round the humble and bar- 
 barous church of St. Paul's (wherein lay the dust of 
 Sebba, that king of the East Saxons who quitted his 
 throne for the sake of Christ, and of Edward's feeble and 
 luckless father, Ethelred) might be seen, still gigantic in 
 
 1 Eude-lane. Lad-lane. — Bayfokd. 2 Fitzstephen.
 
 40 HAKOLD, 
 
 decay, the ruins of the vast temple of Diana.i ^Many a 
 church and many a convent pierced their mingled brick 
 and timber work with Roman capital and shaft. Still, 
 by the tower, to which was afterwards given the Saracen 
 name of Barbican, were the wrecks of the Roman station, 
 wliere cohorts watched night and day, in case of fire 
 within or foe without.^ 
 
 In a niche near the Aldersgate stood the headless 
 statue of Fortitude, which monks and pilgrims deemed 
 some unknown saint in the old time, and halted to honor. 
 And in the miilst of Bishopsgate Street sat on his dese- 
 crated throne a mangled Jupiter, his eagle at his feet. 
 Many a half-converted Dane there lingered, and mistook 
 the Thunderer and the bird for Odin and his hawk. 
 By Leod-gate (the People's gate ^) still, too, were seen 
 the arches of one of those miglity aqueducts which the 
 Roman learned from the Etrurian. And close by the 
 Still-yard occupied by " the emperor's cheap men " 
 (the German merchants) stood, almost entire, the Roman 
 temple, extant in the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
 Without the walls, the old Roman vineyards still put 
 forth their green leaves and crude clusters in the plains 
 of East Smithfield, in the fields of St. Giles's, and on the 
 site where now stands Hatton Garden. Still massere* 
 and cheapmen chaffered and bargained at booth and stall 
 in Mart Lane, where the Romans had bartered before 
 them. With every encroachment on new soil, within the 
 walls and without, urn, vase, weapon, human bones, were 
 shovelled out, and lay disregarded amidst heaps of rubbish. 
 JS'ot on such evidences of the past civilization looked 
 the practical eye of the Norman Count ; not on things, 
 
 1 Camden. 2 Bayford: Lelaud's Collectanea, p. Iviii. 
 
 3 Ludgate (Leod-gate). — Vkkstegan. 
 * Massere, uierchaut, mercer.
 
 HAROLD. 41 
 
 but on men, looked he ; and, as silently he rode on from 
 street to street, out of those men, stalwart and tall, busy, 
 active, toiling, the Man-Ruler saw the Civilization that 
 vras to come. 
 
 So, gravely through the small city, and over the bridge 
 that spanned the little river of the Fleet, rode the train 
 along the Strand ; to the left, smooth sands ; to the right, 
 fair pastures below green holts, thinly studded with 
 houses ; over numerous cuts and inlets running into the 
 river, rode they on. The hour and the season were those 
 in which youth enjoyed its holiday, and gay groups 
 resorted to the then ^ fashionable haunts of the Fountain 
 of Holywell, "streaming forth among glistening pebbles." 
 
 So they gained at length the village of Charing, which 
 Edward had lately bestowed on his Abbey of Westmin- 
 ster, and which was now filled with workmen, native and 
 foreign, employed on that edifice and the contiguous 
 palace. Here they loitered awhile at the Mews ^ (where 
 the hawks were kept), passed by the rude palace of stone 
 and rubble appropriated to the tributary kings of Scot- 
 land,^ — a gift from Edgar to Kenneth ; and finally, 
 I'eaching the inlet of the river, which, winding round the 
 Isle of Thorney (now Westminster), separated the rising 
 church, abbey, and palace of the Saint-king from the 
 main-land, dismounted, — and were ferried across * the 
 narrow stream to the broad space round the royal 
 residence. 
 
 1 Fitzstephen. 
 
 2 Meuse. Apparently rather a hawk hospital, from Muta (Cam- 
 den). Du Fresne, in his Glossarj', says Hfitta is in French Le 
 Meue, and a disease to which the hawk was subject on changing 
 its feathers. 
 
 3 Scotland-yard. — Strype. 
 
 * The first bridge that connected Thorney Isle with the main- 
 laud is said to have been built by Matilda, wife of Henry I.
 
 42 HAEOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The new palace of Edwaixi the Confessor, the palace of 
 Westminster, opened its gates to receive the Saxon King 
 and the Norman Duke, remounting on the margin of the 
 isle, and now riding side by side. And as the duke 
 glanced from brows habitually knit, first over the pile, 
 stately though not yet completed, with its long rows of 
 round arched windows cased by indented fringes and frffit 
 (or tooth) work, its sweep of solid columns with circling 
 cloisters, and its ponderous towers of simple grandeur ; 
 then over the groups of courtiers, with close vests, and 
 short mantles, and beardless cheeks, that filled up the 
 wide space, to gaze in homage on the renowned guest, his 
 heart swelled within him, and, checking his rein, he drew 
 near to his brother of Bayeux, and whispered, — 
 
 *' Is not this already the court of the Norman ? Behold 
 yon nobles and earls, how they mimic our garb ! behold 
 the very stones in yon gate, how they range themselves, 
 as if carved by the hand of the iSTorman mason ! Yerily 
 and indeed, brotlier, the shadow of the rising sun rests 
 already on these halls." 
 
 " Had England no people," said the bishop, " England 
 were yours already. But saw you not, as we rode along, 
 the lowering brows ? and heard you not the angry mur- 
 murs 1 The villeins are many, and their hate is strong." 
 
 " Strong is the roan I bestride," said the duke ; " but 
 a bold rider curbs it with the steel of the bit, and guides 
 it with the goad of the heel."
 
 HAROLD. 43 
 
 And now, as they neared the gate, a band of minstrels 
 in the pay of the Norman touched their instruments, and 
 woke their song, — the household song of the Norman : 
 the battle hymn of Roland, the Paladin of Charles the 
 Great. At the first word of the song, the Norman 
 knights and youths, profusely scattered amongst the 
 Normanized Saxons, caught up the lay, and with spark- 
 ling eyes and choral voices they welcomed the mighty 
 duke into the palace of the last meek successor of 
 Woden. 
 
 By the porch of the inner court the duke flung himself 
 from his saddle, and held the stirrup for Edward to dis- 
 mount. The king placed his hand gently on his guest's 
 broad shoulder, and, having somewhat slowly reached the 
 ground, embraced and kissed him in the sight of the gor- 
 geous assemblage ; then led him by the hand towards the 
 fair chamber which was set apart for the duke, and so 
 left him to his attendants. 
 
 William, lost in thought, suffered himself to be dis- 
 robed in silence ; but when Fitzosborne, his favorite con- 
 fidant and haughtiest baron, who yet deemed himself but 
 honored by personal attendance on his chief, conducted 
 him towards the bath, which adjoined the chamber, he 
 drew back, and wrapping round him more closely the 
 gown of fur that had been thrown over his shoulders, 
 he muttered low, " Nay, if there be on me yet one speck 
 of English dust, let it rest there ! — seisin, Fitzosborne, 
 seisin, of the English land." Then, Avaving his hand, he 
 dismissed all his attendants except Fitzosborne and Rolf, 
 Earl of Hereford,^ nephew to Edward, but French on the 
 father's side, and thoroughly in the duke's counsels. 
 
 1 We give him that title, which this Norman noble generally 
 bears in the Chronicles, though Palgrave observes that he is rather 
 to be styled Earl of the Magestan (the Welsh Marches).
 
 44 HAROLD. 
 
 Twice the duke paced the chamber without vouchsafing 
 a word to either, then paused by the round window that 
 overlooked the Thames. The scene was fair : the sun, 
 towards its decline, glittered on numerous small pleasure- 
 boats, which shot to and fro between Westminster and 
 London, or towards the opposite shores of Lambeth. His 
 eye sought eagerly, along the curves of the river, the gray 
 remains of the fabled Tower of Julius, and the walls, 
 gates, and turrets, that rose by the stream, or above the 
 dense mass of silent roofs ; then it strained hard to descry 
 the tops of the more distant masts of that infant navy, 
 fostered under Alfred, the far-seeing, for the future civ- 
 ilization of wastes unknown and the empire of seas 
 tintracked. 
 
 The duke breathed hard, and opened and closed the 
 hand which he stretched forth into space, as if to grasp 
 the city he beheld. " Rolf," said he, abruptly, " thou 
 knowest, no doubt, the wealth of the London traders, one 
 and all ; for, foi de Guilla^ime, my gentil chevalier, thou 
 art a true Xorman, and scentest the smell of gold as a 
 hound the boar. " 
 
 Rolf smiled, as if pleased with a compliment which 
 simpler men might have deemed, at the best, equivocal, 
 and replied, — 
 
 "It is true, my liege ; and, gramercy, the air of England 
 sharpens the scent ; for in this villein and motley country, 
 made up of all races, — Saxon and Fin, Dane and Flem- 
 ing, Pict and Walloon, — it is not as with us, where. the 
 brave man. and the pure descent are held chief in honor : 
 here gold and land are, in truth, name and lordship, — 
 even their popular name for their national assembly of 
 the Witan is 'The Wealthy.'^ He who is but a ceorl 
 to-day, let liim be rich, and he may be earl to-morrow, 
 1 Eadigan. — S. Tuknek. vol. i. p. 274.
 
 HAROLD. 45 
 
 marry in king's blooil, and rule armies under a gonfanou 
 statelier than a king's ; while lie whose fathers were eal- 
 dormeu and princes, if, by force or by fraud, by waste or 
 by largess, he become poor, falls at once into contempt, 
 and out of his state, — sinks into a class they call 'six- 
 hundred men,' in their barbarous tongue, and his children 
 will probably sink still lower, into ceorls. "Wherefore, 
 gold is the thing here most coveted ; and, by St. Michael, 
 the sin is infectious" 
 
 William listened to the speech with close attention. 
 
 " Good," said he, rulibing slowly the palm of his right 
 hand over the back of the left ; " a land all compact with 
 the power of one race, a race of conquering men, as our 
 fathers were, whom nought but cowardice or treason can 
 degrade, — such a land, Rolf of Hereford, it were hard 
 indeed to subjugate, or decoy, or tame — " 
 
 "So has my lord the duke found the Bretons; and 
 so also do I find the Welsh upon my marches of Here- 
 ford.' 
 
 " But," continued William, not heeding the interrup- 
 tion, " where wealth is more than blood and race, chiefs 
 may be bril led or menaced ; and the multitude — by'r 
 Lady, the multitude are the same in all lands, mighty 
 under valiant and faithful leaders, powerless as sheep 
 witho\it them. But to my question, my gentle Rolf, — 
 this London must be rich ? " ^ 
 
 " Rich enow," answered Rolf, " to coin into armed men 
 that should stretch from Rouen to Flanders on the one 
 hand, and Paris on the other." 
 
 " In the veins of Matilda, whom thou wooest for wife," 
 
 1 The comparative wealth of London was indeed considerable. 
 When, in 1018, all the rest of England was taxed to an amount 
 considered stupendous, — namely, 71,000 Sa.xon pounds, — Loudon 
 contributed 11,000 pounds besides.
 
 46 HAROLD. 
 
 said Fitzos"borne, abruptly, " flows the blood of Charle- 
 magne. God grant his empire to the children she shall 
 bear thee ! " 
 
 The duke bowed his head, and kissed a relic sus- 
 pended from his throat. Farther sign of approval of 
 his counsellor's words he gave not, but, after a pause, 
 he said, — 
 
 " When I depart, Rolf, thou wendest back to thy 
 marches. These Welsh are brave and fierce, and shape 
 work enow for thy hands." 
 
 " Ay, by my halidame ! poor sleep by the side of the 
 beehive you have stricken down." 
 
 " Marry, then," said William, " let the Welsh prey on 
 Saxon, Saxon on Welsh, — let neither win too easily. 
 Remember our omens to-day, — Welsh hawk and Saxon 
 bittern, — and over their corpses Duke William's Kor- 
 way falcon ! Now dress we for the complin ^ and the 
 banquet." 
 
 1 Complin, the second vespera
 
 BOOK IL 
 
 LANFRANC THE SCHOLAB. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ''''our meals a day, nor those sparing, were not deemed 
 too extravagant an interpretation of the daily bread tor 
 which the Saxons prayed. Four meals a day, from earl 
 to ceorl ! " Happy times ! " may sigh the descendant of 
 the last, if he read these pages. Partly so they were lor 
 the ceorl, but not in all things, for never sweet is the 
 food, and never gladdening is the drink, of servitude. 
 Inebriety, the vice of the warlike nations of the North, 
 had not, perhaps, been the pre-enunent excess of the 
 earlier Saxons, while yet the active and fiery Britons, and 
 the subsequent petty wars between the kings of the 
 Heptarchy, enforced on hardy warriors the safety of tem- 
 perance ; but the example of the Danes had been fatal. 
 Those giants of the sea, like all who pass from great vicis- 
 situdes of toil and repose, from the tempest to the haven, 
 snatch with full hands every pleasure in their reach. 
 With much that tended permanently to elevate the char- 
 acter of the Saxon, they imparted much for a time to 
 degrade it. The Anglian learned to feast to repletion 
 and drink to delirium. But such were not the vices of 
 the court of the Confessor. Brought u}) from his youth
 
 48 HAROLD. 
 
 in the cluister-camp of the Normans, what he loved in 
 their manners was the abstemious sobriety and tlie cere- 
 monial religion which distinguished those sons oi: the 
 Scandinavian from all other kindred tribes. 
 
 The Norman position in France, indeed, in much 
 resembled that of the Spartan in Greece. He had forced 
 a settlement with scanty numbers in the midst of a su b- 
 jugated and sullen population, surrounded by jealous ai d 
 formidable foes. Hence sobriety was a condition of h:s 
 being, and the policy of the chief lent a willing ear to the 
 lessons oi the preacher. Like the Spartan, every Norman 
 of pure race was free and ivMe ; and this consciousness 
 inspired not only that remarkable dignity of mien which 
 Suarfan and Norman alike possessed, but also that iascuii- 
 ous self-respect which would have revolted from exnibit- 
 ing a spectacle of debasement to inferiors. And, lastly, 
 as the paucity of their original numbers, the perils that 
 beset, and the good fortune that attended them, served to 
 render the Spartans the most religious of all the Greeks 
 in their dependence on tlie Divine aid, so, perhaps, to the 
 same causes may be traced the proverbial piety of the 
 ceremonial Normans ; they carried into their new creed 
 something of feudal loyalty to tlieir spiritual protectors, 
 dill homage to the Virgin for the lands tliat she vouch- 
 safed to bestow, and recognized in St. Michael the chief 
 who conducted their armies. 
 
 After hearing the complin vespers in the temporary 
 chajiel fitted up in that unfinislied abbey of Westminster, 
 which occupied the site of the temple of Apollo,^ the 
 
 1 Camden. — A cliurcli was built out of the ruins of that temple 
 by Sihert, Kiiii; of the East Saxons; and Canute favored much 
 the small moiinsUny attaclied to it (originally established by Dun- 
 stau for twelve Benedictines), on ncconut of its Abbot Wuluoth, 
 whoso sofietv pleased liiiii. Tlie old palace of Canute, in Thorney 
 Isle, had been destroyed by fire.
 
 HAROLD. 
 
 4.Q 
 
 king and his guests repaired to their evening meal in 
 the great hall of tlie palace. Below the dais were ranged 
 three long tables for the knights in William's train, and 
 that flower of the Saxon nobility who, fond, like all 
 youth, of change and imitation, thronged the court of 
 their Normanized saint, and scorned the rude patriotism 
 of their fathers. But hearts truly English were not 
 there. Yea, many of Godwin's noblest foes sighed for 
 the English-hearted earl, banished by Norman guile on 
 behalf of English law. 
 
 At the oval table on the dais the guests were select 
 and chosen. At the right hantl of the king sat William ; 
 at the left, Odo of Bayeux. Over these three stretched 
 a canopy of cloth-of-gold ; the chairs on which each sat 
 were of metal, richly gilded over, and the arms carved 
 in elaborate arabesques. At this table, too, was the 
 king's nephew, the Earl of Hereford, and, in right of 
 kinsmanship to the duke, the Norman's beloved baron 
 and grand seneschal, William Fitzosborne, who, though 
 in Normandy even he sat not at the duke's table, was, 
 as related to his lord, invited by Edward to his own. No 
 other guests were admitted to this board, so that, save 
 Edward, all were Norman. The dishes were of gold and 
 silver, the cups inlaid with jewels. Before each guest 
 was a knife, with hilt adorned by precious stones, and 
 a napkin fringed with silver. The meats were not 
 placed on the table, hut served upon small spits, and 
 between every course a basin of perfumed water was 
 borne round by high-born pages. No dame graced the 
 festival ; for she who should have presided — -she, match- 
 less for beauty without pride, piety without asceticism, 
 and learning without pedantry — she, the pale rose of 
 England, loved daughter of Godwin, and loathed wife of 
 Edward, had shared in the fall of her kindred, and had 
 
 VOL. I. — 4
 
 £0 HAROLD. 
 
 been sent by tbe meek king, or his fierce oounsellors, to 
 an abbey in Hampshire, with the taunt " that it was not 
 meet that the child and sister shouhl enjoy state and 
 pomp while the sire and brethren ate the bread of the 
 stranger in banishment and disgrace." 
 
 But, hungry as were the guests, it was not the custom 
 of that holy court to fall to without due religious ceremo- 
 nial. The rage for psalm-singing was then at its height 
 in England : psalmody had excluded almost every other 
 description of vocal music ; and it is even said that great 
 festivals on certain occasions were preluded by no less 
 an etfort of lungs and memory than the entire songs 
 bequeathed to us by King David ! This day, however, 
 Hugoline, Edward's Norman chamberlain, had been 
 pleased to abridge the length of the prolix grace •, and 
 the company were let off, to Edward's surprise and dis- 
 pleasure, with the curt and unseemly preparation of only 
 nine psalms and one special hymn, in honor of some 
 obscure saint to whom the day was dedicated. This per- 
 formed, the guests resumed their seats, Edward murmur- 
 ing an apology to William for the strange omission of 
 his chamberlain, and saying thrice to himself, " Naught, 
 naught, — very naught." 
 
 The mirth languished at the royal table, despite some 
 gay efforts from Rolf, and some hollow attempts at light- 
 hearted cheerfulness from the great duke, whose eyes, 
 wandering down the table, were endeavoring to distin- 
 guish Saxon from Norman, and count how many of the 
 first might already be reckoned in the train of his friends. 
 But at the long tables below, as the feast thickened, and 
 ale, mead, pigment, morat, and wine circled round, the 
 tongue of the Saxon was loosed, and the Norman knight 
 lost somewhat of his su])erb gravity. It was just as what 
 a Danish poet called the " sun of the night " (in other
 
 HAROLD. 51 
 
 words, the fierce warmth of the wine) had attained its 
 meridian glow, that some slight disturbance at the doors 
 <jf the hall, without which waited a dense crowd of the 
 poor, on whom the fragments of the feast were afterwards 
 to be bestowed, was followed by the entrance of two 
 strangers, for whom the officers appointed to marshal the 
 entertainment made room at the foot of one of the tables. 
 Both these newcomers were clad with extreme plainness : 
 one in a dress, though not quite monastic, that of an 
 ecclesiastic of low degree ; the other, in a long, gray man- 
 tle and loose gonna, the train of which last was tucked 
 into a broad, leathern belt, leaving bare the leggings, 
 which showed limbs of great bulk and sinew, and Avhich 
 were stained by the dust and mire of travel. The first- 
 mentioned was slight and small of person ; the last was 
 of the height and port of the sons of Anak. The counte- 
 nance of neither could be perceived, for both had let fall 
 the hood, worn by civilians as by priests out of doors, 
 more than half-way over their faces. 
 
 A murmur of great surprise, disdain, and resentment at 
 the intrusion of strangers so attired, circulated round the 
 neighborhood in which they had been placed, checked 
 for a moment by a certain air of respect which the officer 
 had shown towards both, but especially the taller ; but 
 breaking out with greater vivacity from the faint 
 restraint, as the tall man unceremoniously stretched 
 across the board, drew towards himself an immense flagon, 
 which (agreeably to the custom of arranging the feast in 
 " messes " of four) had been specially appropriated to 
 Ulf the Dane, Godrith the Saxon, and two young Nor- 
 man knights akin to the puissant Lord of Grantmesnil, 
 — and having offered it to his comrade, who shook his 
 head, drained it with a gusto that seemed to bespeak him 
 at least no Norman, and wiped his lips boorishly with 
 the sleeve of his huge arm. _
 
 52 HAROLD. 
 
 " Dainty sir," said one of those Norman knights, 
 "William Mallet, of the house of Mallet de Graville,^ as 
 he moved as far from the gigantic intruder as the space 
 on the settle would permit, " forgive the observation that 
 you have damaged my mantle, you have grazed my foc^t, 
 and you have drunk my wine. And vouchsafe, if it so 
 please you, the face of the man who hath done this triple 
 wrong to William Mallet de Graville." 
 
 A kind of laugh — for laugh absolute it was not — rat- 
 tled under the cowl of the tall stranger, as he drew it 
 still closer over his face, with a hand that might have 
 spanned the breast of his interrogator, and he made a 
 gesture as if he did not understand the question addressed 
 to him. 
 
 Therewith the Norman knight, bending with demure 
 courtesy across the board to Godrith the ISaxon, said, — 
 
 " Pardex^ but this fair guest and seigneur seemeth to 
 me, noble Godree (whose name I fear my lips do but 
 rudely enounce), of Saxon line and language, — our 
 Romance tongue he knoweth not. Pray you, is it the 
 Saxon custom to enter a king's hall so garbed, and drink 
 a knight's wine so mutely % " 
 
 Godrith, a young Saxon of considerable rank, but one 
 of the most sedulous of the imitators of the foreign 
 fashions, colored high at the irony in the knight's speech ; 
 and turning rudely to the huge guest, who was now caus- 
 ing immense fragments of pastry to vanish under the 
 cavernous cowl, he said in his native tongue, though with 
 a lisp, as if unfamiliar to him, — 
 
 ^ See note to Pluquet's " Romau de Rou," p. 28.5. 
 
 N. B. — Whenever the " Roman de Rou " is quoted in these 
 pages, it is from the excellent edition of M. Pkiquet. 
 
 ^ Pardex, or Pard€, corresponding to the modern French exple- 
 tive, pa) die.
 
 HAROLD, 63 
 
 " If thou beest Saxon, shame us not with thy ceorHsh 
 manners ; crave pardon of this Norman thegn, who will 
 doubtless yield to thee in pity. Uncover thy face — 
 and — " 
 
 Here the Saxon's rebuke was interrupted ; for one of 
 the servitors, just then approaching Godrith's side with 
 a spit, elegantly caparisoned with some score of plump 
 larks, the unmannerly giant stretched out his arm within 
 an inch of the Saxon's startled nose, and possessed him- 
 self of larks, broche, and all. He drew off two, which 
 he placed on his friend's platter despite all dissuasive ges- 
 ticulations, and deposited the rest upon his own. The 
 young banqueters gazed upon the spectacle in wrath too 
 full for words. 
 
 At last spoke Mallet de Graville, with an envious eye 
 upon the larks, — for though a Norman was not glut- 
 tonous, he was epicurean : " Certes, and foi de chevalier ! 
 a man must go into strange parts if he wish to see mon- 
 sters ; but we are fortunate people " (and he turned to 
 his Norman friend Aynier, Quen ^ or Count D'Evereux), 
 " that we have discovered Polyphemus without going so 
 far as Ulysses ; " and, pointing to the hooded giant, he 
 quoted appropriately enough, — 
 
 " Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum." 
 
 The giant continued to devour his larks as compla- 
 cently as the ogre to whom he was likened might have 
 devoured the Greeks in his cave. But his fellow-intruder 
 seemed agitated by the sound of the Latin ; he lifted up 
 his head suddenly, and showed lips glistening with white, 
 even teeth, and curved into an approving smile, while he 
 
 1 Quen or rather Quens, — synonymous with Count, in the Nor- 
 man Chronicles. Earl Godwin is .strangely styled by Wace, Queiia 
 Gunne.
 
 54 HAROLD. 
 
 said : '* Bene, mi fiU ! bene, lepidissime, poetce verba, in 
 militis ore, non indecora sonant." ^ 
 
 The young Normau stared at the speaker, and replied, 
 in the same tone of grave affectation, " Courteous sir ! 
 the approbation of an ecclesiastic so eminent as I take you 
 to be, from the modesty with which you conceal your 
 greatness, cannot fail to draw upon me the envy of my 
 English friends, Avho are accustomed to swear in verba 
 viagistri, only for verba they learnedly substitute vina." 
 
 " You are pleasant, Sire Mallet," said Godrith, redden- 
 ing ; " but I know well that Latin is only fit for monks 
 and shavelings ; and little enow even they have to boast 
 of." 
 
 The Norman's lip curled in disdain. " Latin ! — O 
 Godree, bien aime I — Latin is the tongue of Ciesars and 
 senators, /or^es conquerors and prenx chevaliers. Knowest 
 thou not that Duke William the dauntless at eight years 
 old had the Comments of Julius Caesar by heart? — and 
 that it is his saying, that ' a king without letters is a 
 crowned ass ' ? ^ When the king is an ass, asinine are his 
 subjects. Wherefore go to school, speak respectfully of 
 thy betters, the monks and shavelings, who with us are 
 often brave captains and sage councillors, and learn that 
 a full head makes a weighty hand." 
 
 " Thy name, young knight ? " said the ecclesiastic, in 
 Norman French, though with a slight foreign accent. 
 
 " I can give it thee," said the giant, speaking aloud for 
 the first time, in the same language, and in a rough voice, 
 ■which a quick ear might have detected as disguised, — - 
 " I can describe to thee name, birth, and quality. By 
 
 1 " Good, good, pleasant son, — the words of the poet sound 
 gracefully on the lips of the knight." 
 
 - A sentiment variously assigned to William and to his son 
 Hcnrv the Beau Clei-c.
 
 HAEOLD. 55 
 
 name, this youth is Guillaume Mallet, sometimes styled 
 De Graville, because our Norman gentilhommes, forsooth, 
 must always now have a ' de ' tacked to their names ; 
 nevertheless he hath no other right to the seigneurie of 
 Graville, which appertains to the head of his house, than 
 may he conferred by an old tower on one corner of the 
 demesnes so designated, with lands that would feed one 
 horse and two villeins, — if they were not in pawn to a 
 Jew for moneys to buy velvet mantelines and a chain of 
 gold. By birth, he comes from Mallet,^ a bold I^or- 
 wegian in the fleet of Rou the Sea-king ; his mother was 
 a Frank woman, from whom he inherits his best posses- 
 sions, — videlicet, a shrewd wit and a railing tongue. 
 His qualities are abstinence, for he eateth nowhere save 
 at the cost of another, — some Latin, for he was meant 
 for a monk, because he seemed too slight of frame for a 
 warrior ; some courage, for, in spite of his frame, he slew 
 three Burgundians with his own hand ; and Duke William, 
 among other foolish acts, spoilt a friar sans tache, by making 
 a knight sans terre ; and for the rest - — ■ " 
 
 " And for the rest," interrupted the Sire de Graville, 
 turning white with wrath, but speaking in a low repressed 
 voice, " were it not that Duke William sat yonder, thou 
 shouldst have six inches of cold steel in thy huge carcase 
 to digest thy stolen dinner, and silence thy unmannerly 
 tongue — " 
 
 " For the rest," continued the giant indifferently, and 
 as if he had not heard the interruption, — " for the rest, 
 he only resembles Achilles, in being impiger, iracundus. 
 Big men can quote Latin as well as little ones, Messire 
 Mallet the hean clerc ! " 
 
 Mallet's hand was on his dagger, and his eye dilated 
 like that of tlie panther before he springs ; but fortu- 
 1 Mallet is a genuine Scandinavian name to this day.
 
 56 HAROLD. 
 
 nately, at that moment, the deep, sonorous voice of 
 William, accustomed to send its sounds down the ranks 
 of an army, rolled clear through the assemblage, though 
 pitched little above its ordinary key : — 
 
 " Fair is your feast, and bright your wine, Sir King 
 and brother mine ! But I miss here what king and 
 knight hold as the salt of the feast and the perfume to 
 the wine, — the lay of the minstrel. Beshrew me, but 
 both Saxon and iS^orman are of kindred stock, and love 
 to hear in hall and bower the deeds of their northern 
 fatliers. Crave I therefore from your gleemen, or har- 
 pers, some song of the olden time ! " 
 
 A murmur of applause went through the Norman part 
 of the assembly ! the Saxons looked i;p ; and some of the 
 more practised courtiers sighed wearily, for they knew 
 well what ditties alone were in favor with the saintly 
 Edward. 
 
 The low voice of the king in reply was not heard, but 
 those habituated to read liis countenance in its very faint 
 varieties of expression might have seen that it conveyed 
 reproof ; and its purport soon became practically known, 
 when a lugul^rious prelude was heard from a quarter of 
 the hall in which sat certain ghost-like musicians in white 
 robes, — white as winding-sheets ; and forthwith a dolo- 
 rous and dirgelike voice chanted a long and most tedious 
 recital of the miracles and martyrdom of some early saint. 
 So monotonous was the chant, that its effects soon became 
 visible in a general drowsiness ; and when Edward, who 
 alone listened with attentive delight, turned towards the 
 close to gather sympathizing admiration from his distin- 
 guished guests, he saw his nei)hew yawning as if his jaw 
 were dislocated, the Bishop of Bayeux, with his well- 
 ringed fingers interlaced and resting on his stomach, fast 
 asleep ; FiLzosborne's half-shaven head balancing to and
 
 HAROLD. 57 
 
 fro with many an uneasy start ; and "William, wide 
 awake, indeed, but with eyes fixed on vacant space, and 
 his soul far away from the gridiron to which (all other 
 saints he praised !) the saint of the ballad had at last 
 happily arrived. 
 
 " A comforting and salutary recital, Count William," 
 said the king. 
 
 The duke started from his reverie, and bowed his head : 
 then said rather abruptly, " Is not yon blazon that of 
 King Alfred ? " 
 
 " Yea. Wherefore 1 " 
 
 " Hem ! Matilda of Flanders is in direct descent from 
 Alfred : it is a name and a line the Saxons yet honor ! " 
 
 " Surely, yes ; Alfred was a great man, and reformed 
 the Psalmster," replied Edward. 
 
 The dirge ceased, but so benumbing had been its effect, 
 that the torpor it created did not subside with the cause. 
 There was a dead and funereal silence throughout the 
 spacious hall, when suddenly, loudly, mightily, as tiie 
 blast of the trumpet upon the hush of the grave, rose a 
 single voice. All started — all turned — all looked to 
 one direction ; and they saw that the great voice pealed 
 from the farthest end of the hall. From under his gown 
 the gigantic stranger had drawn a small three-stringed 
 instrument, — somewhat resembling the modern lute, — 
 and thus he sang : — 
 
 THE BALLAD OF ROU.i 
 I. 
 
 From Blois to Senlis, wave by wave, rolled on the Norman 
 
 flood, 
 Ana frank on Frank went drifting down the weltering tide of 
 
 blood ; 
 
 1 J^on — the name gl^•en hy the French to Rollo, or Rolf-gauger, 
 tlie founder of the Norman settlement.
 
 58 HAROLD. 
 
 There was not left in all the land a castle wall to fire, 
 And not a wife but wailed a lord, a child but mourned a sire. 
 To C!harles the king, the mitred monks, the mailed barons flew, 
 While, shaking earth, behind them strode the thunder march 
 of Ron. 
 
 II. 
 
 " O king," then cried those barons bold, " in vain are mace 
 
 and mail, 
 We fall before the Norman axe as corn before the hail." 
 " And vainly," cried the pious monks, " by Mary's shrine we 
 
 kneel. 
 For prayers, like arrows, glance aside against the Norman 
 
 steel." 
 The barons groaned, the shavelings wept, while near and 
 
 nearer drew. 
 As death-birds round their scented feast, the raven flags of 
 
 Rou. 
 
 III. 
 
 Then said King Charles, " Where thousands fail, what king 
 
 can stand alone ? 
 The strength of kings is in the men that gather round the 
 
 throne. 
 When war dismays my barons bold, 't is time for war to cease; 
 When Heaven forsakes my pious monks, the will of Heaven is 
 
 peace. 
 Go forth, my monks, with mass and rood, the Norman camp 
 
 unto. 
 And to the fold, with shepherd crook, entice this grisly Rou. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " I '11 give him all the ocean coast from Michael Mount to 
 
 Eure, 
 And Gille, my child, shall be his bride, to bind him fast and 
 
 sure ;
 
 HAROLD. 59 
 
 Let liiin but kiss the Christian cross, and sheathe the heathen 
 
 sword, 
 And hold the lands I cannot keep, a fief from Charles his 
 
 lord." 
 Forth went the pastors of the Cburcli, the shepherd's work to do. 
 And wrap the golden fleece around the tiger loins of Rou. 
 
 V. 
 
 Psalm-chanting came the shaven monks within the camp of 
 
 dread ; 
 Amidst his warriors Norman Rou stood taller by the head. 
 Out spoke the Frank archbishop then, a priest devout and 
 
 sage, 
 •' When peace and plenty wait thy word, what need of war and 
 
 rage ? 
 Why waste a land as fair as aught beneath the arch of blue. 
 Which might be thine to sow and reap ? — Thus saith the king 
 
 to Rou : 
 
 VI. 
 
 •' ' I '11 give thee all the ocean coast from Michael Mount to 
 Eure, 
 
 And Gille, my fairest child, as bride, to bind thee fast and 
 sure ; 
 
 If thou but kneel to Christ our God, and sheathe thy paynim 
 sword, 
 
 And hold thy land, the Church's son, a fief from Charles thy 
 lord.' " 
 
 The Norman on his warriors looked, — to counsel they with- 
 drew ; 
 
 The saints took pity on the Franks, and moved the soul of Rou. 
 
 VII. 
 
 So back he strode and thus he spoke to that archbishop meek : 
 " I take the land thy king bestows from Eure to Michael-peak, 
 I take the maid, or foul or fair, a bargain with the coast. 
 And for thy creed, a sea-king's gods are those that give the 
 
 most. 
 So hie thee back, and tell thy chief to make his profiler true, 
 And he shall finrl a docile son, and ye a saint in Rou."
 
 60 IIAKOLD. 
 
 VIII. 
 So o'er the border stream of Epte came Rou the Norman, 
 
 where, 
 Begirt with barons, sat the king, enthroned at green St. Clair; 
 He placed his hand in Charles's hand, — loud shouted all the 
 
 throng, 
 But tears were in King Charles's eyes, — the grip of Rou was 
 
 strong. 
 " Now kiss the foot," the bishop said, " that homage still is 
 
 due ; " 
 Then dark the frown and stern the smile of that grim convert, 
 
 Rou. 
 
 IX. 
 
 He takes the foot, as if the foot to slavish lips to bring ; 
 
 The Normans scowl ; he tilts the throne, and backward falls 
 
 the king. 
 Loud laugh the joyous Norman men, — pale stare the Franks 
 
 aghast ; 
 And Rou lifts up his head as from the wind springs up the 
 
 mast : 
 " I said I would adore a God, but not a mortal too ; 
 The foot that fled before a foe let cowards kiss! " said Rou. 
 
 No words can express the excitement which this rough 
 minstrelsy — marred as it is by our poor translation from 
 tlie Romance tongue in which it was chanted — produced 
 amongst the Norman guests ; less perhaps, indeed, the 
 song itself, than the recognition of the minstrel ; and as 
 he closed, from more than a liundred voices came the 
 loud murmur, only subdued from a shout by the royal 
 presence, " Taillefer, our Norman Taillefer ! " 
 
 " By our joint saint, Peter, my cousin the king," 
 exclaimed William, after a frank, cordial laugh ; " well I 
 wot, no tongue less free than my warrior minstrel's could 
 have so shocked our ears. Excuse his bold theme for the 
 sake of his bold heart, I pray thee ; and since I know
 
 HAROLD. 61 
 
 well " (here the duke's face grew grave and anxious) 
 " that nouglit save urgent and weighty news from ni}- 
 stormy realm could have brought over this rhyming 
 petrel, permit the officer behind me to lead hither a bird, 
 I fear, of omen as well as of song." 
 
 " Whatever pleases thee, pleases me," said Edward, 
 dryly ; and he gave the order to the attendant. In a few 
 moments, up the space in the hall, between eitlier table, 
 came the large stride of the famous minstrel, preceded by 
 the officer, and followed by the ecclesiastic. The hoods 
 of both were now thrown back, and discovered counte- 
 nances in strange contrast, but each equally worthy of 
 the attention it provoked. The face of the minstrel was 
 open and sunny as the day, and that of the priest dark 
 and close as night. Thick curls of deep auburn (the 
 most common color for the locks of the Xorman) wreathed 
 in careless disorder round Taillefer's massive, unwriukled 
 brow. His eye, of light hazel, was bold and joyous ; 
 mirth, though sarcastic and sly, mantled round his lips. 
 His whole presence was at once engaging and heroic. 
 
 On the other hand, the priest's cheek was dark and 
 sallow ; his features singularly delicate and refined ; his 
 forehead high, but somewhat narrow, and crossed with 
 lines of thought ; his mien composed, modest, but not 
 without calm self-confidence. Amongst that assembly of 
 soldiers, noiseless, self-collected, and conscious of his sur- 
 passing power over swords and mail, moved the Scholar. 
 
 William's keen eye rested on the priest with some sur- 
 prise, not unmixed with pride and ire ; but first address- 
 ing Taillefer, who now gained the foot of the dais, he 
 said, with a familiarity almost fond, — 
 
 " Now, by 'r lady, if thou bringest not ill news, thy 
 gay face, man, is pleasanter to mine eyes than thy rough 
 song to my ears. Kneel, Taillefer, kneel to King
 
 62 HAROLD. 
 
 Edward, and with more address, rogue, than our unlucky 
 countryman to King Charles." 
 
 But Edward, as ill-lilcing the form of the giant as the 
 subject of his lay, said, pushing back his seat as far as he 
 could, — 
 
 "iS^ay, nay, we excuse thee, we excuse thee, tall man." 
 Nevertheless, the minstrel still knelt, and so, with a look 
 of profound humility, did the priest. Then both slowly 
 rose, and at a sign from the duke passed to the other side 
 of the table, standing behind Fitzosborne's chair. 
 
 " Clerk," said William, eying deliberately the sallow 
 face of the ecclesiastic, " I know thee of old ; and if the 
 Church have sent me an envoy />er la resplendar De, it 
 should have sent me at least an abbot." 
 
 ^^ Hein, Heinf" said Taillefer, bluntly ; " vex not my 
 hon camarade, Count of the Normans. Gramercy, thou 
 wilt welcome him, peradventure, better than me ; for the 
 singer tells but of discord, and the sage may restore the 
 harmony." 
 
 " Ha ! " said the duke ; and the frown fell so dark over 
 his eyes that the last seemed only visible by two sparks 
 of fire. "I guess my proud Vavasours are mutinous. 
 Retire, thou and thy comrade. Await me in my chamber. 
 The feast shall not flag in London because the wind blows 
 a gale in Rouen." 
 
 The two envoys, since so they seemed, bowed in silence 
 and withdrew. 
 
 " Nought of ill-tidings, I trust," said Edward, who had 
 not listened to the whispered communications that had 
 passed between the duke and his subjects. " No schism 
 in thy church 1 The clerk seemed a peaceful man, and 
 a humble." 
 
 " An there were schism in my church," said the fiery 
 duke, " my brother of Bayeux would settle it by argu- 
 ments as close as the gap between cord and throttle."
 
 HAHOLD. 63 
 
 "Ah ! til on art, doubtless, well read in the canons, holy 
 Odo ! " said the king, turning to the bishop with more 
 respect than he had yet evinced towards that gentle 
 prelate. 
 
 "Canons, yes, seigne— , 7 -^-"- +,h-.n up myself for my 
 flock, conformably with such niterpretations of the Roman 
 Church as suit best witli the jS^orman ro'dm : and wo*^ to 
 deacon, motm, or aoboo, who chooses to misconstrue 
 
 them ! '' ^ 
 
 The bishop looked so truculent and menacing, while 
 his fancy thus conjured up the possibility of heretical 
 dissent, that Edward shrank from him as he had done 
 from Taillefer ; and in a few minutes after, on excliange 
 of signals between himself and t]ie duke, who, impatient 
 to escape, was too stately to testify that desire, the 
 retirement of the royal party broke up the banquet ; 
 save, indeed, that a few of the elder Saxons and more 
 incorrigible Danes still steadily kept their seats, and were 
 finally dislodged from their later settlements on the stone 
 floors, to find themselves, at dawn, carefully propped in a 
 row against the outer walls of the palace, with their 
 patient attendants, holding links, and gazing on their 
 masters with stolid envy, if not of the repose, at least of 
 the drugs that had caused it. 
 
 1 Pions severity to the heterodox was a Norman virtue. 
 William of Poictiers says of William, " One knows with what zeal 
 he pursued and exterminated those who thought differently ; " 
 that is, on transubstantiation. But the wise Norman, while flatter- 
 ing the tastes or ihe ivoniitn pontiff in such matters, took special 
 care to preserve the independence of his church from any undue 
 dictatio'i.
 
 64 IlAJiOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 " And now," said Williaui, reclining on a long and narrow 
 couch, witn raised carved-work all round it like a box 
 (the approved fashion of a bed in those days), "now. Sire 
 Taillefer, — thy news." 
 
 There were then in the duke's chamber the Count 
 Fitzosborne, Lord of Breteuil, surnaiued " the Proud 
 Spirit," — who, with great dignity, was holding before 
 the brazier the ample tunic of linen (called dormitorimn 
 in the Latin of tliat time, and night-rail in the Saxon 
 tongue), in which his lord was to robe his formidable 
 limbs for repose,-^ — Taillefer, who stood erect before the 
 duke as a Roman sentry at his post, and the ecclesiastic, 
 a little apart, with arms gathered under his gown, and his 
 bright dark eyes fixed on the ground. 
 
 " Higli and puissant, my liege," then said Taillefer, 
 gravely, and with a shade of sympathy on his large face, 
 " my news is such as is best told briefly : Bunaz, Count 
 d' Eu and descendant of Richard Sanspeur, hath raised 
 the standard of revolt." 
 
 " Go on," said the duke, clinching his hand. 
 
 *' Henry, King of the French, is treating with the rebel, 
 and stirring up mutiny in thy realm, and pr-^tenders to 
 thy throne." 
 
 " Ha ! " said the duke, and his lip quivered ; " this is 
 not all?" 
 
 1 A few generations later this comfortable and decent fashion 
 of night-gear was abandoned ; and our forefathers, Saxon and 
 Norman, went to bed In purls nnturalihus, like the Laplanders.
 
 HAKOLD. 65 
 
 " No, my liege ! and the worst is to come. Thy uncle 
 Matager, knowing that thy heart is bent on thy speedy 
 nuptials with the high and noble damsel, Matilda of 
 Flanders, has broken out again in thine absence, — is 
 preaching against thee in hall and from pulpit. He de- 
 clares that such espousals are incestuous, both as within 
 the forbidden degrees, and inasmuch as Adele, the lady's 
 mother, was betrothed to thine uncle Kichard ; and 
 Manger menaces excommunication if my liege pursues 
 his suit ! ^ So troubled is the realm, that I, waiting not 
 for debate in council, and fearing sinister ambassage if 
 I did so, took ship from thy port of Cherburg, and have 
 not flagged rein, and scarce broken bread, till I could .^^ay 
 to the heir of Kolf the Founder,' Save thy realm from the 
 men of mail, and thy bride from the knaves in serge.' " 
 
 " Ho, ho ! " cried William ; then bursting forth in full 
 wrath as he sprang from the couch, " Hearest thou this, 
 Lord Seneschal 1 Seven years, the probation of the 
 patriarch, have I wooed and waited ; and lo, in the 
 seventh does a proud priest say to me, ' Wrench the love 
 from thy heart-strings ! ' — excommunicate me — me — 
 William, the son of Robert the Devil ! Ha ! by God's 
 splendor, Mauger shall live to wish the father stood, in 
 the foul fiend's true likeness, by his side, rather than 
 brave the bent brow of the son ! " 
 
 1 Most of the chroniclers merely state the parentage within the 
 forbidden degrees as the obstacle to William's marriage witli 
 Matilda ; bnt the betrothal or rather unptials of her mother Adele 
 with Richard III. (though never consummated) appears to have 
 been the true canonical objection. — See note to Wace, p. 27. 
 Nevertheless, Matilda's mother Adele stood in the relation of aunt 
 to William, as widow of his father's eUler brother, " an affinity," as 
 is observea by a writer in the ArrJuE'ilorjia, " quite near enough 
 to account for, if not to justify, the interference of the Church." — 
 Arrli. vol. x.xxii. p. 109. 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 HAROLD. 
 
 "Dread my lord," said Fitzosborne, desisting from his 
 employ, and rising to his feet ; " thou knowest that I am 
 thy true friend and leal knight ; thou knowest how I 
 have aided thee in this marriage with the lady of Flan- 
 ders, and how gravely I think that what pleases thy fancy 
 will guard thy realm ; — but rather than brave the order 
 of the. Church and the ban of the Pope, I would see thee 
 wed to the poorest virgin in Normandy." 
 
 William, who had Ijeen pacing the room like an en- 
 raged lion in his den, halted in amaze at this bold speech. 
 
 "This from thee, William Fitzosborne! — from thee! 
 I tell thee, that if all the priests in Christendom, and all 
 the barons in France, stood l^etween me and my bride, I 
 would hew my way through the midst. Foes invade my 
 realm, — let them ; princes conspire against me, — I 
 smile in scorn ; subjects mutiny, — this strong hand can 
 punish, or this large heart can forgive. All these are the 
 dangers which he who goveriis men should prepare to 
 meet ; but man has a right to his love, as the stag to his 
 hind. And he who wrongs me here, is foe and traitor 
 to me, not as Norman duke, but as human being. Look 
 to it, — thou and thy proud barons, look to it ! " 
 
 " Proud may thy barons be," said Fitzosborne, redden- 
 ing, and with a brow that quailed not before his lord's ; 
 "for they are the sons of those who carved out the realm 
 of the Norman, and owned in Rou but the feudal chief 
 of free warriors ; vassals are not villeins. And tliat which 
 we hold our duty, — whether to Church or chief, — that, 
 Duke William, tliy proud barons will doubtless do ; nor 
 less, believe me, for threats which, braved in discharge of 
 duty and defence of freedom, we hold as air." 
 
 The duke gazed on his haughty subject with an eye in 
 wdiich a meaner spirit might have seen its doom. The 
 veins in his broad temples swelled like cords, and a li-'-'.t
 
 HAKOLD. 67 
 
 foam gathereii round his quivering lips. But fiery and 
 fearless as William was, not less was he sagacious and 
 profound. In that one man he saw the representative of 
 that superb and matchless chivalry, — that race of races, 
 — those men of men, in whom tlie brave acknowlecl,tj;e 
 the highest example of valiant deeds, and the free the 
 manliest assertion of noble thoughts, ^ since the day when 
 the last Athenian covered his liead with his mantle, and 
 mutely died ; and far from being the most stubborn 
 against his will, it was to Fitzosborne's paramount 
 influence with the council that he had often owed their 
 submission to his wishes, and their contributions to his 
 wars. In the very tempest of his wrath, he felt that the 
 blow he longed to strike on that bold head would shiver 
 his ducal throne to the dust. He felt, too, that awful 
 indeed was that power of the Church which could thus 
 turn against him the heart of his truest knight : and he 
 began (for with all his outward frankness his temper was 
 suspicious) to wrong the great-souled noble by the thought 
 that he might already be won over by the enemies whom 
 Mauger had arrayed against his nuptials. Therefore, with 
 one of those rare and mighty efforts of that dissimulation 
 
 ^ It might be easy to show, were this the place, that though the 
 Saxons never lost their love of liberty, yet that the victories which 
 gradually regained the liberty from tlie grip of the Auglo-Noriiiau 
 kings, were achieved by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. And even 
 to tliis day, the few rare descendants of that race (whatever their 
 political faction) will generally exhibit that impatience of despotic 
 influence, and that disdain of corruption, which characterize the 
 homely bonders of Norway, in whom we may still recognize the 
 sturdy likeness of their fathers; wliile it also remarkable tliat 
 the modern inhabitants of those portions of the kingdom originally 
 peopled by their kindred Danes, are, irrespective of mere party 
 divisions, noted for their intolerance of all oppression, and their 
 resolute independence of character : to wit, Yorkshire, Norfolk, 
 Cumberland, and large districts in the Scottish lowlands.
 
 68 HAROLD. 
 
 which debased his character, but acliieved his fortunes, 
 he cleared his brow of its dark cloud, and said in a low 
 voice, that was not without its pathos, — 
 
 " Had an angel from heaven forewarned me that 
 William Fitzosborne would speak thus to his kinsman 
 and brother in arms, in the hour of need and the agony of 
 passion, I would have disbelieved him. Let it pass — " 
 
 But ere the last word was out of his lips, Fitzosborne 
 had fallen on his knees before the duke, and, clasping his 
 hand, exclaimed, while the tears rolled down his swarthy 
 cheek, " Pardon, pardon, my liege ! when thou speakest 
 thus, my heart melts. What thou wiliest, that will I ! 
 Church or Pope, no matter. Send me to Flanders ; I will 
 bring back thy bride." 
 
 The slight smile that curved William's lip, showed that 
 he was scarce worthy of that sublime weakness in his 
 friend. But he cordially pressed the hand that grasped 
 his own, and said, " Rise ; thus should brother speak to 
 brother." Then — for his wrath was only concealed, not 
 stifled, and yearned for its vent — his e^'^e fell upon the 
 delicate and thouglitful face of the priest, who had 
 watched this short and stormy conference in profound 
 silence, despite Taillefer's whispers to him to interrupt 
 the dispute. " So, priest," he said, " I remember me that 
 when Mauser before let loose his rebellious tongue, thou 
 didst lend thy pedant learning to eke out his brainless 
 treason. Methought that I then banished thee my 
 realm?" 
 
 " i^ot so. Count and Seigneur," answered the eccle- 
 siastic, with a grave but arch smile on his lip; "let nie 
 remind thee, that to speed me back to my native laud 
 thou didst graciously send me a horse, halting on three 
 legs and all lame on the fourth. Thus mounted, I met 
 thee on my road. I saluted thee ; so did the beast, for
 
 HAROLD. 69 
 
 his head well-nigh touched the ground. "Whereon I did 
 ask thee, in a Latin play of words, to give me at least a 
 quadruped, not a tripod, for my journey.^ Gracious even 
 in ire, and with relenting laugh, was thine answer. My 
 liege, thy words implied banishment, — thy laughter, 
 pardon. So I stayed." 
 
 Despite his wrath, William could scarcely repress a 
 smile ; but, recollecting himself, he rei>lied, more gravely, 
 " Peace with this levity, priest. Doubtless thou art the 
 envoy from this scrupulous Manger, or some other of my 
 gentle clergy ; and thou comest, as doubtless, with soft 
 words and whining homilies. It is in vain. I liold the 
 Church in holy reverence ; the pontiff knows it. But 
 Matilda of Flanders I have wooed ; and Matilda of 
 Flanders shall sit by my side in the halls of Rouen, or on 
 the deck of my war-ship, till it anchors on a land worthy 
 to yield a new domain to the son of the Sea-king." 
 
 " In the halls of Rouen — and it may be on the throne 
 of England — shall Matilda reign by the side of William," 
 said the priest, in a clear, low, and empliatic voice ; " and 
 it was to tell my lord the duke that I repent me of my 
 first unconsidered obeisance to Mauger as my spiritual 
 superior ; that since then I have myself examined canon 
 and precedent ; and though the letter of the law be 
 against thy spousals, it comes precisely under the category 
 of those alliances to which the fathers of the Church 
 accord dispensation : — it is to tell thee this, that I, plain 
 Doctor of Laws and priest of Pavia, have crossed the 
 seas." 
 
 " Ha Ron ! — Ha Rou ! " cried Taillefer, with his usual 
 
 1 Ex pervetiisto codice, MS. Chron. Bee. in Vif. Lanfrnnr, quoted 
 in the Archceologia, vol. xxxii. p. 109. Tlie joke, which is very 
 poor, seems to have turned upon pede aud quadrupede \ it is a 
 little altered iu the te.\t.
 
 70 HAROLD. 
 
 hluffness, and laughing with great glee, "why wouldst 
 thou not listen to me, monseigiieur 1 " 
 
 " If tliou deceivest me not," said William, in surprise, 
 "and thou canst make good thy words, no prelate in 
 Keustria, save Odo of Bayeux, shall lift his head high as 
 thine." And here William, deeply versed in the science 
 of men, bent his eyes keenly upon the unchanging and 
 earnest face of the speaker. "Ah," he burst out, as if 
 satisfied with the survey, "and my mind tells me that 
 thou speakest not thus boldly and calmly without ground 
 sufficient. Man, I like thee. Thy name] I forget 
 it." 
 
 " Lanfranc of Pavia, please yon, my lord ; called some- 
 times, ' Lanfranc the Scholar ' in thy cloister of Bee. 
 ISTor misdeem me, tliat I, humble, unmitred priest, should 
 be thus bold. In birth I am noble, and my kindred stand 
 near to the grace of our ghostly pontiff; to the pontiff I 
 myself am not unknown. Did I desire honors, in Italy 
 I might seek them ; it is not so. I crave no guerdon for 
 the service I proffer ; none but this, — leisure and books 
 in the Convent of Bee." 
 
 " Sit down, — nay, sit, man," said William, greatly 
 interested, but still suspicious. " One riddle only I ask 
 thee to solve before I give thee all my trust, and place 
 my very heart in thy hands. Why, if thou desirest not 
 rewards, shouldst thou thus care to serve me, — thou, a 
 foreigner 1 " 
 
 A light, brilliant and calm, shone in the eyes of the 
 scholar, and a blush spread over his pale cheeks. 
 
 " My Lord Prince, .1 will answer in plain words. But 
 first permit me to be the questioner." 
 
 The priest turned towards Fitzosborne, who had seated 
 himself on a stool at William's feet, and, leaning his chin 
 on his hand, listened to the ecclesiastic, not more with
 
 HAROLD. 71 
 
 devotion to his calling, than wonder at the influence one 
 po obscure was irresistibly gaining over his own martial 
 spirit, and William's iron craft. 
 
 " Lovest thou not, William Lord of Breteuil, — lovest 
 thou not fame for the sake of fame ? " 
 
 " Sur man dme, — yes ! " said the baron. 
 
 " And thou, Taillefer the minstrel, lovest thou not song 
 for the sake of song 1 " 
 
 ''For song alone," replied the mighty minstrel. " More 
 gold in one ringing rhyme than in all the coffers of Chris- 
 tendom." 
 
 " And marvellest thou, reader of men's hearts," said 
 the scholar, turning once more to William, " that the 
 student loves knowledge for the sake of knowledge? 
 Born of high race, poor in purse, and slight of thews, 
 betimes I found wealth in books, and drew strength from 
 lore. I heard of the Count of Rouen and the Normans, 
 as a prince of small domain, with a measureless spirit, 
 a lover of letters, and a captain in war. I came to thy 
 ducliy, I noted its subjects and its prince, and the words 
 of Themistocles rang in my ear : ' I cannot play the lute, 
 but I can make a small state great.' I felt an interest 
 in thy strenuous and troubled career. I believe that 
 knowledge, to spread amongst the nations, must first find 
 a nursery in the brain of kings ; and I saw in the deed- 
 doer the agent of the thinker. In those espousals, on 
 which with untiring obstinacy thy heart is set, I might 
 sympathize with thee ; perchance " (here a melancholy 
 smile fitted over the student's pale lips), " perchance 
 even as a lover : priest though I be now, and dead to 
 human love, once I loved, and I know what it is to strive 
 in hoi)e, and to waste in despair. But my sympathy, I 
 own, was more given to the prince than to the lover. It 
 was natural that I, priest and foreigner, should obey at
 
 72 HAKOLD, 
 
 first the orders of Mauger, archprelate and spiritual chief, 
 and tlie more so as the law was with him : but wlieu I 
 resolved to stay, despite thy sentence which banished me, 
 I resolved to aid thee ; for if with Manger was the dead 
 law, with thee was the living canse of man. Duke 
 William, on thy nuptials with Matilda of Flanders rests 
 thy duchy, — rest, perchance, the mightier sceptres that 
 are yet to come. Thy title disputed, thy principality new 
 and nnestablished, thou, above all men, must link thy 
 new race with the ancient line of kings and kaisars. 
 Matilda is the descendant of Charlemagne and Alfred. 
 Th}^ realm is insecure as long as France undermines it 
 with plots, and threatens it with arms. Marry the 
 daughter of Baldwin, and thy wife is the niece of Henry 
 of France, — thine enemy becomes thy kinsman, and 
 must, perforce, be thine ally. This is not all ; it were 
 strange, looking round this disordered royalty of Eng- 
 land, — a childless king, who loves thee better than his 
 own blood ; a divided nobility, already adopting the 
 fashions of the stranger, and accustomed to shift their 
 faith from Saxon to Dane, and Dane to Saxon ; a people 
 that has respect indeed for brave chiefs, but, seeing new 
 men rise daily from new houses, has no reverence for 
 ancient lines and hereditary names ; with a vast mass of 
 villeins or slaves that have no interest in the land or its 
 rulers : strange, seeing all this, if tliy day-dreams have 
 not also beheld a jS^orman sovereign on the throne of 
 Saxon England. And thy marriage with the descendant 
 of the best and most beloved prince that ever ruled these 
 realms, if it does not give thee a title to the land, may 
 help to conciliate its afiections, and to fix thy posterity 
 in the halls of their mother's kin. Have I said eno' to 
 ])rove why, for the sake of nations, it were wise for the 
 pontiff to stretch the harsh girths of the law 1 why I
 
 HAROLD. 73 
 
 might be enabled to prove to the Court of Rome the 
 policy of conciliating the love, and strengthening the 
 hands of the Norman count who may so become the main 
 prop of Christendom ? Yea, have I said eno' to prove 
 that the humble clerk can look on mundane matters with 
 the eye of a man w^ho can make small states great ? " 
 
 William remained speechless, — his hot blood thrilled 
 with a half-superstitious awe ; so thoroughly had tliis 
 obscure Lombard divined, detailed all the intricate 
 meshes of that policy with which he himself had inter- 
 woven his pertinacious aifection for the Flemish princess, 
 that it seemed to him as if he listened to the echo of his 
 own heart, or heard from a soothsayer the voice of his 
 most secret thouglits. 
 
 The priest continued : — 
 
 "Wherefore, thus considering, I said to myself, Now 
 has the time come, Lanfranc the Lombard, to prove to 
 thee whether thy self-boastings have been a vain deceit, 
 or whether, in this age of iron and amidst this lust of 
 gold, thou, the penniless and the feeble, canst make know- 
 ledge and wit of moi'e avail to the destinies of kings than 
 armed men and filled treasuries. I believe in that power. 
 I am ready for the test. Pause, judge from what the 
 Lord of Breteuil hath said to thee, what will be the 
 defection of thy lords if the Pope confirm the threatened 
 excommunication of thine uncle. Thine armies will rot 
 from thee ; thy treasures will be like dry leaves in thy 
 coifers ; the Duke of Bretagne will claim thy duchy as 
 the legitimate heir of thy forefathers ; the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy will league with the King of France, and march on 
 thy faithless legions under the banner of the Churcli. 
 The handwriting is on the walls, and thy sceptre and thy 
 crown will pass away." 
 
 William set his teeth firmly, and breathed hard.
 
 74 HABOLD. 
 
 " But send me to Rome, thy delegate, and tlie tluindel* 
 of jMauger shall fall powerless. Marry Matilda, bring 
 her to thy halls, place her on thy throne, laugh to scorn 
 the interdict of thy traitor uncle, and rest assured that 
 the Pope shall send thee his dispensation to thy spousals, 
 and his benison on thy marriage-bed. And when tliis he 
 done, Duke William, give me not abbacies and prelacies, 
 — multiply books, and stablish schools, and bid thy ser- 
 vant found the royalty of knowledge, as thou shalt found 
 the sovereignty of war." 
 
 The duke, transported from himself, leaped up and 
 embraced the priest with his vast arms ; he kissed his 
 cheeks, he kissed his forehead, as, in those days, king 
 kissed king with " the kiss of peace." 
 
 " Lanfranc of Pavia," he cried, " whether thou succeed 
 or fail, thou hast my love and gratitude evermore. As 
 thou speakest, would I have spoken, had I been born, 
 framed, and reared as thou. And, verily, when I hear 
 thee, I blush for the boasts of my barbarous pride, that 
 no man can wield my mace, or bend my bow. Poor ia 
 the strength of body, — a web of law can entangle it, and 
 a word from a priest's mouth can palsy. But thou ! — 
 let me look at thee." 
 
 William gazed on the pale face ; from head to foot he 
 scanned the delicate, slender form, and then turning away, 
 he said to Fitzosborne, — 
 
 " Thou, whose mailed hand hath felled a war-steed, art 
 thou not ashamed of thyself ? The day is coming, I see 
 it afar, when these slight men shall set their feet upon 
 our corslets." 
 
 He paused as if in thought, again paced the room, and 
 stopped before the crucifix, and image of the Virgin, 
 which stood in a niche near the bed-head. 
 
 "Right, noble prince," said tlie priest's low voice.
 
 HAROLD. 75 
 
 " Pause there for a solution to all enigmas ; there view 
 the symbol of all-enduring power ; there learn its ends 
 below, — comprehend the account it must yield above. 
 To your thoughts and your prayers we leave you." 
 
 He took the stalwart arm of Taillefer as he spoke, and, 
 with a grave obeisance to Fitzosborne, left the chamber.
 
 76 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The next morning William was long closeted alone with 
 Lanfranc, — that man, among the must remarkable of his 
 age, of whom it was said, that " to comprehend the 
 extent of his talents, one must be Herodian in grammar, 
 Aristotle in dialectics, Cicero in rhetoric, Augustine and 
 Jerome in Scriptural lore," ^ — ^ and ere the noon the 
 duke's gallant and princely train were ordered to be in 
 readiness for return home. 
 
 The crowd in the broad space, and the citizens from 
 their boats in the river, gazed on the knights and steeds 
 of that goigeous comfiany, already drawn up and await- 
 ing without the open gates the sound of the trumpets 
 that should announce the duke's departure. Before the 
 hall-door in tlie inner-court were his own men. The 
 snow-white steed of Odo ; the alezan of Fitzosborne ; and, 
 to the marvel of all, a small palfrey, plainly caparisoned, 
 "What did that palfrey amid those steeds 1 — the steeds 
 themselves seemed to chafe at the companionshi}) ; the 
 duke's charger pricked up his ears and snorted ; the Lord 
 of Breteuil's alezan kicked out, as the poor nag humbly 
 drew near to make acquaintance ; and the prelate's white 
 barb, with red, vicious eye, and ears laid down, ran 
 fiercely at the low-bred intruder, with difficulty reined 
 in by the squires, who shared the beast's amaze and 
 resentment. 
 
 1 Ord. Vital.
 
 HAROLD. 77 
 
 Meanwhile the duke thoughtfully took his way to 
 Edward's apartments. In the anteroom were many 
 monks and many knights ; but conspicuous amongst 
 them all was a tall and stately veteran, leaning on a 
 great, two-lianded sword, and whose dress and fashion of 
 beard were those of the last generation, the men who had 
 fought with Canute the Great, or Edmund Ironsides. 
 So grand was the old man's aspect, and so did he contrast 
 in appearance the narrow garb and shaven chins of those 
 around, that the duke was roused from his reverie at the 
 sight, and marvelling why one, evidently a chief of high 
 rank, had neither graced the banquet in his honor, nor 
 been presented to his notice, he turned to the Earl of 
 Hereford, who approached him with gay salutation, and 
 inquired the name and title of the bearded man in the 
 loose, flowing robe. 
 
 " Know you not, in truth ? " said the lively earl in 
 some wonder. " In him you see the great rival of 
 Godwin. He is the hero of the Danes, as Godwin is 
 of the Saxons, a true son of Odin, Siward Earl of the 
 Korthumbrians." ^ 
 
 " Xotre Dame be my aid, — his fame hath oft filled 
 my ears, and I should have lost the most welcome sight 
 in merrie England had I not now beheld him." 
 
 ^ Siward was almost a giant (pefie gigas statura). There are 
 some curious anecdotes of this hero, immortalized by Shakespeare, 
 in the " Bromton Clironicle." His grandfather is said to have 
 been a bear, who fell in love with a Danish lady ; and his father, 
 Beoru, retained some of the traces of the parental physiognomy in 
 a pair of pointed ears. The origin of this fable seems evident. 
 His grandfather was a Berserker: for whether that name be 
 derived, as is more generally supposed, from bare-sark, or rather 
 from bear-sark, — that is, whether this grisly specimen of the Vik- 
 ing genus fought in his shirt or his bear-skin, — the name equally 
 lends itself to those mystifications from which half the old legends, 
 whether of Greece or Norway, are derived.
 
 78 HAROLD. 
 
 Therewith the duke approached courteously, and, 
 doffing the cap he had hitlierto retained, lie greeted the 
 old hero with those compliments which the Norman had 
 already learned in the courts of the Frank. 
 
 The stout earl received them coldly, and replying in 
 Danish to William's Romance tongue, he said, — 
 
 " Pardon, Count of the Normans, if these old lips 
 cling to their old words. Both of us, methinks, date our 
 lineage from the lands of the Norse. Suifer Siward to 
 speak the language the sea-kings spoke. The old oak is 
 not to be transplanted, and the old man keeps the ground 
 where his youth took root." 
 
 The duke, who with some difficulty comprehended the 
 general meaning of Siward's speech, bit his lip, but 
 replied courteously, — 
 
 " The youths of all nations may learn from renowned 
 age. Much doth it shame me that I cannot commune 
 with thee in the ancestral tongue ; but the angels at 
 least know the language of the Norman Christian, and 
 I pray them and the saints for a calm end to thy brave 
 career." 
 
 " Pray not to angel or saint for Siward son of Beorn," 
 said the old man, hastily ; " let me not have a cow's 
 death, but a warrior's : die in my mail of proof, axe in 
 hand, and helm on head. And such may be my death, 
 if Edward the king reads my rede and grants my prayer." 
 
 " I have influence with the king," said William ; 
 " name thy wish, that I may back it." 
 
 " The fiend forefend," said the grim earl, " that a 
 foreign prince should sway England's king, or that thegn 
 and earl should ask other backing than leal service and 
 just cause. If Edward be the saint men call him, he will 
 loose me on the hell-wolf without other cry than his own 
 conscience."
 
 HAROLD. 79 
 
 The duke turned inquiringly to Eolf ; who, thus 
 appealed to, said, — 
 
 " Siward urges my uncle to espouse the cause of 
 Malcolm of Cumbria against the bloody tyrant Macbeth ; 
 and but for the disputes with the traitor Godwin, the 
 king had long since turned his arms to Scotland." 
 
 " Call not traitors, young man," said the earl, in high 
 disdain, " those who, with all their faults and crimes, 
 have placed thy kinsman on the throne of Canute." 
 
 " Hush, Eolf," said the iluke, observing the fierce 
 young Norman about to reply hastily. " But methought, 
 though my knowledge of English troubles is but scant, 
 that Siward was the sworn foe to Godwin ?" 
 
 " Foe to him in his power, friend to him in his 
 wrongs," answered Siward. " And if England needs 
 defenders when I and Godwin are in our shrouds, there 
 is but one man worthy of the days of old, and his name 
 is Harold, the outlaw." 
 
 William's face changed remarkably, despite all his dis- 
 simulation ; and, with a slight inclination of his head, he 
 strode on, moody and irritated. 
 
 " This Harold! this Harold ! " he muttered to himself, 
 "all brave men speak to me of this Harold! Even my 
 Norman knights name him with reluctant reverence, and 
 even his foes do him honor ; — verily his shadow is cast 
 from exile over all the land." 
 
 Thus murmuring, he passed the throng with less than 
 his wonted affable grace, and pushing back the officers 
 who wished to precede him, entered, without ceremony, 
 Edward's private chamber. 
 
 The king was alone, but talking loudly to himself, gestic- 
 ulating vehemently, and altogether so changed from his 
 ordinary placid apathy of mien, that William drew back 
 in alarm and awe. Often had he heard indirectly, that
 
 80 HAROLD. 
 
 of late years Edward was said to see visions, and be rapt 
 from himself into the world of spirit and shadow ; and 
 such, he now douhted not, was the strange paroxysm of 
 which he was made the witness. Edward's eyes were 
 fixed on him, but evidently without recognizing his pres- 
 ence ; the king's hands were outstretched, and he cried 
 aloud in a voice of sharp anguish, — 
 
 "■ Sanguelac, Sanguelac / — the Lake of Blood! — the 
 waves spread, the waves redden ! Mother of mercy, — 
 where is the ark 1 — where the Ararat ? — Fly — fly — 
 this way — this — "and he caught convulsive liold of 
 William's arm. " Xo / there the corpses are piled — high 
 and higher — there the horse of the Apocalypse tramples 
 the dead in their gore." 
 
 In great horror, William took the king, now gasping 
 on his breast, in his arms, and laid him on his bed 
 beneath its canopy of state, all blazoned with the mart- 
 lets and cross of his insignia. Slowly Edward came to 
 himself, with heavy sighs ; and when at length he sat 
 up and looked round, it was with evident unconscious- 
 ness of what had passed across his haggard and wander- 
 ing spirit, for he said with his usual drowsy calmness, — 
 
 " Thanks, Guillaume, hien aime, for rousing me from 
 unseasoned sleep. How fares it with thee ? " 
 
 " Nay, how with thee, dear friend and king ? thy dreams 
 have been troubled." 
 
 "Not so ; I slept so heavily, methinks I could not have 
 dreamed at all. But thou art clad as for a journey, — 
 spur on thy heel, staff in thy hand ! " 
 
 " Long since, dear host, I sent Odo to tell thee of the 
 ill news from Normandy that compelled me to depart." 
 
 " I remember — I remember me now," said Edward, 
 passing his pale womanly fingers over his forehead. 
 " The heathen rage against thee. Ah ! my poor brother,
 
 HAROLD. 81 
 
 a crown is an awful head-gear. While yet time, wliy 
 not both seek some quiet convent, and put away these 
 earthly cares 1 " 
 
 William smiled and shook his head. " Nay, holy 
 Edward, from all I have seen of convents, it is a dream 
 to think that the monk's serge hides a calmer breast than 
 the warrior's mail, or the king's ermine. Now give me 
 thy benison, for I go." 
 
 He knelt as he spoke, and Edward bent his hands over 
 his head, and blessed him. Then, taking from his own 
 neck a collar of zimmes (jewels and uncut gems), of great 
 price, the king threw it over the broad throat bent before 
 him, and rising, clapped his hands. A small door opened, 
 giving a glimpse of the oratory Avithin, and a monk ap- 
 peared. 
 
 " Father, have my behests been fulfilled 1 — hath 
 Hugoline, my treasurer, dispensed the gifts that I spoke 
 ofl" 
 
 " Verily, yes ; vault, coffer, and garde-robe — stall and 
 meuse — are well-nigh drained," answered the monk with 
 a sour look at the Norman, whose native avarice gleamed 
 in his dark eyes as he heard the answer. 
 
 " Thy train go not hence empty-handed," said Edward, 
 fondly. " Thy father's halls shelter the exile, and the 
 exile forgets not the sole pleasure of a king — the power 
 to requite. We may never meet again, William, — age 
 creeps over me, and who will succeed to my thorny 
 throne 1 " 
 
 William longed to answer, to tell the hope that con- 
 sumed him, — to remind his cousin of the vague promise 
 in their youth, that the Norman count should succeed 
 to that " thorny throne ; " but the presence of the Saxon 
 monk repelled him, nor was there in Edward's uneasy 
 look much to allure him on. 
 
 VOL. I. — 6
 
 82 HAKOLD. 
 
 " But peace," continued the king, " be between thine 
 and mine, as between thee and me ! " 
 
 " Amen," said the duke, " and I leave thee at least free 
 from the proud rebels who so long disturbed thy reign. 
 This House of Godwin, thou wilt not again let it tower 
 above thy palace 1 " 
 
 " ISTay, the future is with God and bis saints," answered 
 Edward, feebly. " But Godwin is old, — older than I, — 
 and bowed by many storms." 
 
 " Ay, his sons are more to be dreaded, and kept aloof, 
 — mostly Harold ! " 
 
 " Harold, — he was ever obedient, he alone of his 
 kith ; truly my soul mourns for Harold," said the king, 
 
 OI 
 
 siglnng. 
 
 The serpent's egg hatches but the serpent. Keep thy 
 heel on it," said William, sternly. 
 
 " Thou speakest well," said the irresolute prince, who 
 never seemed three days or three minutes together in the 
 same mind. " Harold is in Ireland, — there let him rest : 
 better for all." 
 
 " For all," said the duke ; " so the saints keep thee, 
 royal saint ! " 
 
 He kissed the king's hand, and strode away to the hall 
 where Odo, Fitzosborne, and the priest Lanfranc awaited 
 him. And so that day, half-way towards the fair town of 
 Dover, rode Duke William, and by the side of his roan 
 barb ambled the priest's palfrey. 
 
 Behind came his gallant train, and with tumbrils and 
 sumpter-mules laden with baggage, and enriched by 
 Edward's gifts ; while Welsh hawks, and steeds of great 
 price from the pastures of Surrey, and the plains of 
 Cambridge and York, attested no less acceptably than 
 zimme, and golden chain, and broidered robe, the munifi- 
 cence of the grateful king.^ 
 
 1 Wace.
 
 HAROLD. 83 
 
 As they journeyed on, and the fame of the duke's 
 coming was sent abroad by the bodes or messengers, 
 despatched to prepare the towns through Avhich he was 
 to pass for an arrival sooner than expected, the more 
 liigh-born j^ouths of England, especially those of the party 
 counter to that of the banished Godwin, came round the 
 ways to gaze upon that famous chief, who, from the age 
 of fifteen, had wielded the most redoubtable sword of 
 Christendom. And those youths wore the ]S"orman garb : 
 and, in the towns, Norman counts held his stirrup to dis- 
 mount, and l!^orman hosts spread the fastidious board ; 
 and when, at the eve of the next day, William saw the 
 pennon of one of his own favorite chiefs waving in the 
 van of armed men, that sallied forth from the towers of 
 Dover (the ke^^ of the coast), he turned to the Lombard, 
 still by his side, and said, — 
 
 " Is not England part of Xormandy already ? " 
 
 And the Lombard answered, — 
 
 " The fruit is well-nigh ripe, and the first breeze will 
 shake it to thy feet. Put not out thy hand too soon. 
 Let the wind do its work." 
 
 And the duke made reply, — 
 
 " As thou thinkest, so think I. And there is but one 
 wind in the halls of heaven that can waft the fruit to the 
 feet of another." 
 
 " And that 1 " asked the Lombard. 
 
 " Is the wind that blows from the shores of Ireland, 
 when it fills the sails of Harold, son of Godwin." 
 
 "Thoufearest that man, and why? "asked the Lom- 
 bard with interest. 
 
 And the duke answered, — 
 
 " Because in the breast of Harold beats the heart of 
 England."
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE HOUSE OP GODWIN. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 And all went to the desire of Duke William the Norman. 
 With one hand he curbed his proud vassals, and drove 
 back his fierce foes ; with tlie other he led to the altar 
 Matilda, the maid of Flanders, and all happened as 
 Lanf ranc had foretold. William's most formidable enemy, 
 the King of France, ceased to conspire against his new 
 kinsman ; and the neighboring princes said, " The Bas- 
 tard hath become one of us since he placed by his side 
 the descendant of Charlemagne." And Mauger, Arch- 
 bishop of Rouen, excommunicated the duke and his 
 bride, and the ban fell idle ; for Lanfranc sent from 
 Rome the Pope's dispensation and blessing, conditionally 
 only that bride and bridegroom founded each a church. 
 And ]\Iauger was summoned before the synod, and accused 
 of unclerical crimes ; and they deposed him from his state, 
 and took from him abbacies and sees. And England, 
 every day, waxed more and more Norman ; and Edward 
 grew more feeble and infirm, and there seemed not a bar- 
 rier between the Norman duke and the English throne, 
 •when suddenly the wind blew in the halls of heaven, and 
 filled the sails of Harold the Earl.
 
 86 HAROLD. 
 
 And his ships came to the mouth of the Severn. And 
 the people of Somerset and Devon, a mixed and mainly 
 a Celtic race, who bore small love to the Saxons, drew 
 together against him, and he put- them to flight.^ 
 
 Meanwhile, Godwin and his sons Sweyn, Tostig, and 
 Gurth, who had taken refuge in that very Flanders from 
 which William the Duke had won his bride — (for Tostig 
 had wed, previously, the sister of Matilda, the rose of 
 Flanders ; and Count Baldwin had for his sons-in-law 
 both Tostig and William) — meanwhile, I say, these, not 
 holpen by the Count Baldwin, but helping themselves, 
 lay at Bruges, ready to join Harold the P^arl. And 
 Edward, advised of this from the anxious Norm;;n, caused 
 forty ships ^ to be equipped, and put them under command 
 of Rolf, Earl of Hereford. The ships lay at Sandwich in 
 wait for Godwin. But the old earl got from them, and 
 landed quietly on the southern coast ; and the fort of 
 Hastings opened to his coming with a shout from its 
 armed men. 
 
 All the boatmen, all the mariners, far and near, thronged 
 to him, with sail and with shield, with sword and with 
 oar. All Kent (the foster-mother of the Saxons) sent 
 forth the cry, " Life or death with Earl Godwin." ^ Fast 
 over the length and breadth of the land went the bodes * 
 and riders of the earl ; and hosts, with one voice, answered 
 the cry of the children of Horsa, " Life or death with 
 Earl Godwin." And the ships of King Edward, in dis- 
 may, turned flag and prow to London, and the fleet of 
 Harold sailed on. So the old earl met his young son on 
 the deck of a war-ship that had once borne the Eaven of 
 the Dane. 
 
 1 " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle." ^ Some writers say fifty. 
 
 * Hovenden. * Bodes, — that is, messengers.
 
 HAROLD. 87 
 
 Swelled and gathering sailed the armament of the 
 English men. Slow up the Thames it sailed, and on 
 either shore marched tumultuous the swarming multi- 
 tudes. And King Edward sent after more help, but it 
 came up very late. So the fleet of the earl nearly faced 
 the Julliet Keape of London, and abode at Southwark till 
 the flood-tide came up. When he had mustered his 
 host, then came the flood-tide.-^ 
 
 1 " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle."
 
 88 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Xing Edward sat, not on his throne, but on a chair of 
 state in the presence-chamber of hit, palace of West- 
 minster. His diadem, with the three zimmes shaped 
 into a triple trefoil ^ ou his brow, his sceptre in his right 
 hand. His royal robe, tight to the throat, with a broad 
 band of gold, flowed to his feet ; and at the fold gathered 
 round the left knee, where now the kings of England 
 wear the badge of St. George, was embroidered a simple 
 cross.^ In that chamber met the thegns and proceres of 
 his realm : but not they alone. No national Witan there 
 assembled, but a council of war, composed at least one- 
 third part of Normans, ■ — counts, knights, prelates, and 
 abbots of high degree. 
 
 And King Edward looked a king ! The habitual 
 lethargic meekness had vanished from his face, and the 
 large crown threw a shadow, like a frown, over his brow. 
 His spirit seemed to have risen from the weight it took 
 from the sluggish blood of his father, Ethelred the 
 Unready, and to have remounted to the brighter and ear- 
 lier source of ancestral heroes. Worthy in that hour he 
 seemed to boast the blood and wield the sceptre of Athel- 
 stan and Alfred. 
 
 Thus spoke the king : — 
 
 " Right worthy and beloved, my ealdermen, earls, and 
 thegns of England ; noble and familiar, my friends and 
 
 ^ Or rienr-de lis, which seems to have been a common form of 
 ornament with tlie Saxon kings. 
 '■^ Bayeux tapestry.
 
 HAROLD. 89 
 
 guests, counts and chevaliers of Xormand}'', my mother's 
 land ; and you, our spiritual chiefs, above all ties of birth 
 and country, Christendom your common appanage, and 
 from Heaven your seignories and fiefs, — - hear the words 
 of Edward, the King of England, under grace of the Most 
 High. The rebels are in our river ; open yonder lattice, 
 and you will see the piled shields glittering from their 
 barks, and hear the hum of their hosts. Not a bow has 
 yet been drawn, not a sword left its sheath ; yet on the 
 opposite side of tlie river are our fleets of forty sail, — 
 along the strand, between our palace and the gates of 
 London, are arrayed our armies. And this pause because 
 Godwin the traitor hath demanded truce, and his nuncius 
 waits without. Are ye willing that we should hear the 
 message 1 or would ye rather that we dismiss the messen- 
 ger unheard, and pass at once, to rank and to sail, the 
 war-cry of a Christian king, ' Holy Crosse and our 
 Lady!'" 
 
 The king ceased, his left hand grasping firm the leopard 
 head carved on his throne, and his sceptre untrembling in. 
 his lifted hand. 
 
 A murmur of " N'otre Dame! Notre Dame /" the war- 
 cry of the Normans, was heard amongst the stranger- 
 knights of the audience ; but haughty and arrogant as 
 those strangers were, no one presumed to take precedence, 
 in England's danger, of men English born. 
 
 Slowly then rose Aired, Bishop of Winchester, the 
 worthiest prelate in all the land.-^ 
 
 1 The " York Chronicle," written by an Englishman, Stubhs, 
 gives tills eminent person an excellent character as peace-maker. 
 " He could make the warmest friends of foes the most hostile." 
 " De iuimicissimis, amicissimos faceret." This gentle priest had 
 yet the conrage to curse the Norman Conqueror in the midst of his 
 harons. That scene is not within the range of this work, but it is 
 very strikingly told iu the '" Chronicle."
 
 90 HAROLD. 
 
 "Kingly son," said the bishop, "evil is the strife 
 between men of the same blood and lineage, nor justified 
 but by extremes, which have not yet been made clear to 
 us. And ill would it sound throughout England were it 
 said that the king's council gave, perchance, his city of 
 London to sword and fire, and rent his land in twain, 
 when a word in season might have disbanded yon armies, 
 and given to your throne a submissive subject, where 
 now you are menaced by a formidable rebel. Wherefore, 
 I say, admit the nuncius." 
 
 Scarcely had Aired resumed his seat, before Robert the 
 Norman prelate of Canterbury started up — a man, it 
 was said, of worldly learning — and exclaimed, — 
 
 " To admit the messenger is to approve the treason. I 
 do beseech the king to consult only his own royal heart 
 and royal honor. Reflect : each moment of delay swells 
 the rebel hosts, — strengthens their cause ; of each 
 moment they avail themselves, to allure to their side the 
 misguided citizen.s. Delay but proves our own weakness ; 
 a king's name is a tower of strength, but only when forti- 
 fied by a king's authority. Give the signal for — tvar I 
 call it not — no — for chastisement and justice." 
 
 " As speaks my brother of Canterbury, speak I," said 
 "William, Bishop of London, another Norman. 
 
 But then there rose up a form at whose rising all mur- 
 murs were hushed. 
 
 Gray and vast, as some image of a gone and mightier 
 age, towered over all Siward the son of Beorn, the great 
 Earl of Northumbria. 
 
 "We have nought to do with the Normans. Were 
 they on the river, and our countrymen, Dane or Saxon, 
 alone in this hall, small doubt of the king's choice, and 
 niddering were the man who s})oke of peace ; but when 
 Norman advises the dwellers of England to go forth and
 
 HAROLD. 91 
 
 slay each other, no sword of mine shall be drawn at his 
 best. Who shall say that Siward of the Strong Arm, 
 the grandson of the Berserker, ever turned from a foe t 
 The foe, son of Ethelred, sits in these halls ; I fight thy 
 battles when I say Nay to the Norman ! Brothers-in- 
 arms of the kindred race and common tongue, Dane and 
 Saxon long intermingled, proud alike of Canute the 
 glorious and Alfred the wise, ye will hear the man whom 
 Godwin, our countryman, sends to us ; he at least will 
 speak our tongue, and he knows our laws. If the demand 
 he delivers be just, such as a king should grant, and our 
 Witan should hear, woe to him who refuses ; if unjust be 
 the demand, shame to him who accedes. Warrior sends 
 to warrior, countryman to countryman ; hear we as coun- 
 trymen, and judge as warriors. I have said." 
 
 The utmost excitement and agitation followed the 
 si)eech of Siward, — unanimous applause from the Sax- 
 ons, even those who in times of peace were most under 
 the Norman contagion ; but no words can paint the wrath 
 and scorn of the Normans. They spoke loud and many 
 at a time ; the greatest disorder prevailed. But the 
 majority being English, there could be no doubt as to 
 the decision, and Edward, to whom the emergence gave 
 both a dignity and presence of mind rare to him, resolved 
 to terminate the dispute at once. He stretched forth his 
 sceptre, and, motioning to his chamberlain, bade him 
 introduce the nuncius.^ 
 
 A blank disappointment, not unmixed with apprehen- 
 sive terror, succeeded the turbulent excitement of the 
 Normans ; for well they knew that the consequences, if 
 not condition, of negotiations would be their own down- 
 
 1 Heralds, though prohahly the word is Saxon, were not then 
 known in the modern acceptation of the word. The name given 
 to the messenger or envoy who fulfilled that office was bode or 
 nnucius.
 
 92 HAROLD, 
 
 fall and banishment at the least ; — happy, it might he, 
 to escape massacre at the hands of the exasperated 
 multitude. 
 
 The door at the end of the room opened, and the 
 nuncius appeared. He was a sturdy, broad-shouldered 
 man, of middle age, and in the long, loose garb originally 
 rational with the Saxon, though then little in vogue ; his 
 beard thick and fair, his eyes gray and calm — a chief of 
 Kent, where all the prejudices of his race were strongest, 
 and whose yeomanry claimed in war the hereditary right 
 to be placed in the front of battle. 
 
 He made his manly but deferential salutation to the 
 august council as he approached; and pausing midway 
 between the throne and door, he fell on his knees with- 
 out thought of shame, for the king to whom he knelt was 
 the descendant of Woden, and the heir of Hengist. At 
 a sign and a brief word from the king, still on his knees, 
 Vebba, the Kentman, spoke. 
 
 " To Edward, son of Ethelred, his most gracious king 
 and lord, Godwin, son of Wolnoth, sends faithful and 
 humble greeting, by Vebba, the thegn-born. He prays 
 the king to hear him in kindness, and judge of him with 
 mercy. Not against the king comes he hither with ships 
 and arms ; but against those only who would stand between 
 the king's heart and the subject's : those who have divided 
 a house against itself, and parted son and father, man 
 and wife — " 
 
 At those last words Edward's sceptre trembled in his 
 hand, and his face grew almost stern. 
 
 " Of the king, Godwin but prays with all submiss and 
 earnest prayer to reverse the unrighteous outlawry against 
 him and his ; to restore to him and his sons their just 
 possessions and well-won honors ; and, more than all, to 
 replace them where they have sought by loving service
 
 HAROLD. 93 
 
 not unworthily to stand, in the grace of their born lord, 
 and in the van of those who would uphold the laws and 
 liberties of England. This done, — the ships sail back to 
 their haven ; the thegn seeks his homestead, and the 
 ceorl returns to the plough ; for with Godwin are no 
 strangers : and his force is but the love of his coun- 
 trymen." 
 
 " Hast thou said 1 " quoth the king. 
 
 "I have said." 
 
 "Retire, and await our answer." 
 
 The Thegn of Kent was then led back into an ante- 
 room, in which, armed from head to heel in ring-mail, 
 were several Normans whose youth or station did not 
 admit them into the council, but still of no mean interest 
 in the discussion, from the lands and possessions they had 
 already contrived to gripe out of the demesnes of the 
 exiles ; — burning for battle and eager for the word. 
 Amongst these was Mallet de Graville. 
 
 The jS'orman valor of this young knight was, as we 
 have seen, guided by Norman intelligence ; and he had 
 not disdained, since William's departure, to study the 
 tongue of the country in which he hoped to exchange 
 his mortgaged tower on the Seine for some fair barony on 
 the Humber or the Thames, 
 
 While the rest of his proud countrymen stood aloof, 
 with eyes of silent scorn, from the homely nuncius. 
 Mallet approached him with courteous bearing, and said 
 in Saxon, — 
 
 " May I crave to know the issue of thy message from 
 the reb — that is, from the doughty earl ? " 
 
 " I wait to learn it," said Vebba, bluffly. 
 
 " They heard thee throughout, then ? " 
 
 "Throughout." 
 
 " Friendly sir," said the Sire de Graville, seeking to
 
 94 HAROLD. 
 
 subdue the tone of irony habitual to him, and acquired 
 perhaps from his maternal ancestry, the Franks — 
 " friendly and peace-making sir, dare I so far venture to 
 intrude on the secrets of thy mission as to ask if Godwin 
 demands, among otlier reasonable items, the head of thy 
 humble servant — not l)y name indeed, for my name is 
 as yet unknown to him — but as one of the unhappy 
 class called jNTormans 1 " 
 
 " Had Earl Godwin," returned the nuncius, " thought 
 fit to treat for peace by asking vengeance, he would have 
 chosen anotlier spokesman. The earl asks but his own ; 
 and thy head is not, I trow, a part of his goods and 
 chattels. " 
 
 " That is comforting." said Mallet. " Marry, I thank 
 thee, Sir Saxon ; and thou speakest like a brave man and 
 an honest. And if we fall to blows, as I suspect we 
 shall, I should deem it a favor of our Lady the Virgin if 
 she send thee across my way. Next to a fair friend I 
 love a bold foe," 
 
 Vebba smiled, for he liked the sentiment, and the tone 
 and air of the young knight pleased his rough mind, 
 despite his prejudices against the stranger. 
 
 Encouraged by the smile, Mallet seated himself on the 
 corner of the long table that skirted the room, and with 
 a debonnair gesture invited Vebba to do the same ; then 
 looking at him gravely, lie resumed, — 
 
 " So frank and courteous thou art, Sir Envoy, that I 
 yet intrude on thee my ignorant and curious questions." 
 
 " Speak out, Norman." 
 
 " How comes it, then, that you English so love this 
 Earl Godwin ? — Still more, why think you it right and 
 proper that King P^dward should love him too 1 It is a 
 question I have often asked, and to whicli T am not likely 
 in these halls to get answer satisfactory. If I know
 
 HAROLD, 95 
 
 auo-ht of yo'^ir troublous history, this same earl has 
 changed sides oft eno' ; first for the Saxon, then for 
 Canute the Dane: Canute dies, and your friend takes up 
 arms for the Saxon again. He yields to the advice of 
 your Witan, and sides with Hardicanute and Harold, the 
 Danes, — a letter, nathless, is written as from Emma, the 
 mother to the young Saxon princes, Edward and Alfred, 
 inviting them over to England, and promising aid ; the 
 saints protect Edward, who continues to say aves in 
 ^N'ormandy, — Alfred comes over, Earl Godwin meets 
 him, and, unless belied, does him homage, and swears to 
 him faith. Nay, listen yet. This Godwin, whom ye 
 love so, then leads Alfred and his train to the ville of 
 Guildford, I think ye call it — fair quarters enow. At 
 the dead of the night rush in King Harold's men, seize 
 prince and follower, six hundred men in all ; and next 
 morning, saving only every tenth man, they are tortured 
 and put to death. The prince is borne off to London, and 
 shortly afterwards his eyes are torn out in the Islet of 
 Ely, and he dies of the anguish ! Tliat ye should love 
 Earl Godwin withal may be strange, but yet possible. 
 But is it possible, cher Envoy, for the king to love the 
 man who thus betrayed his brother to the shambles 1 " 
 
 " All this is a JSTorman fable," said the Thegn of Kent," 
 with a disturbed visage ; " and Godwin cleared himself on 
 oath of all share in the foul murder of Alfred." 
 
 " The oath, I have heard, was backed," said the knight, 
 dryly, "by a present to Hardicanute, who, after the 
 death of King Harold, resolved to avenge the black 
 butchery ; a present, I say, of a gilt ship manned by 
 four-score warriors, with gold-hilted swords and gilt 
 helms. — But let this pass." 
 
 " Let it pass," echoed Vebba, with a sigh. " Bloody 
 were those times, and unholy their secrets."
 
 96 HAROLD. 
 
 "Yet, answer me still, why love ynu Earl Godwin'? 
 He hath changed sides from party to party, and in each 
 change won lordships and lands. He is amhitious and 
 grasping, ye all allow ; for the hallads sung in your 
 streets liken him to the thorn and the hramble, at which 
 the sheep leaves his avooL He is haughty and overbear- 
 ing Tell me, Saxon, frank Saxon, why you love 
 Godwin the Earl? Fain would I kiiow ; for, ])lease the 
 saints (and you and your earl so permitting), I mean to 
 live and die in this merrie England ; and it woulil be 
 pleasant to learn that I have but to do as Earl Godwin in 
 order to win love from the English." 
 
 The stout A^ebba looked perplexed ; but after stroking 
 his beard thoughtfully, he answered thus, — 
 
 " Thougli of Kent, and therefore in his earldom, I am 
 not one of Godwin's especial party ; for that reason was 
 I chosen his bode. Those who are under him doubtle.ss 
 love a chief liberal to give and strong to protect. The old 
 age of a great leader gathers reverence, as an oak gathers 
 moss. But to me, and those like me, living ])eaceful at 
 home, shunning courts, and tempting not broils, Godwin 
 the man is not dear — it is Godwin the thing" 
 
 " Though I do my best to know your language," said 
 the knight, " ye have phrases that miglit puzzle King 
 Solomon. What meanest thou by ' Godwin the thing' 1" 
 
 "That which to us Godwin only seems to uphold. 
 We love justice ; whatever his offences, Godwin was 
 banished unjustly. We love our laws ; Godwin was dis- 
 honored by maintaining them. We love England, and 
 are devoured by strangers ; Godwin's cause is England's, 
 and — ' stranger, forgive me for not concluding." 
 
 Then, examining the young Norman with a look of 
 rough compassion, he laid his large hand u[)on the 
 knight's shoulder and whispered, —
 
 HAKOLD. 97 
 
 " Take my advice — and fly." 
 
 " Fly ! " said De Graville, reddening. " Is it to fly, 
 think you, that I have put on my mail, and girded my 
 sword ? " 
 
 " Vain — vain ! Wasps are fierce, but the swarm is 
 doomed when the straw is kindled. I tell you this, — 
 fly in time, and you are safe ; but let the king be so mis- 
 guided as to count on arms, and strive against yon multi- 
 tude, and verily before nightfall not one iS^orman will be 
 found alive within ten miles of the city. Look to it, 
 youth ! Perhaps thou hast a mother, — let her not 
 mourn a son ! " 
 
 Before the Norman could shape into Saxon sufhciently 
 polite and courtly his profound and indignant disdain of 
 the counsel, his sense of the impertinence with which his 
 shoulder had been profaned, and his mother's son had 
 been warned, the nuncuis was again summoned into the 
 presence-chamber. Nor did he return into the anteroom, 
 but conducted forthwith from the council — his brief 
 answer received — to the stairs of the palace, he reached 
 the boat in which he had come, and was rowed back to 
 the ship that held the earl and his sons. 
 
 Now tliis was the manoeuvre of Godwin's array. His 
 vessels, having passed London Bridge, had rested awhile 
 on the banks of the southward suburb (Southweorde), — 
 since called South wark, — and the king's ships lay to the 
 north ; but the fleet of the earl's after a brief halt, veered 
 majestically round, and coming close to the palace of 
 Westminster, inclined northward, as if to hem the king's 
 ships. Meanwhile the land forces drew up close to the 
 Strand, almost within bow-shot of the king's troops, that 
 kept the ground inland : thus Vebba saw before him, so 
 near as scarcely to be distinguished from each other, on the 
 river the rival fleets, on the shore the rival armaments. 
 
 VOL. I. — 7
 
 98 HAROLD. 
 
 High above all the vessels towered the majestic bark, 
 or iesca, that had borne Harold from the Irish shores. 
 Its fashion was that of the ancient sea-kings, to one of 
 whom it had belonged. Its curved and mighty prow, 
 richly gilded, stood out far above the waves : the prow, 
 the head of the sea-snake, the stern its spire ; head and 
 spire alike ghttering in the sun. 
 
 The boat drew up to the lofty side of the vessel, a 
 ladder was lowered, the nuncius ascended lightly and 
 stood on deck. At the farther end grouped the sailors, 
 few in number, and at respectful distance from the earl 
 and his sons. 
 
 Godwin himself was but half-armed. His head was 
 bare, nor had he other weapon of offence than the gilt 
 battle-axe of the Danes, — weapon as much of office as 
 of war ; but his broad breast was covered with the ring- 
 mail of the time. His stature was lower than that of 
 any of his sons ; nor did his form exhibit greater physi- 
 cal strength than tliat of a man, well-shaped, robust, and 
 deep of chest, who still preserved in age the pith and 
 sinew of mature manhood. ISTeither, indeed, did legend 
 or fame ascribe to that eminent personage those romantic 
 achievements, those feats of purely animal prowess, which 
 distinguished his rival Siward. Brave he was, but brave 
 as a leader ; those faculties in which he appears to have 
 excelled all his contemporaries were more analogous to 
 the requisites of success in civilized times, than those 
 which won renown of old. And perhaps England was 
 the only country then in Europe which could have given 
 to those faculties their fitting career. He possessed essen- 
 tially the arts of party ; he knew how to deal with vast 
 masses of mankind ; he could carry along with his inter- 
 ests the fervid heart of the multitude; he had in the 
 highest degree that gift, useless in most other lands, —
 
 HAROLD. 99 
 
 in all lands where popular assemblies do not exist, — the 
 gift of popular eloquence. Ages elapsed, after the Nor- 
 man conquest, ere eloquence again became a power in 
 Encfland.^ 
 
 But like all men renowned for eloquence, he went with 
 the popular feeling of his times ; he embodied its pas- 
 sions, its prejudices; but also that keen sense of self- 
 interest, which is the invariable characteristic of a 
 multitude. He ivas the sense of the commonalty carried 
 to its highest degree. Whatever the faults, it may be 
 the crimes, of a career singularly prosperous and splendid, 
 amidst events the darkest and most terrible, — shining 
 with a steady light across the thunder-clouds, — he was 
 never accused of cruelty or outrage to the mass of the 
 people. English, emphatically, the English deemed him ; 
 and this not the less that in his youth he had sided wdth 
 Canute, and owed his fortunes to that king ; for so 
 intermixed were Danes and Saxons in England, that the 
 agreement which had given to Canute one half the king- 
 dom, had been received with general applause : and the 
 earlier severities of that great prince had been so re- 
 deemed in his later years by wisdom and mildness, — so, 
 even in the worst period of his reign, relieved by extra- 
 ordinary personal affability, and so lost now in men's 
 memories by pride in his power and fame, — that Canute 
 had left behind him a beloved and honored name,^ and 
 Godwin was the more esteemed as the chosen counsellor of 
 
 ^ When the chronicler praises the ,e;ift of speech, he uncon- 
 sciously proves the existence of constitutional freedom. 
 
 2 Recent Danish historians have in vain endeavored to detract 
 from the reputation of Canute as an Enr/hsh monarch. Tlie Danes 
 are, doubtless, the best authorities for his character in Denmark. 
 But our own English authorities are sufficiently decisive as to the 
 personal popularity of Canute in this country, and the affection 
 entertained for his laws.
 
 100 HAKOLD. 
 
 that popular prince. At his death, Godwin was known 
 to have wished, and even armed, for the restoration of 
 the Saxon line ; and only yielded to the determination of 
 the Witan, no doubt acted upon by the popular opinion. 
 Of one dark crime he was suspected ; and, despite his 
 oath to the contrary, and the formal acquittal of the 
 national council, doubt of his guilt rested then, as it rests 
 still, upon his name, — namely, the perfidious surrender 
 of Alfred, Edward's murdered brother. 
 
 But time had passed over the dismal tragedy ; and 
 there was an instinctive and prophetic feeling through- 
 out the English nation, that with the house of Godwin 
 was identified the cause of the English people. Every- 
 thing in this man's aspect served to plead in his favor. 
 His ample brows were calm with benignity and thought ; 
 his large, dark-blue eyes were serene and mild, though 
 their expression, when examined, was close and inscrut- 
 able. His mien was singularly noble, but wholly with- 
 out formality or affected state ; and though haughtiness 
 and arrogance were largely attributed to him, they could 
 be found only in his deeds, not manner : plain, familiar, 
 kindly to all men, his heart seemed as open to the 
 service of his countrymen as his hospitable door to their 
 wants. 
 
 Behind him stood the stateliest group of sons that ever 
 filled with pride a father's eye, each strikingly distin- 
 guished from the other, all remarkable for beauty of 
 countenance and strength of frame. 
 
 Sweyn, the eldest,^ had the dark hues of his mother, 
 
 1 Some of our historians erroneously represent Harold as tlie 
 eldest son. But Florence, the best authority we have, in the 
 silence of the " Saxon Chronicle," as well as Knyj^hton, distinctly 
 states Sweyn to be the eldest ; Harold was the second, and Tostig 
 was the third. Sweyn's seniority seems corroborated by the 
 greater importance of his earldom. The Norman chroniclers, in
 
 HAROLD. , 101 
 
 the Dane : a wild and mournful majesty sat upon features 
 aquiline and regular, but wasted by grief or passion; 
 raven locks, glossy even in neglect, fell half over eyes 
 hollow in their sockets, but bright, though with troubled 
 lire. Over his shoulder he bore his mighty axe. His 
 form, spare but of immense power, was sheathed in mail, 
 and he leaned on his great pointed Danish shield. At his 
 feet sat his young son Haco, a boy with a countenance 
 preternaturally thoughtful for his years, which were yet 
 those of childhood. 
 
 Next to him stood the most dreaded and ruthless of 
 the sons of Godwin, — he, fated to become to the Saxon 
 what Julian was to the Goth. With his arms folded on 
 his breast stood Tostig ; his face was beautiful as a 
 Greek's in all save the forehead, which was low and 
 lowering. Sleek and trim were his bright chestnut locks ; 
 and his arms were damascened with silver, for he was one 
 who loved the pomp and luxury of war. 
 
 Wolnoth, the mother's favorite, seemed yet in the first 
 flower of youth, but he alone of all the sons had some- 
 thing irresolute and efleminate in his aspect and bearing ; 
 his form, though tall, had not yet come to its full height 
 and strength ; and as if the weight of mail were unusual 
 to him, he leaned with both hands upon the wood of his 
 long spear. Leofwine, who stood next to Wolnoth, con- 
 trasted him notably ; his sunny locks wreathed carelessly 
 over a white, unclouded brow, and the silken hair on the 
 upper lip quivered over arch lips, smiling even in that 
 serious hour, 
 
 their spite to Harold, wish to make him iunior to Tostig — for the 
 reasons evident at the close of this work. And the Norwegian 
 chronicler, Snorro Sturleson, says that Harold was the youngest of 
 all the sons ; so little was really known, or cared to be accurately 
 known, of that great house which so nearly founded a new dynasty 
 of English kings.
 
 102 HAROLD. 
 
 At Godwin's right hand, but not immediately near him, 
 stood the last of the group, Gurth and Harold. Gurth 
 had passed his arm over the shoulder of his brother, and, 
 not watching the nuncius while he spoke, watched only 
 the efi'ect his words produced on the face of Harold. For 
 Gurth loved Harold as Jonathan loved David. And 
 Harold was the only one of the group not armed ; and 
 had a veteran skilled in war been asked who of that 
 group was born to lead armed men, he Avould have pointed 
 to the man v;narmed. 
 
 " So what says the king 1 " asked Earl Godwin. 
 
 " This : he refuses to restore thee and thy sons, or to 
 hear thee, till thou hast disbanded thine army, dismissed 
 thy ships, and consented to clear thyself and thy house 
 before the Witanagemot." 
 
 A fierce laugh broke from Tostig ; Sweyn's mournful 
 brow grew darker ; Leofwine placed his right hand on 
 his ategliar ; Wolnoth rose erect ; Gurth kept his eyes on 
 Harold, and Harold's face was unmoved. 
 
 " The king received thee in his council of war," said 
 Godwin, thoughtfully, " and doubtless the Normans were 
 there. Who were the Englishmen most of mark ?" 
 
 " Siward of Northumbria, thy foe." 
 
 " My sons," said the earl, turning to his children, and 
 breathing loud as if a load -weve off his heart, " there will 
 be no need of axe or armor to-day. Harold alone was 
 wise," and he pointed to the linen tunic of the sou thus 
 cited. 
 
 " What mean you. Sir Father 1 " said Tostig, imperi- 
 ously. "Think you to — " 
 
 " Peace, son, peace," said Godwin, without asperity, 
 but with conscious command. " Return, brave and dear 
 friend," he said to Vebba, " find out Siward the earl ; 
 tell him that I, Godwin, his foe in the old time, place
 
 HAROLD. 103 
 
 honor and life in his hands, and what he counsels that 
 will we do. — Go," 
 
 The Kentman nodded, and regained his boat. Then 
 spoke Harold. 
 
 " Father, yonder are the forces of Edward ; as yet 
 without leaders, since the chiefs must be still in the halls 
 of the king. Some fiery Norman amongst them may 
 provoke an encounter ; and this city of London is not 
 won, as it behoves us to win it, if one drop of English 
 blood dye the sword of one Englishman. Wherefore, 
 with your leave, I will take boat and land. And unless 
 I have lost in my absence all right lere in the hearts of 
 our countrymen, at the first shout from our troops which 
 proclaims that Harold, son of Godwin, is on the soil of 
 our fathers, half yon array of spears and helms pass at 
 once to our side." 
 
 " And if not, my vain brother ? " said Tostig, gnawing 
 his lip with envy. 
 
 " And if not, I will ride alone into the midst of them, 
 and ask what Englishmen are there who will aim shaft or 
 spear at this breast, never mailed against England ! " 
 
 Godwin placed his hand on Harold's head, and the tears 
 came to those close, cold eyes. 
 
 "Thou knowest by nature what I have learned by art. 
 Go, and prosper. Be it as thou wilt." 
 
 " He takes thy post, Sweyn, — thou art the elder," said 
 Tostig to the wild form by his side. 
 
 " There is guilt on my soul, and woe in my heart," 
 answered Sweyn, moodily. " Shall Esau lose his birth- 
 right, and Cain retain iti" So saying, he withdrew, and, 
 reclining against the stern of the vessel, leaned his face 
 upon the edge of his shield. 
 
 Harold watched him with deep compassion in his eyes, 
 passed to his side with a quick step, pressed his hand, and, 
 ■whisneredj " Peace to the past, my brother ! "
 
 104 HAROLD. 
 
 The boy Haco, who had noiselessly followed his father, 
 lifted his sombre, serious looks to Harold as he thus spoke ; 
 and when Harold turned away, he said to Sweyn, timidly, 
 "Zfe, at least, is ever good to thee and to me." 
 
 " And thou, when I am no more, shalt cling to him as 
 thy father, Haco," answered Sweyn, tenderly smoothing 
 back the child's dark locks. 
 
 The boy shivered ; and, bending his head, murmured 
 to himself, " When thou art no more ! no more ! Has 
 the Vala doomed Imn, too? Father and son, both?" 
 
 Meanwhile, Harold had entered the boat lowered from 
 the sides of the tesca to receive him ; and Gurth, looking 
 appealingly to his father, and seeing no sign of dissent, 
 sprang down after the young earl, and seated himself by 
 his side. 
 
 Godwin followed the boat with musing eyes. 
 
 " Small need," said he aloud, but to himself, " to 
 believe in soothsayers, or to credit Hilda the saga, when 
 she prophesied, ere we left our shores, that Harold — " 
 He stopped short, for Tostig's wrathful exclamation 
 broke on his reverie. 
 
 " Father, father ! My blood surges in my ears, and 
 boils in my heart, when I hear thee name the prophecies 
 of Hilda in favor of thy darling. Dissension and strife 
 in our house have they wrought already ; and if the feuds 
 between Harold and me have sown gray in thy locks, 
 thank thyself when, flushed with vain soothsayings for 
 thy favored Harold, thou saidst, in the hour of our first 
 childish broil, ' Strive not with Harold ; for his brothers 
 will be his men.' " 
 
 " Falsify the prediction," said Godwin, calmly ; " wise 
 men may always make their own future, and seize their 
 own fates. Prudence, patience, labor, valor ; these are 
 the stars that rule the career of mortals."
 
 HAROLD. 105 
 
 Tostig made no answer, for tlie splash of oars was 
 near, and two ships, containing the principal chiefs that 
 had joined Godwin's cause, came alongside the Runic 
 sesca to hear the result of the message sent to the king. 
 Tostig sprang to the vessel's side, and exclaimed, " Tlie 
 king, girt by his false counsellors, will hear us not, and 
 arms must decide between us." 
 
 "Hold, hold! malignant, unhappy boy !" cried God- 
 win, between his grinded teeth, as a shout of indignant, 
 yet joyous ferocity, broke from the crowded ships thus 
 hailed. " The curse of all time be on him who draws 
 the first native blood in sight of the altars and hearths 
 of London ! Hear me, thou with the vulture's blood- 
 lust, and the peacock's vain joy in the gaudy plume ! 
 Hear me, Tostig, and trenable. If but by one word thou 
 widen the breach between me and the king, outlaw thou 
 enterest England, outlaw shalt thou depart, — for earldom 
 and broad lands, choose the bread of the stranger, and 
 the weregeld of the wolf ! " 
 
 The young Saxon, haughty as he was, quailed at his 
 father's thrilling voice, bowed his head, and retreated 
 sullenly. Godwin sprang on the deck of the nearest 
 vessel, and all the passions that Tostig had aroused he 
 exerted his eloquence to appease. 
 
 In the midst of his arguments there rose from the 
 ranks on the strand the shout of " Harold ! Harold the 
 Earl ! Harold and Holy Crosse ! " And Godwin, turning 
 his eye to the king's ranks, saw them agitated, swayed, 
 and moving ; till suddenly from the very heart of tlie 
 hostile array came, as by irresistible impulse, the cry, 
 " Harold, our Harold ! All hail, the good earl ! " 
 
 While tliis chanced without, — within the palace, 
 Edward had quitted the presence-chamber, and was 
 closeted with Stigand, the bishop. This prelate had the
 
 106 HAROLD. 
 
 more influence witli Edward, inasmuch as, though Saxon, 
 he was held to be no enemy to the Normans, and had, 
 indeed, on a former occasion, been deposed from his 
 bishopric on the charge of too great an attacliraent to the 
 Norman queen-mother Emma.-' Never in his whole life 
 had Edward been so stubborn as on this occasion ; for 
 here more than his realm was concerned, — he was 
 threatened in the peace of his household, and the comfort 
 of his tepid friendships. With the recall of his powerful 
 father-in-law, he foresaw the necessary reintrusion of his 
 wife upon the charm of his chaste solitude. His favorite 
 Normans would be banished, he should be surrounded 
 with faces he abhorred. All the representations of 
 Stigand fell upon a stern and unyielding spirit, when 
 Siward entered the king's closet. 
 
 " Sir, my king," said the great son of Beorn, " I yielded 
 to your kingly will in the council, that, before we lis- 
 tened to Godwin, he should disband his men, and submit 
 to the judgment of the Witan. The earl hath sent to 
 me to say that he will put honor and life in my keeping, 
 and abide by my counsel ; and I have answered as 
 became the man who will never snare a foe or betray a 
 trust." 
 
 " How hast thou answered ? " asked the king. 
 
 " That he abide liy the laws of England, as Dane and 
 Saxon agreed to abide in the days of Canute ; that he 
 and his sons shall make no claim for land or lordship, but 
 submit all to the Witan." 
 
 " Good," said the king ; " and the Witan will condemn 
 
 1 " An<!^lo-Saxon Chronicle," a. n. 1043. "Stigand was deposed 
 from his bishopric, and all that he possessed was seized into the 
 king's hands, because he was received to his mother's counsel, and 
 she went just as he advised her, as people thought " I'he saintly con- 
 fessor dealt with his bisliops as summarily as Henry VIII. could 
 have done after his qu:u-rel with the Pope,
 
 HAROLD. 107 
 
 him now, as it would have condemned when he shunned 
 to meet it 1 " 
 
 " And the "Witan now," returned the earl, emphatically, 
 " will be free, and fair, and just." 
 
 "And meanwhile the troops — " 
 
 " Will wait on either side ; and if reason fail, then the 
 sword," said Siward. 
 
 " This I will not hear," exclaimed Edward ; when the 
 tramp of many feet thundered along the passage ; the 
 door was flung open, and several captains (I^orman as 
 well as Saxon) of the king's troops rushed in, wild, rude, 
 and tumultuous. 
 
 "The troops desert ! half their ranks have thrown down 
 their arms at the very name of Harold ! " exclaimed the 
 Earl of Hereford. " Curses on the knaves ! " 
 
 '* And their lithsmen of London," cried a Saxon thegn, 
 " are all on his side, and marching already through the 
 gates." 
 
 " Pause yet," whispered Stigand ; " and who shall say, 
 this hour to-morrow, if Edward or Godwin reign on the 
 throne of Alfred?" 
 
 His stern heart moved by the distress of his king, and 
 not the less for the unwonted firmness which Edward dis- 
 played, Siward here approached, knelt, and took the 
 king's hand. 
 
 " Siward can give no niddering counsel to his king ; 
 to save the blood of his subjects is never a king's dis- 
 grace. Yield thou to mercy, — Godwin to the law ! " 
 
 " Oh for the cowl and cell ! " exclaimed the prince, 
 wringing his hands. " Oh Norman home, why did I 
 leave thee?" 
 
 He took the cross from his breast, contemplated it 
 fixedly, prayed silently but with fervor, and his face 
 again became tranquil.
 
 103 HAROLD. 
 
 " Go," he said, flinging himself on his seat in the 
 exhaustion that follows passion, — " Go, Sivvard, go, Sti- 
 gand, deal with things mundane as ye will." 
 
 The bishop, satisfied with this reluctant acquiescence, 
 seized Siward by the arm and withdrew him from tlie 
 closet. The captains remained a few moments behind, 
 the Saxons silently gazing on the king, the ISTormans 
 whispering each other in great doubt and trouble, and 
 darting looks of the bitterest scorn at their feeble bene- 
 factor. Then, as with one accord, these last rushed along 
 the corridor, gained the hall where their countrymen yet 
 assembled, and exclaimed, "A toute bride f Franc etrier! 
 
 — All is lost but life ! — God for the first man, — knife 
 and cord for the last ! " 
 
 Then, as the cry of fire, or as the first crash of an 
 earthquake, dissolves all union, and reduces all emotion 
 into one thought of self-saving, the whole conclave, 
 crowding pell-mell on each other, bustled, jostled, clam- 
 ored to the door : happy he who could find horse, palfrey, 
 
 — even monk's mule ! This way, that way, fled those 
 lordly Normans, those martial abbots, those mitred bishops, 
 
 — some singly, some in pairs ; some by tens, and some 
 by scores : but all prudently shunning association with 
 those chiefs whom they had most courted the day before, 
 and who, they now knew, would be the main mark for 
 revenge ; save only two, who yet, from that awe of the 
 spiritual power which characterized the I^orman, who was 
 already half monk, half soldier (Crusader and Templar 
 before Crusades were yet preached or the Templars yet 
 dreamed of), even in that hour of selfish panic rallied 
 round them the prowest chivalry of their countrymen, — 
 namely, the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury. Both these dignitaries, armed cap-a-pie, and 
 spear in hand, headed the flight ; and good service that
 
 HAROLD. 109 
 
 day, both as guide and champion, did Mallet de Graville, 
 He led them in a circuit behind both armies, but being 
 intercepted by a new body, coming from the pastures of 
 Hertfordshire to the help of Godwin, he was compelled 
 to take the bold and desperate resort of entering the city 
 gates. These were wide open ; whether to admit the 
 Saxon earls, or vomit forth their allies, the Londoners. 
 Through these, up the narrow streets, riding three a-breast, 
 dashed the slaughtering fugitives-, worthy in flight of 
 their national renown, they trampled down every obstacle. 
 Bodies of men drew up against them at every angle, with 
 the Saxon cry of " Out ! — Out ! " " Down with the out- 
 land men ! " Through each, spear pierced and sword 
 clove the way. Eed with gore was the spear of the pre- 
 late of London ; broken to the hilt was the sword militant 
 in the terrible hand of the Archbishop of Canterbury. So 
 on they rode, so on they slaughtered, — gained the Eastern 
 Gate, and passed with but two of their number lost. 
 
 The fields once gained, for better i^recaution they sepa- 
 rated. Some few, not quite ignorant of the Saxon tongue, 
 doffed their mail, and crept through forest and fell 
 towards the sea-shore ; others retained steed and arms, 
 but shunned equally the high-roads. The two prelates 
 were among the last ; they gained, in safety, JS'ess, in 
 Essex, threw themselves into an open, crazy fishing-boat, 
 committed themselves to the waves, and, half drowned 
 and half famished, drifted over the Channel to the 
 French shores. Of the rest of the courtly foreigners, 
 some took refuge in the forts yet held by their country- 
 men ; some lay concealed in creeks and caves till they 
 could find or steal boats for their passage. And thus, 
 in the year of our Lord 1052, occurred the notable 
 dispersion and ignominious fliglit of the counts and 
 vavasours of great William the Duke !
 
 110 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Witanagemot was assembled in the Great Hall of 
 Westminster in all its imperial pomp. 
 
 It was on his throne that the king sat now, — and it 
 was the sword that was in his right hand. Some seated 
 below, and some standing beside, the throne, were the 
 officers of the Basileus^ of Britain. There, were to be 
 seen camararius and pincerna, chamberlain and cup-bearer; 
 disc thegn and hors thegn : ^ the thegn of the dishes, and 
 the thegn of the stud ; with many more, whose state 
 offices may not impossibly have been borrowed from the 
 ceremonial pomp of the Byzantine court ; for Edgar, 
 King of England, had in the old time styled himself the 
 Heir of Constantine. Next to these sat the clerks of the 
 chapel, with the king's confessor at their head. Officers 
 were they of higher note than their name bespeaks, and 
 wielders, in the trust of the Great Seal, of a power 
 unknown of old, and now obnoxious to the Saxon. For 
 tedious is the suit which lingers for the king's writ and 
 the king's seal ; and from those clerks shall arise hereafter 
 a thing of torture and of might, which shall grind out 
 the hearts of men, and be called Chancery.^ 
 
 1 The title of Basileus was retained by our kings so late as the 
 time of John, who styled himself " Totius Insulae Britannicae Basi- 
 leus." — Agard : "On the antiquity of Sliires in England, ap 
 Hearne, Cur. Disc." 
 
 ^ Sharon Turner. 
 
 3 See tlie Introduction to Palgrave's " History of the Anglo- 
 Saxons," from which this description of the Witan is borrowed so
 
 HAROLD. Ill 
 
 Below the scribes, a space was left on the floor, and 
 farther down sat the chiefs of the Witan. Of these, first 
 in order, both from their spiritual rank and their vast 
 temporal possessions, sat the Lords of the Church ; the 
 chairs of the prelates of London and Canterbury were 
 void. But still goodly was the array of Saxon mitres, 
 with the harsh, hungry, but intelligent face of Stigand, 
 — Stigand the stout and the covetous ; and the benign 
 but firm features of Aired, true priest and true jjatriot, 
 distinguished amidst all. Around each prelate, as stars 
 round a sun, were his own special priestly retainers, 
 selected from his diocese. Farther still down the hall are 
 the great civil lords and vice-king vassals of the " Lord 
 Paramount." Vacant the chair of the King of the Scots, 
 for Siward hath not yet had his wish ; Macbeth is in his 
 fastnesses, or listening to the weird sisters in the wold ; 
 and Malcolm is a fugitive in the halls of the Northum- 
 brian earl. Vacant the chair of the hero Gryffyth, son of 
 Llewelyn, the dread of the marches, Prince of Gwyned, 
 whose arms had subjugated all Cymry. But there are 
 the lesser sub-kings of Wales, true to the immemorial 
 schisms amongst themselves, which destroyed the realm 
 of Ambrosius, and rendered vain the arm of Arthur. 
 With their torques of gold, and wild eyes, and hair cut 
 round ears and brow,^ they stare on the scene. 
 
 On the same bench with these sub-kings, distinguished 
 from them by heiglit of stature and calm collectedness of 
 mien no less than by their caps of maintenance and furreil 
 robes, are those props of strong thrones and terrors of 
 
 largely that I am left without other apology for the plagiarism 
 than the frank confession, that if I could have found in others, or 
 conceived from my own resources, a description half as graphic and 
 half as accurate, I would only have plagiarized to half the extent 
 I have done. 
 
 1 Girald. Gambrensis.
 
 112 HAROLD. 
 
 weak, — the earls to whom shires and counties fall, as 
 hyde and carricate to the lesser thegns. But three of 
 these were tlien present, and all three the foes of God- 
 win, — Siward, Earl of Northumbria ; Leofric, of Mercia, 
 (that Leofric whose wife Godiva yet lives in ballad and 
 song) ; and Rolf, Earl of Hereford and Worcestershire, 
 who, strong in his claim of " king's blood," left not the 
 court with his Norman friends. And on the same 
 benches, though a little apart, are the lesser earls, and 
 that higher order of thegns, called king's thegns. 
 
 Not far from these sat the chosen citizens from the 
 free burgh of London, already of great weight in the 
 senate, 1 — suihcing often to turn its counsels ; all friends 
 were they of the English earl and his house. In the 
 same division of the hall were found the bulk and true 
 popular part of the meeting ; popular, indeed, as repre- 
 senting not the people, but the things the people most 
 prized, — valor and wealth ; the thegn landowners, called 
 in the old deeds the " Ministers : " they sat with swords 
 by their side, all of varying birth, fortune, and connec- 
 tion, Avhether with king, earl, or ceorl ; for in the differ- 
 ent districts of the old Heptarchy the qualification varied, 
 — high in East Anglia, low in Wessex ; so that what was 
 wealth in the one shire was poverty in the other. There 
 sat, half a yeoman, the Saxon thegn of Berkshire or Dor- 
 set, proud of his five hydes of land ; there, half an earl- 
 donian, the Danish thegn of Norfolk or Ely, discontented 
 with his forty ; some were there in right of smaller offices 
 under the crown ; some traders, and sons of traders, for hav- 
 ing crossed the high seas three times at their own risk ; 
 
 ^ Palgrave omits, I presume accideTitnlly, these members of the 
 AVitan, but it is clear, from the " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," that the 
 London " lithsmen " were represented in the great National Witans, 
 and helped to decide the election even of kings.
 
 HAROLD. 113 
 
 some could boast the blood of Offa and Egbert ; and some 
 traced but three generations back to neat-herd and 
 ploughman ; and some were Saxons, and some were 
 Danes ; and some from the western shires were by origin 
 Britons, though little cognizant of their race. Farther 
 down still, at the extreme end of the hall, crowding by 
 the open doors, filling up the space without, Avere the 
 ceorls themselves, a vast and not powerless body : in 
 these high courts (distinct from the shire gemots, or local 
 senates), never called upon to vote, or to speak, or to 
 act, or even to sign names to the doom, but only to shout 
 " Yea, yea," when the proceres pronounced their sentence. 
 Yet not powerless were they, but rather to the Witan 
 what public opinion is to the Witan's successor, our 
 modern parliament : they wei'e opinion ! And according 
 to their numbers and their sentiments, easily known and 
 boldly murmured, often and often must that august court 
 of basileus and prelate, vassal-king and mighty earl, have 
 shaped the council and adjudged the doom. 
 
 And the forms of the meeting had been duly said and 
 done ; and the king had spoken words, no doubt wary 
 and peaceful, gracious and exhortatory ; but those words 
 — for his voice that day was weak — travelled not 
 beyond the small circle of his clerks and his officers ; 
 and a murmur buzzed through the hall when Earl God- 
 win stood on the floor, with his six sons at his back ; and 
 you might have heard the hum of the gnat that vexed 
 the smooth cheek of Earl Rolf, or the click of the spider 
 from the web on the vaulted roof, the moment before 
 Earl Godwin spoke. 
 
 " If," said he, with the modest look and downcast eye 
 of practised eloquence, — "if I rejoice once more to 
 breathe the air of England, in whose service, often per- 
 haps with faulty deeds, but at all times with honest 
 
 VOL. I. — 8
 
 114 HAROLD. 
 
 thoughts, I have, both in war and council, devoted so 
 much of my life that little now remains but (should you, 
 my king, and you, prelates, proceres, and ministers so 
 vouchsafe) to look round and select that spot of my 
 native soil which shall receive my bones; — if I rejoice 
 to stand once more in that assembly which has often 
 listened to my voice when our common country was in 
 peril, who here will blame that joy 't Who among my 
 foes, if foes now I have, will not respect the old man's 
 gladness? Who amongst you, earls and thegns, would 
 not grieve, if his duty bade him say to the gray-haired 
 exile, ' In this English air you shall not breathe your 
 last sigh, ■ — on this English soil you shall not find a 
 grave 1 ' Who amongst you would not grieve to say 
 it 1 " (Suddenly he drew up his head and faced his 
 audience.) "Who amongst you hath the courage and 
 the heart to say it 1 Yes, I rejoice that I am at last in 
 an assembly fit to judge my cause, and pronounce my 
 innocence. For what offence was I outlawed? For 
 what offence were I and the six sons I have given to my 
 land to bear the wolf's penalty, and be chased and slain 
 as the wild beasts ? Hear me, and answer ! 
 
 " Eustace, Count of Boulogne, returning to his domains 
 from a visit to our lord the king, entered the town of 
 Dover in mail and on his war-steed ; his train did the same. 
 Unknowing our laws and customs (for I desire to press 
 light upon all old grievances, and will impute ill designs 
 to none), these foreigners invade by force the private 
 dwellings of citizens, and there select their quarters. 
 Ye all know that this was the strongest violation of Saxon 
 right ; ye know that the meanest ceorl hath the proverb 
 on his lip, * Every man's house is his castle.' One of 
 the townsmen, acting on this belief, — which I have yet 
 to learn was a false one, — expelled from his threshold
 
 HAROLD. 115 
 
 a retainer of the French earl's. The stranger drew his 
 sword and wounded him ; blows followed, — the stranger 
 fell by the arm he had provoked. The news arrives to 
 Earl Eustace ; he and his kinsmen spur to the spot ; they 
 murder the Englishman on his hearthstone — " 
 
 Here a groan, half-stifled and wrathful, broke from the 
 ceorls at the end of the hall. Godwin held up his hand 
 in rebuke of the interruption, and resumed. 
 
 " This deed done, the outlanders rode through the 
 streets with their drawn swords ; they butchered those 
 who came in their way ; they trampled even children 
 under their horses' feet. The burghers armed. I thank 
 the Divine Father, who gave me for my countrymen 
 those gallant burghers ! They fought, as we English 
 know how to fight ; they slew some nineteen or score 
 of these mailed intruders ; they chased them from the 
 town. Earl Eustace fled fast. Earl Eustace, we know, is 
 a wise man : small rest took he, little bread broke he, till 
 he pulled rein at the gate of Gloucester, where my lord 
 the king then held court. He made his complaint. My 
 lord the king, naturally hearing but one side, thought the 
 burghers in the wrong ; and, scandalized that such high 
 persons of his own kith should be so aggrieved, he sent 
 for me, in whose government the burgh of Dover is, and 
 bade me chastise, by military execution, those who had 
 attacked the foreign count. I appeal to the great earls 
 whom I see before me, — to you, illustrious Leofric ; to 
 you, renowned Siward, — what value would ye set on 
 your earldoms, if ye had not the heart and the power to 
 see right done to the dwellers therein ? 
 
 " What was the course I proposed 1 Instead of mar- 
 tial execution, which would involve the whole burgh in 
 one sentence, I submitted that the reeve and gerefas of 
 the burgh should be cited to appear before the king, and
 
 116 HAKOLD, 
 
 account for the broil. My lord, though ever most clem- 
 ent and loving to his good j^eople, either unhappily 
 moved against me, or overswayed by the foreigners, was 
 counselled to reject this mode of doing justice, which 
 our laws, as settled under Edgar and Canute, enjoin. And 
 because I would not — and I say in the presence of all, 
 because, I Godwin, son of Wolnoth, durst not, if I would, 
 have entered the free burgh of Dover with mail on my 
 back and the doomsman at my right hand, these outland- 
 ers induced my lord the king to summon me to attend in 
 person (as for a sin of my own) the council of the Witan, 
 convened at Gloucester, then filled with the foreigners, 
 not, as I humbly opined, to do justice to me and my 
 folk of Dover, but to secure to this Count of Boulogne 
 a triumph over English liberties, and sanction his scorn 
 for the value of English lives. 
 
 " I hesitated, and was menaced with outlawry ; I armed 
 in self-defence, and in defence of the laws of England ; I 
 armed that men might not be murdered on their hearth- 
 stones, nor children trampled under the hoofs of a 
 stranger's war-steed. My lord the king gathered his 
 troops round * the cross and the martlets.' Yon noble 
 earls, Siward and Leofric, came to that standard, as 
 (knowing not then my cause) was their duty to the 
 Basileus of Britain. But when they knew my cause, and 
 saw with me the dwellers of the land, against me the 
 outland aliens, they righteously interposed. An armistice 
 was concluded ; I agreed to refer all matters to a Witan 
 held where it is held this day. My troops were disbanded ; 
 but the foreigners induced my lord not only to retain his 
 own, but to issue his Herrbann for the gathering of hosts 
 far and near, even allies beyond the seas. When I 
 looked to London for the peaceful Witan, what saw I ? 
 The largest armament that had been collected in this reign ;
 
 HAROLD. 117 
 
 that armament headed by I^orman knights. Was this 
 the meeting where justice could be done mine and me 1 
 Nevertheless, what was my offer ? That I and my six 
 sons would attend, provided the usual sureties, agreeable 
 to our laws, from which only thieves^ are excluded, were 
 given that we should come and go life-free and safe. 
 Twice this offer was made, twice refused ; and so I and 
 my sons were banished. We went, — we have returned ! " 
 
 " And in arms," murmured Earl Rolf, son-in-law to 
 that Count Eustace of Boulogne, whose violence had 
 been temperately and truly narrated.^ 
 
 " And in arms," repeated Godwin : " true, — in arms 
 against the foreigners who had thus poisoned the ear of 
 our gracious king ; in arms, Earl Rolf ; and at the first 
 clash of those arms Franks and foreigners have fled. We 
 have no need of arms now. We are amongst our country- 
 men, and no Frenchman interposes between us and the 
 ever gentle, ever generous nature of our born king. 
 
 " Peers and proceres, chiefs of this Witan, perhaps 
 the largest ever yet assembled in man's memory, it is for 
 you to decide whether I and mine, or the foreign fugitives, 
 caused the dissension in these realms ; whether our ban- 
 ishment was just or not ; whether in our return we have 
 abused the power we possessed. Ministers, on those 
 swords by your sides there is not one drop of blood ! At 
 all events, in submitting to you our fate, we submit to 
 our own laws and our own race. I am here to clear 
 myself, on my oath, of deed and thought of treason. 
 There are, amongst my peers as king's thegns, those who 
 "will attest the same on my behalf, and prove the facts I 
 
 1 By Athelstan's law, every man was to have peace going to 
 and from the Witan, unless he was a thief. — Wilkins, p. 137. 
 
 2 Goda, Edward's sister, married first Rolf's father, Count of 
 Mantes ; secondlyj the Count of Boulogne.
 
 118 HAROLD. 
 
 have stated, if they are not sufficiently notorious. As 
 for my sons, no crime can be alleged against them, unless 
 it be a crime to have in their veins that blood which 
 flows in mine, — blood which they have learned from me 
 to shed in defence of that beloved land to which they 
 now ask to be recalled." 
 
 The earl ceased and receded behind his children, having 
 artfully, by his very abstinence from the more heated elo- 
 quence imputed to him often as a fault and a wile, produced 
 a powerful effect upon an audience already prepared for 
 his acquittal. 
 
 But now as from the sons, Sweyn, the eldest, stepped 
 forth, with a wandering eye and uncertain foot, there was 
 a movement like a shudder amongst the large majority of 
 the audience, and a murmur of hate or of horror. 
 
 The young earl marked the sensation his presence pro- 
 duced, and stopped short. His breath came thick; he 
 raised his right hand, but spoke not His voice died on 
 his lips; his eyes roved wildly round with a haggard 
 stare more imploring than defying. Then rose, in his 
 episcopal stole, Aired the bishop, and his clear sweet 
 voice trembled as he spoke. 
 
 " Comes Sweyn, son of Godwin, here to prove his inno- 
 cence of treason against the king 1 — if so, let him hold 
 his peace ; for if the Witan acquit Godwin, son of Wol- 
 noth, of that charge, the acquittal includes his House. 
 But, in the name of the holy Church here represented by 
 its fathers, will Sweyn say, and fasten his word by oath, 
 that he is guiltless of treason to the King of kings, — 
 guiltless of sacrilege that my lips shrink to name ? Alas, 
 that the duty falls on me, — for I loved thee once, and 
 love thy kindred now. But I am God's servant before 
 all things — " the prelate paused, and, gathering up new 
 energy, added, in unfaltering accents, "I charge thea
 
 HAKOLD. 119 
 
 here, Sweyn, the outlaAv, that, moA'ecI by the fiend, thou 
 didst bear ofi' from God's house and violate a daughter of 
 the Church, — Algive, Alibess of Leominster ! " 
 
 "And I," cried Siward, rising to the full height of his 
 stature, — '' I, in the presence of these proceres, whose 
 proudest title is viilites or warriors, — • I charge Sweyn, 
 son of Godwin, that, not in open field and hand to hand, 
 but by felony and guile, he wrought the foul and abhor- 
 ent murder of his cousin, Beorn the earl ! " 
 
 At these two charges from men so eminent, the eff'ect 
 upon the audience was startling. While those not 
 influenced by Godwin raised their eyes, sparkling with 
 wrath and scorn, upon the wasted 3'et still noble face of 
 the eldest-born ; even those most zealous on behalf of that 
 popular House evinced no sympathy for its heir. Some 
 looked down abashed and mournful, — some regarded the 
 accused with a cold unpitying gaze. Only perhaps among 
 the ceorls, at the end of the hall, might be seen some 
 compassion on anxious faces; for before those deeds of 
 crime had been bruited abroad, none among the sons of 
 Godwin more blithe of mien and bold of hand, more 
 honored and beloved, than Sweyn the outlaw. But the 
 hush that succeeded the charges was appalling in its 
 depth. Godwin himself shaded his face with his mantle, 
 and only those close by could see that his breast heaved 
 and his limbs trembled. The brothers had shrunk from 
 the side of the accused, outlawed even amongst his kin, 
 — all save Harold, who, strong in his blameless name and 
 beloved repute, advanced three strides amidst the silence, 
 and, standing by his brother's side, lifted his commanding 
 brow above the seated judges, but he did not speak. 
 
 Then said Sweyn the earl, strengthened by such soli- 
 tary companionship in that hostile assemblage, — "I 
 might answer that for these charges in the past, for deeds
 
 120 HAROLD. 
 
 alleged as done eight long years ago, I have the king's 
 grace, and the inlaw's right ; and that in the Witans over 
 which I as earl presided no man was twice judged for the 
 same offence. That I hold to be the law, in the great 
 councils as the small." 
 
 " It is ! it is ! " exclaimed Godwin, his paternal feel- 
 ings conquering his prudence and his decorous dignity. 
 " Hold to it, my sun ! " 
 
 " I hold to it not," resumed the young earl, casting a 
 haughty glance over the somewhat blank and disappointed 
 faces of his foes, " for my law is Aere," and he smote 
 his heart, — " and that condemns me not once alone, but 
 evermore ! Aired, holy father, at whose knees I once 
 confessed my every sin, I blame thee not that thou first, 
 in the Witan, liftest thy voice against me, though thou 
 knowest that I loved Algive from youth upward ; she, 
 with her heart yet mine, was given, in the last year of 
 Hardicanute, when might was right, to the Church. I 
 met her again, flushed with my victories over the Wal- 
 loon kings, with power in my hand and passion in my 
 veins. Deadly was my sin ! — But what asked I ? that 
 vows compelled should be annulled ; that the love of my 
 youth might yet be the wife of my manhood. Pardon, 
 that I knew not then how eternal are the bonds ye of 
 the Church have woven round those of whom, if ye fail 
 of saints, ye may at least make martyrs ! " 
 
 He paused, and his lip curled, and his eye shot wild- 
 fire ; for in that moment his mother's blood was high 
 within him, and he looked and thought, perhaps, as some 
 heathen Dane ; but the flash of the former man was 
 momentary, and humbly smiting his breast, he murmured, 
 "Avaunt, Satan! — yea, deadly was my sin ! And the 
 sin was mine alone, — Algive, if stained, was blameless ; 
 she escaped, and — and died !
 
 HAROLD. 121 
 
 " The king was wroth ; and first to strive against my 
 pardon was Harold my brother, who now alone, in my 
 penitence, stands by my side : he strove manfully and 
 openly ; I blamed him not : but Beorn, my cousin, desired 
 my earldom, and he strove against me, wilily and in 
 secret, — to my face kind, beliind my back despiteful. 
 I detected his falsehood, and meant to detain, but not to 
 slay him. He lay bound in my ship ; he reviled and he 
 taunted me in the hour of my gloom, and when the blood 
 of the sea-kings flowed in fire through my veins. And I 
 lifted my axe in ire ; and my men lifted theirs, and so — 
 and so ! — Again I say, deadly was my sin ! 
 
 " Think not that I seek now to make less my guilt, as 
 I sought when I deemed that life was yet long, and power 
 was yet sweet. Since then I have known worldly evil 
 and worldly good, — the storm and the shine of life : I 
 have swept the seas, a sea-king ; I have battled with the- 
 Dane in his native land ; I have almost grasped in my 
 right hand, as I grasped in my dreams, the crown of my 
 kinsman, Canute ; — again, I have been a fugitive and 
 an exile ; again, I have been inlawed, and earl of all the 
 lands from Isis to the Wye.^ And whether in state or in 
 penury, — whether in war or in peace, — I have seen the 
 pale face of the nun betrayed, and the gory wounds of 
 the murdered man. Wherefore I come not here to plead 
 for a pardon, which would console me not, but formally 
 to dissever my kinsmen's cause from mine, which alone 
 sullies and degrades it ; — I come here to say, that, covet- 
 ing not your acquittal, fearing not your judgment, I pro- 
 nounce mine own doom. Cap of noble, and axe of 
 warrior, I lay aside fOrever ; barefooted, and alone, I go 
 hence to the Holy Sepulchre, there to assoil my soul, and 
 
 1 More correctly of Oxford, Somerset, Berkshire, Gloucester, 
 and Hereford.
 
 122 HAROLD. 
 
 imiDlore that grace which cannot come from man ! Harold, 
 step forth in the place of Sweyn the first-born ! And ye, 
 prelates and peers, milites and ministers, proceed to 
 adjudge the living ! To you, and to England, he \\lio 
 now quits you is the dead ! " 
 
 He gathered his robe of state over his breast as a monk 
 his gown, and, looking neither to right nor to left, passed 
 slowly down the hall, through the crowd, which made 
 way for him in awe and silence ; and it seemed to tlie 
 assembly as if a cloud had gone from the face of day. 
 
 And Godwin still stood with his face covered by his 
 robe. 
 
 And Harold anxiously watched the faces of the assem- 
 bly, and saw no relenting ! 
 
 And Gurth crept to Harold's side. 
 
 And the gay Leofwine looked sad. 
 
 And the young Wolnoth turned pale and trembled. 
 
 And the fierce Tostig played with his golden chain. 
 
 And one low sob was heard, and it came from the 
 breast of Aired, the meek accuser, — God's firm but 
 gentle priest.
 
 HAROLD, 123 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 This memorable trial ended, as the reader will have fore- 
 seen, in the formal renewal of Swej^n's outlawry, and the 
 formal restitution of the Earl Godwin and his other sons 
 to their lands and honors, with declarations imputing all 
 the blame of the late dissensions to the foreign favorites, 
 and sentence of banishment against them, except only, 
 by way of a bitter mockery, some varlets of low degree, 
 such as Humphrey Cocksfoot, and Richard, son of 
 Scrob.i 
 
 The return to power of this able and vigorous family 
 •was attended with an instantaneous effect upon the long- 
 relaxed strings of the imperial government. Macbeth 
 heard, and trembled in his moors ; Gryffyth of Wales lit 
 the fire-beacon on moel and craig. Earl Rolf was 
 banished, but merely as a nominal concession to pul^lic 
 opinion : his kinship to Edward sufficed to restore him 
 soon, not only to England, but to the lordship of the 
 Marches ; and thither was he sent, with adequate force, 
 against the Welsh, who had half repossessed themselves 
 
 ^ Yet how little safe it is for the great to despise the low-born ! 
 This very Richard, son of Scrob, more euphoniously styled by the 
 Normans Richard Fitz-Scrob, settled in Herefordshire (he was 
 probably among the retainers of Earl Rolf), and on William's 
 landing became the chief and most active supporter of the invader 
 in those districts. The sentence of banishment seems to have been 
 mainly confined to the foreigners about the court ; for it is clear 
 that many Norman landowners and priests were still left scattered 
 throughout the country.
 
 124 HAROLD. 
 
 of the borders they harried. Saxon prelates and abbots 
 replaced the Norman fugitives ; and all were contented 
 with the revolution, save the king ; for the king lost his 
 Norman friends and regained his English Avife. 
 
 In conformity with the usages of the time, hostages 
 of the loyalty and faith of Godwin were required and 
 conceded. They were selected from his own family ; and 
 the choice fell on Wolnoth, his son, and Haco, the son 
 of Sweyn. As, when nearly all England may be said 
 to have repassed to the hands of Godwin, it would have 
 been an idle precaution to consign these hostages to the 
 keeping of Edward, it was settled, after some discussion, 
 that they should be placed in the court of the Norman 
 duke until such time as the king, satisfied with the good 
 faith of the family, should authorize their recall, — Fatal 
 hostage, fatal ward and host ! 
 
 It was some days after this national crisis, and order 
 and peace were again established in city and land, forest 
 and shire, when, at the setting of the sun, Hilda stood 
 alone by the altar-stone of Thor. 
 
 The orb was sinking red and lurid, amidst long cloud- 
 wracks of vermeil and purple, and not one human form 
 was seen in the landscape, save that tall and majestic 
 figure by the Runic shrine and the Druid crommell. 
 She was leaning both hands on her wand, or seid-stafF, 
 as it was called in the language of Scandinavian super- 
 stition, and bending slightly forward as in the attitude 
 of listening or expectation. Long before any form 
 appeared on the road below, she seemed to be aware of 
 coming footsteps, and probably her habits of life had 
 sharpened her senses ; for she smiled, muttered to her- 
 self, " Ere it sets ! " and, changing her posture, leaned 
 her arm on the altar, and rested her face upon het 
 hand.
 
 HAROLD. 125 
 
 At length two figures came up the road : they neared 
 the ]iill ; they saw her, and slowly ascended the knoll. 
 The one was dressed in the serge of a. pilgrim, and his 
 cowl thrown back showed the face where human beauty 
 and human power lay ravaged and ruined by human pas- 
 sions. He upon whom the pilgrim lightly leaned was 
 attired simply, without the brooch or bracelet common to 
 thegns of high degree ; yet his port was that of majesty, 
 and his brow that of mild command. A greater contrast 
 could not be conceived than that between these two men, 
 yet united by a family likeness. For the countenance of 
 the last described was, though sorrowful at that moment, 
 and indeed habitually not without a certain melancholy, 
 wonderfully imposing from its calm and sweetness. 
 Tliere, no devouring passions had left the cloud or 
 ploughed the line ; but all the smooth loveliness of youth 
 took dignity from the conscious resolve of man. The 
 long hair, of a fair brown, with a slight tinge of gold, as 
 the last sunbeams shot through its luxuriance, was parted 
 from the temples, and fell in lai'ge waves half-way to the 
 shoulder. The eyebrows, darker in hue, arched and 
 finely traced ; the straight features not less manly than 
 the iS[orman, but less strongly marked ; the cheek, hardy 
 with exercise and exposure, yet still retaining somewhat 
 of youthful bloom, under the pale bronze of its sunburnt 
 surface ; the form tall, not gigantic, and vigorous rather 
 from perfect proportion and athletic habits than from 
 breadth and bulk, — were all singularly characteristic of 
 the Saxon beauty in its highest and purest type. But 
 what chiefly distinguished this personage was that pecu- 
 liar dignity, so simple, so sedate, which no pomp seems to 
 dazzle, no danger to disturb ; and which perhaps arises 
 from a strong sense of self-dependence, and is connected 
 with self-respect, — a dignity common to the Indian and
 
 126 HAROLD. 
 
 the Arab ; and rare, except in that state of society in 
 which each man is a power in himself. The Latin tragic 
 poet touches close upon that sentiment in the fine lines, — 
 
 " Rex est qui metuit nihil; 
 Hoc reguum sibi qui-sque dat." i 
 
 So stood the brothers, Sweyn the outlaw and Harold 
 the Earl, before the reputed proplietess. She looked on 
 both with a steady eye, which gradually softened almost 
 into tenderness, as it finally rested upon the pilgrim. 
 
 " And is it thus," she said at last, " that I see the first- 
 born of Godwin the fortunate, for whom so often I have 
 tasked the thunder and watched the setting sun ; for 
 whom my runes have been graven on the bark of the elm, 
 and the Scin-laeca ^ been called in pale splendor from the 
 graves of the dead ? " 
 
 " Hilda," said Sweyn, " not now will I accuse thee of 
 the seeds thou hast sown : the harvest is gathered, and 
 the sickle is broken. Abjure thy dark Galdra,^ and turn 
 as I to the sole light in the future, which shines from the 
 tomb of the Son Divine." 
 
 The prophetess bowed her head and replied, — 
 
 " Belief cometh as the wind. Can the tree say to the 
 wind, ' Rest thou on my boughs ' ? or Man to Belief, 
 ' Fold thy wings on my heart ' 1 Go where thy soul can 
 find comfort, for thy life hath passed from its uses on 
 earth. And when I would read thy fate, the runes are 
 blanks, and the wave sleeps unstirred on the fountain. 
 Go where the Fylgia,* whom Alfader gives to each at his 
 
 ^ Seneca : " Th3'est." Act. ii. — " He is a king who fears noth- 
 ing ; that kingdom every man gives to himself." 
 
 ^ Scin-loeca, literally a shining coi'pse ; a species of apparition 
 invoked by the witch or wizard. — See Sharon Turner on " The 
 Superstitions of the Anglo-Saxons, b. ii. c. 14. 
 
 ^ Galdra, magic. * Fyhjia, tutelary divinity.
 
 HAROLD. 127 
 
 birth, leads tliee. Thou didst desire love that seemed 
 eliut from thee, and I predicted that thy love should 
 awake from the charnel in which the creed that succeeds 
 to the faith of our sires inters life in its bloom. And 
 thou didst covet the fame of the Jarl and the Viking, and 
 I blessed thine axe to thy hand, and wove the sail for tliy 
 masts. So long as man knows desire can Hilda have 
 power over his doom. But when the heart lies in ashes, 
 I raise but a corpse that, at the hush of the charm, falls 
 again into its grave. Yet, come to me nearer, Sweyn, 
 whose cradle I rocked to the chant of my rhyme." 
 
 The outlaw turned aside his face, and obeyed. 
 
 She sighed as she took his passive hand in her own, 
 and examined the lines on the palm. Then, as if by an 
 involuntary impulse of fondness and pity, she put aside 
 his cowl and kissed his brow. 
 
 " Thy skein is spun, and happier than the many who 
 scorn, and the few wlio lament thee, thou shalt win 
 where they lose. The steel shall not smite thee, the 
 storm shall forbear thee, the goal that thou yearnest for 
 thy steps shall attain. Night hallows the ruin, — and 
 peace to the shattered wrecks of the brave ! " 
 
 The outlaw heard as if unmoved. But when he 
 turned to Harold, who covered his face with his hand, 
 but could not restrain the tears that flowed through the 
 clasped fingers, a moisture came into his own wild, bright 
 eyes, and he said, " Now, my brother, farewell, for no 
 farther step shalt thou wend with me." 
 
 Harold started, opened his arms, and the outlaw fell 
 upon his breast. 
 
 No sound was heard save a single sob ; and so close 
 was breast to breast, you could not say from whose heart 
 it came. Then the outlaw wrenched himself from the 
 embrace, and murmured, "And Haco, my son, — mother-
 
 128 HAROLD. 
 
 less, fatherless, hostage in the land of the stranger ! Tliou 
 wilt remember — thou wilt shield him; thou be to him 
 mother, father in the days to come ! So may the saints 
 bless thee ! " With these words he sprang down the 
 hillock. 
 
 Harold bounded after him ; but Sweyn, halting, said, 
 mournfully, " Is tliis thy promise ? Am I so lost that 
 faith should be broken even with thy father's S(jn 1 " 
 
 At that touching rebuke Harold paused, and the out- 
 law passed his way alone. As the last glimpse of his 
 figure vanished at the turn of the road, whence, on the 
 second of INIay, the Norman Duke and the Saxon King 
 had emerged side by side, the short twilight closed 
 abruptly, and up from the far forest/-land rose the 
 moon. 
 
 Harold stood rooted to the spot, and still gazing on the 
 space, when the Vala laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 " Behold, as the moon rises on the troubled gloaming, 
 so rises the fate of Harold, as yon brief, human shadow, 
 halting between light and darkness, passes away to-night. 
 Thou art now the first-born of a House that unites the 
 hopes of the Saxon with the fortunes of tlie Dane." 
 
 " Thinkest thou," said Harold, with a stern composure, 
 " that I can have joy and triumph in a brother's exile and 
 woe 1 " 
 
 " 'Not now, and not yet, will the voice of thy true 
 nature be heard ; but the warmth of the sun brings tlie 
 thunder, and the glory of fortune wakes the storm of 
 the soul." 
 
 " Kinswoman," said Harold, with a slight curl of his 
 lip, " by me at least have thy prophecies ever passed as 
 the sough of the air : neither in horror nor with faith do 
 I think of thy incantations and charms ; and I smile alike 
 at the exorcism of the shaveling and the spells of the
 
 HAROLD. 129 
 
 Saga. I have asked thee not to bless mine axe, nor 
 weave my sail. No runic rhyme is on the sword-blade 
 of Harold. I leave my fortunes to the chance of mine 
 own cool brain and strong arm. Vala, between thee and 
 me there is no bond." 
 
 The Prophetess smiled loftily. 
 
 " And what thinkest thou, self-dependent ! v/hat 
 thinkest thou is the fate which thy brain and thine arm 
 shall win?" 
 
 " The fate they have won already. I see no Beyond. 
 The fate of a man sworn to guard his country, love 
 justice, and do right." 
 
 The moon shone full on the heroic face of the young 
 earl as he spoke ; and on its surface there seemed nought 
 to belie the noble words. Yet the Prophetess, gazing 
 earnestly on that fair countenance, said, in a whisper 
 that, despite a reason singularly sceptical for the age 
 in wliich it had been cultured, thrilled to the Saxon's 
 heart, " Under that calm eye sleeps the soul of thy sire ; 
 and beneath that brow, so haught and so pure, works 
 the genius that crowned the kings of the north in the 
 lineage of thy mother the Dane." 
 
 " Peace ! " said Harold, almost fiercely ; then, as if 
 ashamed of the weakness of his momentary irritation, he 
 added, with a faint smile, " Let us not talk of these 
 matters while my heart is still sad and away from the 
 thoughts of the world, with my brother the lonely out- 
 law. Night is on us, and the ways are yet unsafe ; for 
 the king's troops, disbanded in haste, were made up of 
 many who turn to robbers in peace. Alone, and unarmed 
 save my ateghar, I would crave a night's rest under thy 
 roof ; and " — he hesitated, and a slight blush came over 
 his cheek — " and I would fain see if your grandchild is 
 
 VOL. I. — 9
 
 130 HAROLD. 
 
 as fair as when I last looked on her blue eyes, that then 
 wept for Harold ere he went into exile." 
 
 " Her tears are not at her command, nor her smiles," 
 saitl the Vala, solemnly ; " her tears flow from the fount 
 of thy sorrows, and her smiles are the beams from thy 
 joys. For know, Harold ! that Edith is thine earthly 
 l^ylgia> — tliy fate and her fate are as one. And, vainly 
 as man would escape from lus shadow, would soul wrench 
 itself from the soul that Skulda hath linked to his 
 doom." 
 
 Harold made no reply ; but his step, habitually slow, 
 grew more quick and light, and this time his reason found 
 no fault with the oracles of the Vala.
 
 HAROLD. 131 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 As Hilda entered the hall, the various idlers accustomed 
 to feed at her cost were about retiring, some to their 
 homes in the vicinity, some, appertaining to the house- 
 hold, to the dormitories in the old Roman villa. 
 
 It was not the habit of the Saxon noble, as it was of 
 the Norman, to put hospitality to profit, by regarding his 
 guests in the light of armed retainers. Liberal as the 
 Briton, the cheer of the board and the shelter of the roof 
 were afforded with a hand equally unselfish and indis- 
 criminate ; and the doors of the more wealthy and munifi- 
 cent might be almost literally said to stand open from 
 morn to eve. 
 
 As Harold followed the Vala across the vast atrium, 
 his face was recognized, and a shout of enthusiastic wel- 
 come greeted the popular earl. The only voices that 
 did not swell that cry were those of three monks from a 
 neighboring convent, who chose to wink at the supposed 
 practices of the Morthwyrtha,^ from the affection they 
 bore to her ale and mead, and the gratitude they felt for 
 her ample gifts to their convent. 
 
 " One of the wicked House, brother," whispered the 
 monk. 
 
 " Yea, — mockers and scorners are Godwin and his 
 lewd sons," answered the monk. 
 
 And all three sighed and scowled as the door closed on. 
 the hostess and her stately guest. 
 
 1 Morthwjjrtha, worshipper of the dead.
 
 132 HAEOLD. 
 
 Two tall and not ungraceful lamps lighted the same 
 chamber in which Hilda was first presented to the reader. 
 Tlie handmaids were still at their spindles, and the white 
 web nimbly shot as the mistress entered. She paused, 
 and her brow knit as she eyed the work. 
 
 " But three parts done ? " she said ; " weave fast, and 
 weave strong." 
 
 Harold, not heeding the maids or their task, gazed 
 inquiringly round, and from a nook near the Avindow 
 Edith sprang forward with a joyous cry, and a face all 
 glowing with delight, — sprang forward as if to the arms 
 of a brother ; but, within a step or so of that noble guest, 
 she stopped short, and her eyes fell to the ground. 
 
 Harold held his breath in admiring silence. The child 
 he had loved from her cradle stood before him as a 
 woman. Even since we last saw her, in the interval 
 between the spring and the autumn, the year had ripened 
 the youth of the maiden, as it had mellowed the fruits of 
 the earth ; and her cheek was rosy with the celestial 
 blush, and her form rounded to the nameless grace, which 
 say that infancy is no more. 
 
 He advanced and took her hand, but, for the first time 
 in his life in their greetings, he neither gave nor received 
 the kiss. 
 
 " You are no child now, Edith," said he, involuntarily ; 
 " but still set apart, I pray you, some remains of the old 
 childish love for Harold." 
 
 Edith's charming lips smiled softly ; she raised her 
 eyes to his, and their innocent fondness spoke through 
 happy tears. 
 
 But few words passed in tlie short interval between 
 Harold's entrance and his retirement to the chamber 
 jDrepared for him in haste. Hilda herself led him to a 
 rude ladder which admitted to a room above, evidently
 
 HAROLD. 133 
 
 added by some Saxon lord to the old Roman pile. The 
 ladder showed the precaution of one accustomed to sleep 
 in the midst of peril ; for, by a kind of windlass in the 
 room, it could be drawn up at the inmate's will, and, so 
 drawn, left below a dark and deep chasm, delving down 
 to the foundations of the house. I^evertheless, the room 
 itself had all the luxury of the time : the bedstead was 
 quaintly carved, and of some rare wood ; a trophy of arms 
 — though very ancient, sedulously polished — hung on 
 the wall. There were the small, round shield and spear 
 of the earlier Saxon, with his vizorless helm, and the 
 short, curved knife or saex,^ from which some antiquarians 
 deem that the Saxish men take their renowned name. 
 
 Edith, following Hilda, proffered to the guest, on a 
 salver of gold, spiced wines and confections ; while 
 Hilda, silently and unperceived, waved her seid-staff 
 over the bed, and rested her pale hand on the pillow. 
 
 " I^ay, sweet cousin," said Harold, smiling ; " this is 
 not one of the fashions of old, but rather, methinks, bor- 
 rowed from the Frankish manners in the court of King 
 Edward." 
 
 " Not so, Harold," answered Hilda, quickly turning ; 
 *' such was ever the ceremony due to Saxon king, when he 
 slept in a subject's house, ere our kinsmen the Danes in- 
 troduced that unroyal wassail which left subject and king 
 unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was left 
 for the bed." 
 
 " Thou rebukest, Hilda, too tauntingly, the pride of 
 Godwin's House, when thou givest to his homely son 
 
 1 It is a disputed question whether the ssex of the earliest Saxon 
 invaders was a long or short curved weapon, — nay, whether it was 
 curved or straight ; but the author sides with those who contend 
 that it was a short crooked weapon, easily concealed*'by a cloak, 
 and similar to those depicted on the banner of the East Saxons.
 
 134 HAROLD. 
 
 the ceremonial of a king. But, so served, I envy not 
 kings, fair Edith." 
 
 He took the cup, raised it to his lips, and when he 
 placed it on the small table by his side, the women had 
 left the chamber, and he was alone. He stood for some 
 minutes absorbed in reverie, and his soliloquy ran some- 
 what thus : — 
 
 " Why said the Vala that Edith's fate was inwoven 
 with mine ? And why did I believe and bless the Vala 
 when she so said 1 Can Edith ever be my wife 1 The 
 monk-king designs her for the cloister, — Woe and well- 
 a-day ! Sweyn, Sweyn, let thy doom forewarn me ! And 
 if I stand up in my place and say, ' Give age and grief 
 to the cloister, — youth and delight to man's hearth,' 
 what will answer the monks ? ' Edith cannot be thy 
 wife, son of Godwin, for faint and scarce traced though 
 your affinity of blood, ye are within the banned degrees 
 of the Church. Edith may be wife to another, if thou 
 wilt, — barren spouse of the Church, or mother of chil- 
 dren who lisp not Harold's name as their father.' Out 
 on these priests with their mummeries, and out on their 
 war upon human hearts." 
 
 His fair brow grew stern and fierce as the Norman 
 Duke's in his ire ; and had you seen him at that moment 
 you would have seen the true brother of Sweyn. He 
 broke from his thoughts with the strong effort of a man 
 habituated to self-control, and advanced to the narrow 
 window, opened the lattice, and looked out. 
 
 The moon was in all her splendor. The long, deep 
 shadows of the breathless forest checkered the silvery 
 whiteness of open sward and intervening glade. Ghostly 
 arose on the knoll before him the gray columns of the 
 mystic Druid, — dark and indistinct the bloody altar of 
 the Warrior god. But there his eye was arrested ; for
 
 HAROLD. 135 
 
 whatever is least distinct and defined in a landscape has 
 the charm that is the strongest ; and, while he gazed, he 
 thought that a pale, phosphoric light broke from the 
 mound with the bautastein that rose by the Teuton altar. 
 He thought, for he was not sure that it was not some 
 cheat of the fancy. Gazing still, in the centre of that 
 light, there appeared to gleam forth for one moment a 
 form of superhuman height. It was the form of a man 
 that seemed clad in arms like those on the wall, leaning 
 on a spear, whose point was lost behind the shafts of the 
 crommell. And the face grew in that moment distinct 
 from the light which shimmered around it, a face large 
 as some early god's but stamped with unutterable and 
 solemn woe. He drew back a step, passed his hand over 
 liis eyes, and looked again. Light and figure alike had 
 vanished ; nought was seen save the gray columns and 
 the dim fane. The earl's lip curved in derision of his 
 weakness. He closed the lattice, undressed, knelt for a 
 moment or so by the bedside, and his prayer was brief 
 and simple, nor accompanied with the crossings and signs 
 customary in his age. He rose, extinguished the lamp, 
 and threw himself on the bed. 
 
 The moon, thus relieved of the lamplight, came clear 
 and bright through the room, shone on the trophied arms, 
 and fell upon Harold's face, casting its brightness on the 
 pillow on which the Vala had breathed her charm. And 
 Harold slept, — slept long, — his face calm, his breathing 
 regular : but ere the moon sunk and the dawn rose the 
 features were dark and troubled, the breath came by gasps, 
 the brow was knit, and the teeth clinched.
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 THE HEATHEN ALTAR AND THE SAXON CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "While Harold sleeps, let ns here pause to survey for the 
 first time the greatness of that House to which Sweyn's 
 exile had left him the heir. The fortunes of Godwin had 
 been those which no man uot eminently versed in the 
 science of his kind can achieve. Though the fable which 
 some modern historians of great name have repeated and 
 detailed, as to his early condition as the son of a cowherd, 
 is utterly groundless, and he belonged to a house all- 
 powerful at the time of his youth, he was unquestionably 
 the builder of his own greatness. That he should rise so 
 high in the early part of his career was less remarkable 
 than that he should have so long continued the possessor 
 of a power and state in reality more than regal. 
 
 But, as has been before implied, God\vin's civil capaci- 
 ties were more prominent tliau his warlike. And this 
 it is which invests him with that jjeculiar interest which 
 attracts us to those who knit our modern intelligence with 
 the past. In that dim world before the Norman deluge, 
 we are startled to recognize the gifts that ordinarily dis- 
 tinguish a man of peace in a civilized age.
 
 138 HAROLD. 
 
 His father, Wolnotli, had been " Childe "^ of the South 
 Saxons, or thegn of Sussex, a nephew of Edric Streone, 
 Earl of Mercia, the unprincipled but able minister of 
 Ethelred, who betrayed his master to Canute, by whom, 
 according to most authorities, he was righteously, though 
 not very legally, slain as a reward for the treason. 
 
 " 1 promised," said the Dane king, " to set thy head 
 Jiigher than other men's, and I keep my word." The 
 trunkless head was set on the gates of London. 
 
 Wolnoth had quarrelled with liis uncle Brightric, 
 Edric's brother, and before the arrival of Canute had 
 betaken himself to the piracy of a sea-chief, seduced 
 twenty of the king's ships, plundered the southern coasts, 
 burned the royal navy, and then his history disappears 
 from the chronicles ; but immediately afterwards the 
 great Danish army, called Thurkell's Host, invaded the 
 coast, and kept their chief station on the Thames. Their 
 victorious arms soon placed the country almost at their 
 command. The traitor Edric joined them Avith a power 
 of more than 10,000 men ; and it is probable enough that 
 the ships of Wolnoth had before this time melted amica- 
 bly into the armament of the Danes. If this, which 
 seems the most likely conjecture, be received, Godwin, 
 then a mere youth, would naturally have commenced his 
 career in the cause of Canute ; and as the son of a for- 
 midable chief of thegn's rank, and even as kinsman to 
 Edric, who, whatever his crimes, must have retained a 
 
 1 "Saxon Chronicle," Florence Wigorn. Sir F. Palgrave saA's 
 tliat the title of Childe is equivalent to that of Atheliug. With 
 that remarkable appreciation of evidence which generally makes 
 him so invaluable as a judicial authority where accounts are con- 
 tradictory, Sir F. Palgrave discards with silent contempt the 
 absurd romance of Gofhvin's station of herdsmau, to which, upon 
 such very fallacious and flimsy authorities, Thierry and Sharon 
 Turner have been betrayed into lending their distinguished names.
 
 HAROLD. 139 
 
 party it was wise to conciliate, Godwin's favor with 
 Canute, whose policy would lead him to show marked 
 distinction to any able Saxon follower, ceases to he 
 surprising. 
 
 The son of Wolnoth accompanied Canute in his military 
 expedition to the Scandinavian continent ; and here a 
 signal victory, planned by Godwin, and executed solely 
 by himself and the Saxon band under his command, 
 without aid from Canute's Danes, made the most memo- 
 rable military exploit of his life, and confirmed his rising 
 fortunes. 
 
 Edric, though he is said to have been low-born, had 
 married the sister of King Ethelred ; and as Godwin 
 advanced in fame, Canute did not disdain to bestow his 
 own sister in marriage on the eloquent favorite, who 
 probably kept no small portion of the Saxon population 
 to their allegiance. On the death of this, his first wife, 
 who bore him but one son^ (who died by accident), he 
 found a second spouse in the same royal house ; and the 
 mother of his six living sons and two daughters was the 
 niece of his king, and sister of Sweyn, who subsequently 
 filled the throne of Denmark. After the death of Canute, 
 the Saxon's predilections in favor of the Saxon line 
 became apparent ; but it was either his policy or his prin- 
 ciples always to defer to the popular will as expressed in 
 tlie national council ; and on the preference given by the 
 "VVitan to Harold the son of Canute over the heirs of Ethel- 
 red, he yielded his own inclinations. The great power of 
 the Danes, and the amicable fusion of their race with the 
 Saxon which had now taken place, are apparent in this 
 decision ; for not only did Earl Leofric, of Mercia, though 
 
 1 This first wife, Thyra, was of very unpopi\lar repute witli the 
 Saxoijs. She was accused of sending young English persons as 
 slaves into Denmark, and is said to have been killed by lightning.
 
 140 HAROLD. 
 
 himself a Saxon (as well as tlie Earl of JSTorthiimbria, with 
 the thogns north of the Thames), declare for Harold the 
 Dane, but the citizens of London were of the same party ; 
 and Godwin represented little more than the feeling of his 
 own principality of Wessex. 
 
 From that time Godwin, however, became identified 
 with the English cause ; and even many who believed 
 him guilty of some share in the murder, or at least the 
 betrayal of Alfred, Edward's brother, sought excuses in 
 the disgust with which Godwin had regarded the foreign 
 retinue that Alfred had brought with him, as if to owe 
 his throne^ to Norman swords rather than to English 
 hearts. 
 
 Hardicanute, who succeeded Harold, whose memory he 
 abhorred, whose corpse he disinterred and flung into a 
 fen,^ had been chosen by the unanimous council both of 
 English and Danish thegns ; and, despite Hardicanute's 
 first vehement accusations of Godwin, the earl still 
 remained throughout that reign as powerful as in the two 
 preceding it. When Hardicanute dropped down dead at a 
 marriage banquet, it was Godwin who placed Edward upon 
 the throne ; and that great earl must either have been 
 conscious of his innocence of the murder of Edward's 
 brother, or assured of his own irresponsible power, when 
 he said to the prince wdio knelt at his feet, and, fearful of 
 the difficulties in his way, implored the earl to aid his 
 abdication of the throne and return to Normandy, — 
 " You are the son of Ethelred, grandson of Edgar. 
 
 1 It is just, however, to Godwin to say, that there is no proof oi 
 his share in this barbarous transaction ; the presumptions, on the 
 contrary, are in his favor : but the authorities are too contradic- 
 tory, and the whole event too obscure, to enable us unhesitatingly 
 to confirm the acquittal he received iu his own age, and from his 
 own national tribunal. 
 
 s "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle."
 
 HAROLD. 141 
 
 Reign, it is yonr duty ; better to live in glory than die in 
 exile. You are of mature years, and, having known sor- 
 row and need, can better feel for your people. Rely on 
 me, and there will be none of the difficulties you dread ; 
 whom I favor, England favors." 
 
 And shortly afterwards, in the national assembly, God- 
 win won Edward his throne. " Powerful in speech, 
 powerful in bringing over people to what he desired, some 
 yielded to his words, some to bribes."^ Yerily, Godwin 
 was a man to have risen as high had he lived later ! 
 
 So Edward reigned, and, agreeably, it is said, with pre- 
 vious stipulations, inarried the d;vighter of his king- 
 maker. Beautiful as Edith tlie queen was in mind and 
 in person, Edward apparently lovrd her not. She dwelt 
 in his palace, his wife only in name. 
 
 Tostig (as we have seen) had married the daughter of 
 Baldwin, Count of Flanders, sister to Matilda, wife to the 
 Norman Duke ; and thus the House of Godwin was triply 
 allied to princely lineage, — the Danish, the Saxon, the 
 Flemish. And Tostig might have said, as in his heart 
 "William the ISTorman said, " My children shall descend 
 from Charlemagne and Alfred." 
 
 Godwin's life, though thus outwardly brilliant, was too 
 incessantly passed in public afifhirs and politic schemes to 
 allow the worldly man much leisure to watch over the 
 nurture and rearing of the bold spirits of his sons. Githa 
 his wife, the Dane, a woman with a haughty but noble 
 spirit, imperfect education, and some of the wild and law- 
 less blood derived from her race of heathen sea-kings, 
 was more fitted to stir their ambition and inflame their 
 fancies, than curb their tempers and mould their hearts. 
 
 We have seen the career of Sweyn ; but Sweyn was an 
 angel of light compared to his brother Tostig. He who 
 1 William of Malmesbury.
 
 142 HAROLD. 
 
 can be penitent lias ever something lofty in his original 
 nature ; but Tostig was remorseless as the tiger, as 
 treacherous and as fierce. With less intellectual capaci- 
 ties than any of his brothers, he had more personal ambi- 
 tion than all put together. A kind of efieminate vanity, 
 not uncommon with daring natures (for the bravest races 
 and the bravest soldiers are usually the vainest ; the 
 desire to shine is as visible in the fop as in the hero), 
 made liim restless both for command and notoriety. 
 *' May I ever be in tlie mouths of men," was his favorite 
 prayer. Like his maternal ancestry, the Danes, he curled 
 his long hair and went as a bridegroom to the feast of the 
 ravens. 
 
 Two only of that house had studied the Humane Let- 
 ters, which were no longer disregarded by the jtrinces of 
 the Continent ; they were the sweet sister, the eldest of 
 the family, fading fast in her loveless home, and Harold. 
 
 But Harold's mind — in which what we call common 
 sense was carried to genius, a mind singularly practical 
 and sagacious, like his father's — cared little for theologi- 
 cal learning and priestly legend, for all that poesy of 
 religion in wliich the Woman was wafted from the sorrows 
 of earth. 
 
 Godwin himself was no favorite of the Church, and 
 had seen too much of the abuses of the Saxon priesthood 
 (perhaps, with few exceptions, tlie most corrupt and illite- 
 rate in all Europe, which is saying much), to instib into 
 his children that reverence for the spiritual authority 
 which existed abroad ; and the enlightenment, which in 
 him was experience in life, was in Harold, betimes, the 
 result of study and reflection. The few books of the 
 classical world then within reach of the student opened 
 to the young Saxon views of human duties and human 
 responsibilities utterly distinct from the unmeaning cere-
 
 HAROLD. 143 
 
 monials and fleshly mortifications in which even the 
 higher theology of that day placed tlie elements of virtue. 
 He smiled in scorn when some Dane, whose life had been 
 passed in the alternate drunkenness of wine and of blood, 
 thought he had opened the gates of heaven by bequeath- 
 ing lands gained by a robber's sword to pamper the lazy 
 sloth of some fifty monks. If those monks had presumed 
 to question liis own actions, his disdain would have been 
 mixed with simple wonder that men so besotted in igno- 
 rance, and who could not construe the Latin of the very 
 prayers they pattered, should presume to be the judges of 
 educated men. It is pos^^ible — for his nature was earn- 
 est — that a pure and enlightened clergy, that even a 
 clergy, though defective in life, zealous in duty and culti- 
 vated in mind, — such a clergy as Alfred sought to 
 found, and as Lanfranc endeavored (not without some 
 success) to teach, — would have bowed his strong sense 
 to that grand and subtle truth which dwells in spiritual 
 authority. But as it was, he stood aloof from the rude 
 superstition of his age, and early in life made himself the 
 arbiter of his own conscience. Reducing his religion to 
 the simplest elements of our creed, he found rather in the 
 books of Heathen authors than in the lives of the saints 
 his notions of the larger morality which relates to the 
 citizen and the man. The love of country, the sense of 
 justice, fortitude in adverse and temperance in prosperous 
 fortune, became portions of his very mind. Unlike his 
 father, he played no actor's part in those qualities which 
 had won him the popular heart. He was gentle and 
 affable ; above all, he was fair-dealing and just, not 
 because it was politic to seem, but his nature to be so. 
 
 Nevertheless, Harold's character, beautiful and sublime 
 in many respects as it was, had its strong leaven of human 
 imperfection in that very self-dependence which was born
 
 144 HAROLD. 
 
 of liis reason and liis priile. In resting so solely on man's 
 perceptions of the right, he lost one attribute of the true 
 liero, — faith. We do not mean that word in the religious 
 sense alone, but in the more comprehensive. He did not 
 rely on the Celestial Sometliing pervading all nature, 
 never seen, only felt when duly courted, stronger and 
 lovelier than what eye could behold and mere reason 
 could embrace. Believing, it is true, in God, he lost those 
 fine links that unite God to man's secret heart, and which 
 are woven alike from the simplicity of the child and the 
 wisdom of the poet. To use a modern illustration, his 
 large mind was a "cupola lighted from below." 
 
 His bravery, though inflexible as the fiercest sea-king's, 
 when need arose for its exercise, was not his prominent 
 characteristic. He despised the brute valor of Tostig : 
 his bravery was a necessary part of a firm and balanced 
 manhood, — the bravery of Hector, not Achilles. Con- 
 .stitutionally averse to bloodshed, he could seem timid 
 where daring only gratified a wanton vanity, or aimed at 
 a selfish oljject. On the other hand, if duty demanded 
 daring, no danger couLl deter, no policy warp him : he 
 could seem rash, — he could even seem merciless. In the 
 what ought to be, he understood a must he. 
 
 And it was natural to this peculiar yet thoroughly Eng- 
 lish temperament to be, in action, rather steadfast and 
 patient than quick and ready. Placed in perils familiar 
 to him, nothing could exceed his vigor and address ; but 
 if taken unawares, and before his judgment could come to 
 his aid, he was liable to be surprised into error. Large 
 minds are rarely quick, unless they have been corrupted 
 into unnatural vigilance by the necessities of suspicion. 
 But a nature more thoroughly unsuspecting, more frank, 
 trustful, and genuinely loyal than that young earl's, it 
 was impossible to conceive. All these attributes con-
 
 HAROLD. 145 
 
 sidered, we have the key to much of Harold's character 
 and conduct in the later events of his fated and tragic life. 
 But with this temperament, so manly and simple, we 
 are not to suppose that Harold, while rejecting the super- 
 stitions of one class, Avas so far beyond his time as to 
 reject those of another. ISTo son of fortune, no man plac- 
 ing himself and the world in antagonism, can ever escape 
 from some belief in the Invisible. Csesar could ridicule 
 and profane the mystic rites of Roman mythology, but 
 he must still believe in his fortune, as in a god. And 
 Harold, in his very studies, seeing the freest and boldest 
 minds of antiquity subjected to influences akin to those 
 of his Saxon forefathers, felt less shame in yielding to 
 them, vain as they might be, than in monkish impostures 
 so easily detected. Though hitherto he had rejected all 
 direct appeal to the magic devices of Hilda, the sound of 
 her dark sayings, heard in childhood, still vibrated on his 
 soul as man. Belief in omens, in days lucky or unlucky, 
 in the stars, was universal in every class of the Sa.xon. 
 Harold had his own fortunate day, the day of his nativitv, 
 the 14th of October. All enterprises undertaken on that 
 day had hitherto been successful. He believed in the 
 virtue of that day as Cromwell believed in his 3d of Sep- 
 tember. For the rest, we have described him as he was 
 in that part of his career in which he is now presented. 
 "Whether altered by fate and circumstances, time will 
 show. As yet, no selfish ambition leagued with the 
 natural desire of youth and intellect for their fair share 
 of fame and power. His patriotism, fed by the example 
 of Greek and Roman worthies, was genuine, pure, and 
 ardent ; he could have stood in the pass with Leonidas, 
 or leaped into the gulf witli Curtius. 
 
 VOL. I. — 10
 
 146 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 At dawn, Harold woke from uneasy and broken slum- 
 bers, and his eyes fell upon the face of Hilda, large and 
 fair, and unutterably calm, as the face of Egyptian 
 sphynx. 
 
 " Have thy dreams been prophetic, son of Godwin ? " 
 said the Vala. 
 
 " Our Lord forefend," replied the earl, with unusual 
 devoutness. 
 
 " Tell them, and let me read the rede ; sense dwells 
 in the voices of the night." 
 
 Harold mused, and, after a short pause, he said, — 
 
 "Methinks, Hilda, I can myself explain how those 
 dreams came to haunt me." 
 
 Tlien raising himself on his elbow, he continued, while 
 he tixeil his clear penetrating eyes upon his hostess, — 
 
 "Tell me frankly, Hilda, didst thou not cause some 
 light to shine on yonder knoll, by the mound and stone, 
 within the temple of the Druids?" 
 
 But if Harold had suspected himself to be the dupe of 
 some imposture, the thought vanished when he saw the 
 look of keen interest, even of awe, which Hilda's face 
 instantly assumed. 
 
 " Didst thou see a light, son of Godwin, by the altar 
 of Thor, and over the bautastein of the mighty dead, — 
 a flame, lambent and livid, like moonbeams collected over 
 snow ? " 
 
 " So seemed to me the light."
 
 HAROLD. 147 
 
 " No human hand ever kindled that flame which an- 
 nounces the presence of the Dead," said Hilda, with a 
 tremulous voice ; " though seldom, uncompelled by the 
 seid and the rune, does the spectre itself warn the eyes of 
 the living." 
 
 " What shape, or what shadow of shape, does that 
 spectre assume ? " 
 
 " It rises in the midst of the flame, pale as the mist 
 on the mountain, and vast as the giants of old ; with 
 the saex, and the spear, and the shield, of the sons 
 of Woden. Thou hast seen the Scin-lseca ? " continued 
 Hilda, looking full on the face of the earl. 
 
 " If thou deceivest me not," began Harold, doubting 
 still. 
 
 " Deceive thee ! not to save the crown of the Saxon 
 dare I mock the might of the dead. Knowest thou not 
 — or hath thy vain lore stood in place of the lore of thy 
 fathers — that where a hero of old is buried, his treasures 
 lie in his grave ; that over that grave is at times seen at 
 night the flame that thou sawest, and the dead in his 
 image of air 1 Oft seen in the days that are gone, when 
 the dead and the living had one faith — were one race ; 
 now never marked, but for portent, and prophecy, and 
 doom : glory or woe to the eyes that see ! On yon knoll, 
 ^sc (the firstborn of Cerdic, that Father-King of the 
 Saxons) has his grave where the mound rises green, and 
 the stone gleams wan, by the altar of Thor. He smote 
 the Britons in their temple, and he fell smiting. They 
 buried him in his arms, and with the treasures his right 
 hand had won. Fate hangs on the house of Cerdic or the 
 realm of the Saxon when Woden calls the Iseca of his son 
 from the grave." 
 
 Hilda, much troubled, bent her face over her clasped 
 hands, and, rocking to and fro, muttered some runes un-
 
 148 HAROLD. 
 
 intelligible to the ear of her listener. Then she turned to 
 him, commandingly, and said, — 
 
 " Thy dreams now, indeed, are oracles, more true than 
 living Vala could charm with the wand and the rune : 
 "Unfold them." 
 
 Thus adjured, Harold resumed : — 
 
 " Methought, then, that I was on a broad, level plain 
 in the noon of day : all was clear to my eye and glad to 
 my heart. I was alone, and went on my way rejoicing. 
 Suddenly the earth opened under my feet, and I fell 
 deep, fathom-deep — deep, as if to that central pit which 
 our heathen sires called Niffelheim, — the Home of 
 Vapor, — the hell of the dead who die without glory. 
 Stunned by the fall, I lay long, locked as in a dream in 
 the midst of a dream. When I opened my eyes, behold, 
 — I was girt round with dead men's l)ones ; and the 
 bones moved round me, undulating, as the dry leaves that 
 wirble round in the winds of the winter. And from the 
 midst of them peered a trunkless skull, and on the skull 
 was a mitre, and from the yawning jaws a voice came 
 hissing, as a serpent's hiss, ' Harold, the scorner, thou art 
 ours ! ' Then, as from the buzz of an army, came voices 
 multitudinous, ' Thou art ours ! ' I sought to rise, and 
 behold my limbs were bound, and the gyves were fine 
 and frail, as the web of the gossamer, and they weighed 
 on me like chains of iron. And I felt an anguish of soul 
 that no words can speak, — an anguish both of horror 
 and shame ; and my manhood seemed to ooze from me, 
 and I was weak as a child new born. Then suddenly 
 there rushed forth a freezing wind, as from an air of ice, 
 and the bones from their whirl stood still, and the buzz 
 ceased, and the mitred skull grinned on me still and 
 voiceless ; and serpents darted their arrowy tongues from 
 the eyeless sockets. And lo, before me stood (0 Hilda,
 
 HAROLD. 149 
 
 I see it now !) the form of the spectre that had risen from 
 yonder knoll. With his spear, and ssex, and his shield, he 
 stood before me ; and his face, though pale as that of one 
 long dead, was stern as the face of a warrior in the van of 
 armed men ; he stretched his hand, and he smote his saex 
 on his shield, and the clang sounded hollow ; the gyves 
 broke at the clash, — I sprang to my feet, and I stood 
 side by side with the phantom, dauntless. Then, sud- 
 denly, the mitre on the skull changed to a helm ; and 
 where the skull had grinned, trunkless and harmless, 
 stood a shape like War, made incarnate ; — a Thing above 
 giants, with its crest to the stars, and its form an eclipse 
 between the sun and the day. The earth changed to 
 ocean, and the ocean was blood, and the ocean seemed 
 deep as the seas where the whales sport in the North, 
 but the surge rose not to the knee of that measureless 
 image. And the ravens came round it from all parts of the 
 heaven, and the vultures with dead eyes and dull scream. 
 And all the bones, before scattered and shapeless, spnuig 
 to life and to form, — some monks and some warriors ; 
 and there was a hoot, and a hiss, and a roar, and the 
 storm of arms. And a broad pennon rose out of the sea 
 of blood, and from the clouds came a pale hand, and it 
 wrote on the pennon, ' Harold the Accursed ! ' Then 
 said the stern shape by my side, ' Harold, fearest thou 
 the dead men's bones 1 ' and its voice was as a trumpet 
 that gives strength to the craven, and I answered, ' Nid- 
 dering, indeed, were Harold to fear the bones of the 
 dead ! ' 
 
 " As I spoke, as if hell had burst loose, came a gibber 
 of scorn, and all vanished at once, save the ocean of blood. 
 Slowly came from the north, over the sea, a bird like a 
 raven, save that it was blood-red, like the ocean ; and 
 there came from the south, swimming towards me, a lion.
 
 150 HAROLD. 
 
 And I looked to the spectre, and the pride of war had 
 gone from its face, which was so sad, that methought I 
 forgot raven and lion and wept to see it. Then the spec- 
 tre took me in its vast arms, and its breath froze my 
 veins, and it kissed my brow and my lips, and said, 
 gently and fondly, as my mother, in some childish sick- 
 ness, ' Harold, my best beloved, mourn not. Thou hast 
 all which the sons of Woden dreamed in their dreams of 
 Valhalla ! ' Thus saying, the form receded slowly, 
 slowly, still gazing on me with its sad eyes. I stretched 
 forth my hand to detain it, and in my grasp was a 
 shadowy sceptre. And lo ! round me, as if from the 
 earth, sprang up thegns and chiefs, in their armor ; and a 
 board was spread, and a wassail was blithe around me. 
 So my heart felt cheered and light, and in my hand was 
 still the sceptre. And we feasted long and merrily ; but 
 over the feast flapped the wings of the blood-red raven, 
 and over the blood-red sea beyond swam the lion, near 
 and near. And in the heavens there were two stars, one 
 pale and steadfast, the other rushing and luminous ; and 
 a shadowy hand pointed from the cloud to tlie pale star, 
 and a voice said, ' Lo, Harold ! the star that shone ou 
 thy birth.' And another hand pointed to the luminous 
 star, and another voice said, ' Lo ! the star tliat shone on the 
 birth of the victor.' Then, lo ! the bright star grew fiercer 
 and larger ; and, rolling on with a hissing sound, as when 
 iron is dipped into water, it rushed over the disk of the 
 mournfiil planet, and the whole heavens seemed on fire. 
 So methought the dream faded away, and in fading, I 
 heard a full swell of music, as the swell of an antliem in 
 an aisle : a music like that which but once in my life I 
 heard, — when I stood in the train of Edward, in the 
 halls of Winchester, the day they crowned him king." 
 Harold ceased, and the Vala slowly lifted her head
 
 HAROLD. 151 
 
 from her bosom, and surveyed him in profound silence, 
 and with a gaze that seemed vacant and meaningless. 
 
 " Why dost thou look on me thus, and why art thou 
 so silent 1 " ask the earl. 
 
 " The cloud is on my sight, and the burden is on my 
 soul, and I cannot read thy rede," murmured the Vala. 
 " But morn, the ghost-chaser, that waketh life, the action, 
 charms into slumber life, the thought. As the stars pale 
 at the rising of the sun, so fade the lights of the soul 
 when the buds revive in the dews, and the lark sings to 
 the day. In thy dream lies thy future, as the wing of 
 the moth in the web of the changing worm ; but, whether 
 for weal or for woe, thou shalt burst through thy mesh, 
 and spread thy plumes in the air. Of myself I know 
 nought. Await the hour when Skulda shall pass into 
 the soul of her servant, and thy fate shall rush from my 
 lips as the rush of tlie waters from the heart of the 
 cave." 
 
 " I am content to abide," said Harold, with his wonted 
 smile, so calm and so lofty ; " but I cannot promise thee 
 that I shall heed thy rede, or obey thy warning, when 
 my reason hath awoke, as, while I speak, it awakens 
 from the fumes of the fancy and the mists of the night." 
 
 The Vala sighed heavily, but made no answer.
 
 152 HA BOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GiTHA, Earl Godwin's wife, sat in her chamber, and Tier 
 heart was sad. In the room was one of her sons, the one 
 dearer to her than all, Wolnoth, her darling. For the 
 rest of her sons were stalwart and strong of frame, and 
 in their infancy she had known not a mother's fears. 
 But Wolnoth had come into the world before his time, 
 and sharp had been the travail of the mother, and long 
 between life and death tlie struggle of the new-born babe. 
 And his cradle had been rocked with a tremblinsr knee, 
 and his pillow been bathed with hot tears. Frail had 
 been his childhood, — ■ a thing that hung on her care ; 
 and now as the boy grew, blooming and strong, into 
 youth, the motlier felt that she had given life twice to 
 her child. Tlierefore was he more dear to her than the 
 rest ; and, therefore, as she gazed upon him now, fair 
 and smiling and hopeful, she mourned for liim more 
 than for Sweyn, the outcast and criminal, on his pilgri- 
 mage of woe to the waters of Jordan and the toml) of 
 our Lord. For Wolnoth, selected as the hostage for the 
 faith of his house, was to be sent from her arms to the 
 court of William the Norman. And the youth smiled 
 and was gay, choosing vestment and mantle, and ateghars 
 of gold, that he might be flaunting and brave in the halls 
 of knighthood and beauty, — the school of the proudest 
 chivalry of the Christian world. Too young and too 
 thoughtless to .share the wise hate of his elders for the 
 manners and forms of the foreigners, their gayety and
 
 HAROLD. 153 
 
 splendor, as his boyhood had seen them, relieving the 
 gloom of the cloister court, and contrasting the spleen 
 and the rudeness of the Saxon temperament, had dazzled 
 his fancy and half Normanizod his mind. A proud 
 and happy boy was he to go as hostage for the faith, and 
 representative of the rank of liis mighty kinsmen, and 
 step into manhood in the eyes of the dames of Rouen. 
 
 By Wolnoth's side stood his young sister Thyra, a 
 mere infant ; and her innocent sympathy with her 
 brother's pleasure in gaud and toy saddened Githa yet 
 more. 
 
 " my son ! '' said the troubled mother, " why, of all 
 my children, have they chosen thee ] Harold is wise 
 against danger, and Tostig is fierce against foes, and Gurth 
 is too loving to wake hate in the sternest, and from the 
 mirth of sunny Leofwine sorrow glints aside, as the 
 shaft from the sheen of a shield. But thou, thou, O 
 beloved ! — cursed be the king that chose thee, and 
 cruel was the father that forgot the light of the mother's 
 eyes ! " 
 
 "Tut, mother the dearest," said Wolnoth, pausing from 
 the contemplation of a silk robe, all covered with broidered 
 peacocks, which had been sent him as a gift from his 
 sister the (pieen, and wrought with her own fair hands ; 
 for a notable needlewoman, despite her sage leer, was the 
 wife of the Saint-King, as sorrowful women mostly are, 
 — " Tut ! the bird must leave the nest when the wings 
 are fledged. Harold the eagle, Tostig the kite, Gurtli 
 the ring-dove, and Leofwine the stare. See, ray wings 
 are the richest of all, mother, and bright is the sun in 
 which thy peacock shall spread his pranked plumes." 
 
 Then, observing that his liveliness provoked no smile 
 from his mother, he approached, and said more seriously, — ■ 
 
 " Bethink thee, mother mine. No other choice was
 
 154 HAROLD. 
 
 left to king or to father. Harold and Tostig and Leof- 
 wine have their lordships and offices. Their jjosts are 
 fixed, and they stand as the columns of our house. And 
 Gurth is so young, and so Saxish, and so the shadow of 
 Harold, that his hate to the Norman is a by-word already 
 among our youths ; for hate is the more marked in a 
 temper of love, as the blue of this border seems black 
 against the white of the woof. But / — the good king 
 knows that I shall be welcome, for the Norman knights 
 love Wolnoth, and I have spent h(jurs by the knees of 
 Montgommeri and Grantmesnil, listening to the feats of 
 Kolfganger, and playing with their gold chains of knight- 
 hood. And the stout count himself shall knight me, and 
 I shall come back with the spurs of gold which thy 
 ancestors, the brave kings of Norway and Daneland, wore 
 ere knighthood was known. Come, kiss me, my mother, 
 and come see the brave falcons Harold has sent me, — 
 true Welch ! " 
 
 Githa rested her face on her son's shoulder, and her 
 tears blinded her. The door opened gently, and Harold 
 entered ; and, with the earl, a pale, dark-haired boy, 
 Haco, the son of Sweyn. 
 
 But Githa, absorbed in her darling Wolnoth, scarce saw 
 the grandchild reared afar from her knees, and hurried at 
 once to Harold. In his presence she felt comfort and 
 safety ; for Wolnoth leaned on her heart, and her heart 
 leaned on Harold. 
 
 " son, son ! " she cried, " firmest of hand, surest of 
 faith, and wisest of brain, in the house of Godwin, tell 
 me that he yonder — he, thy young brother — risks no 
 danger in the halls of the Normans ! " 
 
 " Not more than in these, mother," answered Harold, 
 soothing her with caressing lip and gentle tone. " Fierce 
 and ruthless, men say, is William the Duke against foes
 
 HAROLD. 155 
 
 with their swords in tlieir hands, but debonnair and mild 
 to the gentle/ frank host and kind lord. And these Nor- 
 mans have a code of their own, more grave than all 
 morals, more binding than even their fanatic religion. 
 Thou knowest it well, mother, for it comes from thy 
 race of the North, and this code of honor, they call it, 
 makes Wolnoth's head as sacred as the relics of a saint 
 set in zimnies. Ask only, my brother, when thou comest 
 in sight of the Norman Duke, — ask only ' the kiss of 
 peace,' and, that kiss on thy brow, thou wilt sleep more 
 safely than if all the banners of England waved over thy 
 couch." ^ 
 
 "But how long shall the exile be?" asked Githa, 
 comforted. 
 
 Harold's brow fell. 
 
 " Mother, not even to cheer thee will I deceive. The 
 time of the hostageship rests with the king and the duke. 
 As long as the one affects fear from the race of Godwin, 
 as long as the other feigns care for such priests or such 
 knights as were not banished from the realm, being not 
 courtiers, but scattered wide and far in convent and 
 homestead, so long will Wolnoth and Haco be guests in 
 the Norman Halls." 
 
 Githa wrung her hands. 
 
 " But comfort, my mother : Wolnoth is young, his eye 
 is keen, and his spirit prompt and quick. He will mark 
 
 1 So Robert of Gloucester says pithily of William, " Kyng 
 Wylliam was to mild men debomiere ynou." — Hearne, vol. ii. 
 p 309. 
 
 - This kiss of peace was held singularly sacred by the Normans, 
 and all the more knightly races of the Continent. Even the 
 craftiest dissimulator, designing fraud and stratagem and murder 
 to a foe, would not, to gain his ends, betray the pledge of the kiss 
 of peace. When Henry II. consented to meet Becket after his 
 return from Rome, and promised to remedy all of which his pre- 
 late complained, he struck prophetic dismay into Becket's heart 
 by evading the kiss of peace.
 
 156 HAROLD. 
 
 these l!^orman captains, he will learn tlieir strength and 
 their weakness, their manner of war ; and he will come 
 back, not as Edward the King came, a lover of things 
 un-Saxon, but able to warn and to guide us against the 
 plots of the camp-court, which threatens more, year by 
 year, the pence of tlie world. And he will see there arts 
 we may worthily borrow : not the cut of a tunic and the 
 fold of a gonna, but the arts of men who found states and 
 build nations. "William the Duke is splendid and wise ; 
 merchants tell us how crafts thrive under his iron hand, 
 and warmen say that his forts are constructed with skill, 
 and his battle-schemes planned as the mason plans key- 
 stone and arch, with weight portioned out to the prop, 
 and the force of the hand made tenfold by the science of the 
 brain. So that the boy will return to us a man roinid 
 and complete, a teacher of graybeards, and the sage of his 
 kin, — fit for earldom and rule, fit for glory and England. 
 Grieve not, daughter of the Dane kings, tliat tliy son, the 
 best loved, hath nobler school and wider field than his 
 brothers." 
 
 This appeal touched the proud heart of the niece of 
 Canute the Great, and she almost forgot the grief of her 
 love in the hope of her ambition. 
 
 She dried her tears and smiled upon Wolnoth, and 
 already, in the dreams of a mother's vanity, saw him 
 great as Godwin in council, and prosperous as Harold in 
 the field, i^or, half Xorman as he was, did the young 
 man seem insensible of the manly and elevated patriotism 
 of his brother's hinted lessons, though he felt they implied 
 reproof. He came to the earl, whose arm was round his 
 mother, and said, with a frank heartiness not usual to a 
 nature somewhat frivolous and irresolute, — 
 
 " Harold, thy tongue could kindle stones into men, 
 and warm those men into Saxons. Thy Wolnoth shall 
 not hang his head with shame when he comes back to
 
 HAEOLD. 157 
 
 our merrie land with shaven locks and spurs of gold. For 
 if thou donbtest his race from his look, thou shalt put thy 
 right hand on his heart, and feel England beat there in 
 every pulse." 
 
 " Brave words, and well spoken," cried the earl, and 
 he placed his hand on the boy's head as in benison. 
 
 Till then, Haco had stood apart, conversing with the 
 infant Thyra, whom his dark, mournful face awed and 
 yet touched, for she nestled close to him, and put her 
 little hand in his ; but now, inspired no less than his 
 cousin by Harold's noble speech, he came proudly for- 
 ward by Wolnoth's side, and said, — 
 
 " I, too, am English, and I have the naiue of English- 
 man to redeem." 
 
 Ere Harold could reply, Githa exclaimed, — 
 
 "Leave there thy right hand on my child's head, and 
 say, simply, ' By my troth and my plight, if the duke 
 detain Wolnoth, son of Githa, against just plea and 
 king's assent to his return, I, Harold, will, failing letter 
 and nuncius, cross the seas to restore the child to the 
 mother.' " 
 
 Harold hesitated. 
 
 A sharp cry of reproach that went to his heart broke 
 from Gitlia's lips. 
 
 " Ah ! cold and self-heeding, wilt thou send him to bear 
 a peril from which thou shrinkest thyself 1 " 
 
 " By my troth and my plight, then," said the earl, " if, 
 fair time elapsed, peace in England, without plea of 
 justice, and against my king's fiat, Duke William of 
 Normandy detain the hostages, — thy son and this dear 
 boy, more sacred and more dear to me for his father's 
 woes, — I will cross the seas to restore the child to the 
 mother, the fatherless to his fatherland. So help me, 
 all-seeing One, Amen and Amen ! "
 
 158 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 We have seen, in an earlier part of this record, that 
 Harold possessed, amongst his numerous and more stately 
 possessions, a house, not far from the old Roman dwell- 
 ing-place of Hilda ; and in this residence he now (save 
 Avlien with the king) made his chief abode. He gave, as 
 the reasons for his selection, the charm it took, in his 
 eyes, from that signal mark of affection wliich his ceorls 
 had rendered him, in purchasing the house and tilling the 
 ground in his absence ; and more especially the conven- 
 ience of its vicinity to the new palace at Westminster ; 
 for, by Edward's special desire, while the other brothers 
 repaired to their different domains, Harold remained near 
 his royal person. To use the words of the great Norwe- 
 gian chronicler, " Harold was always with the court 
 itself, and nearest to the king in all service." " The 
 king loved him very much, and kept him as his own son, 
 for he had no children." ^ This attendance on Edward 
 was naturally most close at the restoration to power of 
 the earl's family. For Harold, mild and conciliating, was, 
 like Aired, a great peacemaker, and Edward had never 
 cause to complain of him, as he believed he had of the 
 rest of that haughty house. But the true spell which 
 made dear to Harold the rude building of timber, with 
 its doors open all day to its lithsmen, when with a light 
 heart he escaped from the halls of Westminster, was the 
 fair face of Edith his neighbor. The impression which 
 
 1 Snorro Sturleson's " HeimskriDgla " — Laiiig's Translation, 
 pp. 75-77.
 
 HAROLD. 159 
 
 this young girl had made upon Harold seemed to partake 
 of the strength of a fatality. For Harold had loved her 
 before the marvellous beauty of her womanhood began ; 
 and, occupied from his earliest youth in grave and earnest 
 affairs, his heart had never been frittered away on the 
 mean and frivolous affections of the idle. Now, in that 
 comparative leisure of his stormy life, he was naturally 
 most open to the influence of a charm more potent thari 
 all the glamoury of Hilda. 
 
 Tiie autumn sun shone through the golden glades of 
 the forest-land, when Edith sat alone on the knoll that 
 faced forest-land and road, and watched afar. 
 
 And the birds sung cheerily ; but that was not the 
 sound for which Edith listened : and the squirrel darted 
 from tree to tree on the sward beyond ; but not to see 
 the games of the sqiurrel sat Editli by the grave of the 
 Teuton. By and by came the cry of the dogs, and the 
 tall gre-hound ^ of Wales emerged from the bosky dells. 
 Then Edith's heart heaved and her eyes brightened. And 
 now, with his hawk on his wrist and his spear ^ in his 
 hand, came through the yellowing boughs Harold the Earl. 
 
 And well may ye ween that his heart beat as loud and 
 his eye shone as bright as Edith's, when he saw who 
 had watched for his footsteps on the sepulchral knoll : 
 Love, forgetful of the presence of Death ; - — so has it 
 ever been, so ever shall it be ! He hastened his stride, 
 and bounded up the gentle hillock, and his dogs, with a 
 joyous bark, came round the knees of Edith. Then 
 Harold shook the bird from his wrist, and it fell, with its 
 light wing, on the altar-stone of Thor. 
 
 1 The gre-hound was so called from hunting the gre, or hadger. 
 
 2 The spear and the hawk were as the badges of Saxon nobility ; 
 and a thegu was seldom seen abroad without the one on his left 
 •wrist, the otlier in his right hand.
 
 160 HAROLD. 
 
 " Thou art late, but thou art welcome, Harold, my 
 kinsman," said Edith, simply, as she bent her face over 
 the hounds, whose gaunt heads she caressed. 
 
 " Call me not kinsman," saitl Harold, shrinking, and 
 with a dark cloud on his broad brow. 
 
 "And why, Harold?" 
 
 "Oh, Edith, why?" murmured Harold; and his thought 
 added, " she knows not, poor child, that in that mockery 
 of kinship the Church sets its ban on our bridals." 
 
 He turned, and chid his dogs fiercely as they gam- 
 bolled in rough glee round their fair friend. 
 
 The hounds crouched at the feet of Edith ; and Edith 
 looked in mild wonder at the troubled face of the earl. 
 
 " Thine eyes rebuke me, Edith, more than my words 
 the hounds ! " said Harold, gently. " But there is quick 
 blood in my veins ; and the mind must be calm when it 
 would control the humor. Calm was my mind, sweet 
 Edith, in the old time, when thou wert an infant on my 
 knee, and wreathing, with these rude hands, flower-chains 
 for thy neck like the swan's down. I said, ' The flowers 
 fade, but the chain lasts when love weaves it.'" 
 
 Edith again bent her face over the crouching hounds, 
 Harold gazed on her with mournful fondness ; and the 
 bird still sung, and the squirrel swung himself again from 
 bough to bough. Edith spoke first: — 
 
 " My godmother, thy sister, hath sent for me, Harold, 
 and I am to go to the court to-morrow. Shalt thou be 
 there ? " 
 
 "Surely," said Harold, in an anxious voice — "surely, 
 I will be tliere ! So my sister hath sent for thee, — 
 wittest thou wherefore 1 " 
 
 Edith grew very pale, and her tone trembled as she 
 answered, — 
 
 " Well-a-day, yes."
 
 HAROLD. 161 
 
 "■ It is as I feared, then ! " exclaimed Harold, in great 
 agitation; "and my sister, whom these monks have 
 demented, leagues herself with the king against the law 
 of the wide welkin and the grand religion of the human 
 heart. Oh ! " continued the earl, kindling into an enthu- 
 siasm, rare to his even moods, but wrung as much from 
 his broad sense as from his strong affection, "when I 
 compare the Saxon of our land and day, all enervated and 
 decrepit by priestly superstition, with Ids forefathers in 
 the first Christian era, yielding to the religion tliey 
 adopted in its sim])le truths, but not to that rot of social 
 happiness and free manhood which this cold and lifeless 
 monarchism — making virtue the absence of human ties 
 
 — spreads around, whicli the great Bede,^ though himself 
 a monk, vainly but bitterly denounced ; — yea, verily, when 
 I see the Saxon already the theowe of the priest, I shud- 
 der to ask how long he will be folk-free of the tyrant." 
 
 He jiaused, breathed hard, and seizing, almost sternly, 
 the girl's trembling arm, he resumed between his set 
 teeth: "So they would have thee be a nun? — Thou 
 wilt not — thou durst not; thy heart would perjure thy 
 vows ! " 
 
 " Ah, Harold ! " answered Edith, moved out of all 
 bashfulness by his emotion and her own terror of the 
 convent, and answering, if with the love of a woman, 
 still with all the unconsciousness of a child, — " better, 
 oh, better the grate of the body than that of the heart ! 
 
 — In the grave I could still live for those I love ; be- 
 hind the Grate, love itself must be dead. Yes, thou 
 pitiest me, Harold ; thy sister, the queen, is gentle and 
 kind ; I will fling myself at her feet, and say, ' Youth is 
 fond, and the world is fair : let me live my youth, and 
 bless God in the world that He saw was good ! ' " 
 
 1 Bed. : " Epist. ad Egbert," 
 
 VOL. I. — 11
 
 162 HAROLD. 
 
 " My own, own dear Edith ! " exclaimed Harold, over- 
 joyed. " Say this. Be firm ; they cannot, and they dare 
 not force thee ! The law cannot wrench thee against tliy 
 will from the ward of thy guardian Hilda ; and where 
 the law is, there Harold at least is strong, — and there at 
 least our kinship, if my bane, is thy blessing." 
 
 " Why, Harold, sayest thou that our kinship is thy 
 bane ? It is so sweet to me to whisper to myself, ' Har- 
 old is of thy kith, though distant ; and it is natural to 
 thee to have pride in his fame and joy in his presence ! ' 
 Why is that sweetness to me, to thee so bitter 1 " 
 
 " Because," answered Harold, dropping the hand he 
 had clasped, and folding his arms in deep dejection — ■ 
 " because but for that I should say, ' Edith, I love thee 
 more than a brother : Edith, be Harold's wife ! ' And 
 were I to say it, and were we to wed, all the priests of 
 the Saxons would lift up tlieir hands in horror, and curse 
 our nuptials ; and I should be the bann'd of that spectre 
 the Church ; and my house would shake to its founda- 
 tions ; and my father, and my brothers, and the thegns, 
 and the proceres, and the abbots and prelates, whose aid 
 makes our force, would gatlier round me with threats 
 and with prayers that I might put thee aside. And 
 mighty as I am now, so mighty once was Sweyn my 
 brother ; and outlaw as Sweyn is now, might Harold be ; 
 and outlaw if Harold were, what breast so broad as his 
 could fill up the gap left in the defence of England ? 
 And the passions that I curb, as a rider his steed, might 
 break their rein ; and, strong in justice, and child of 
 Nature, I might come, with banner and mail, against 
 Church, and House, and Fatherland ; and the blood of 
 my countrymen might be poured like water : and there- 
 fore, slave to the lying thraldom he despises, Harold 
 dares not say to the maid of his love, ' Give me thy right 
 hand, and be my bride ! ' "
 
 HAKOLD. ]63 
 
 Edith had listened in bewilderment and despair, her 
 eyes fixed on his, and her face locked and rigid, as if 
 turned to stone. But when he had ceased, and, moving 
 some steps away, turned aside his manly countenance 
 that Edith might not perceive its anguish, the noble and 
 sublime spirit of that sex which ever, when lowliest, most 
 comprehends the lofty, rose superior both to love and to 
 grief ; and rising, she advanced, and placing her slight 
 hand on his stalwart shoulder, she said, half in pit)', half 
 in reverence, — 
 
 "IS^ever before, Harold, did I feel so proud of thee : 
 for Edith could not love thee as she doth, and will till 
 the grave clasp her, if thou didst not love England more 
 than Edith. Harold, till this hour I was a child, and I 
 knew not my own heart : I look now into that heart, and 
 I see that I am woman. Harold, of the cloister I have 
 now no fear ; and all life does not shrink — no, it enlarges, 
 and it soars into one desire — to be worthy to pray for 
 thee ! " 
 
 " Maid, maid ! " exclaimed Harold, abruptly, and pale 
 as the dead, " do not say thou hast no fear of the cloister. 
 I adjure, I command thee, build not up between us that 
 dismal, everlasting wall. While thou art free, Hope yet 
 survives, — a phantom, haply, but Hope still." 
 
 " As thou wilt, I will," said Edith, humbly : " order my 
 fate so as pleases thee the best." 
 
 Then, not daring to trust herself longer, for she felt the 
 tears rushing to her eyes, she turned a\Vay hastily, and 
 left him alone beside the altar-stone and the tomb.
 
 164 HAllOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The next day, as Harold was entering the palace of 
 "Westminster, with intent to seek the king's lady, his 
 father met him in one of the corridors, and taking him 
 gravely by the hand, said, — 
 
 " My son, I have much on my mind regarding thee and 
 our House ; come with me." 
 
 " Xay," said the earl, " by your leave, let it be later ; 
 for I have it on hand to see my sister, ere confessor, or 
 monk, or schoolman, claim her hours ! " 
 
 " Not so, Harold," said tlie earl, briefly. " My daughter 
 is now in her oratory, and we shall have time enow to 
 treat of things mundane ere she is free to receive thee, 
 and to preach to thee of things ghostly, the last miracle 
 at St. Alban's, or the last dream of the king, who would 
 be a great man and a stirring, if as restless when awake 
 as he is in his sleep. Come." 
 
 Harold, in that filial obedience which belonged, as of 
 course, to his antique cast of character, made no farther 
 effort to escape, but with a sigh followed Godwin into 
 one of the contiguous chambers. 
 
 "Harold," then said Earl Godwin, after closing the 
 door carefully, " thou must not let the king keep thee 
 longer in dalliance and idleness : thine earldom needs 
 thee without delay. Thou knowest that these East 
 Angles, as we Saxons still call them, are in truth mostly 
 Danes and Norsemen, — a jieople jealous and fierce and 
 free, and more akin to the Normans than to the Saxons.
 
 HAROLD. 165 
 
 My whole power in England hath been founded, not less 
 on my common birth with the free folk of Wessex, — 
 Saxons like myself, and therefore easy fc)r me, a Saxon, 
 to conciliate and control, — than on the hold I have ever 
 sought to establish, whether by arms or by arts, over the 
 Danes in the realm. And I tell and I warn thee, Harold, 
 as the natural heir of my greatness, that he who cannot 
 command the stout hearts of the Anglo-Danes will never 
 maintain the race of Godwin in the post they have won 
 in the vanguard of Saxon England." 
 
 " This I wot well, my father," answered Harold ; " and 
 I see with joy that while those descendants of heroes and 
 freemen are blended indissolubly with the meeker Saxon, 
 their freer laws and hardier manners are gradually sup- 
 planting, or rather regenerating, our own." 
 
 Godwin smiled approvingly on his son, and then Ids 
 brow becoming serious, and the dark pupil of his blue 
 eye dilating, lie resumed, — • 
 
 " This is well, my son ; and hast thou thouglit also, 
 that while thou art loitering in these galleries, amidst the 
 ghosts of men in monk cowls, Siward is shadowing our 
 House with his glory, and all north the Humber rings 
 with his name 1 Hast thou thought that all Mercia is in 
 the hands of Leofric our rival, and that Algar his son, 
 who ruled Wessex in my absence, left there a name so 
 beloved, that, had I stayed a year longer, the cry had been 
 'Algar' not 'Godwin'? — for so is the multitude ever! 
 Now aid me, Harold, for my soul is troubled, and I can- 
 not work alone ; and though I say nought to others, my 
 heart received a deathblow when tears fell from its blood- 
 springs on the brow of Sweyn, my first-born." The old 
 man paused, and his lip quivered. 
 
 "Thou, thou alone, Harold, noble boy — thou alone 
 didst stand by his side in the hall ; almio, alone, and I
 
 166 HAROLD. 
 
 blessed thee in that hour over all the rest of my sons. 
 Well, well ! now to earth again. Aid me, Harold. I 
 open to thee my web : complete the woof when this hand 
 is cold. The new tree that stands alone in the plain is 
 soon nipped by the winter ,• fenced round with the forest, 
 its youth takes shelter from its fellows, i So is it with a 
 house newly founded : it must win strength from the 
 allies that it sets round its slender stem. What had 
 been Godwin, son of Wolnoth, had he not married into 
 the kingly house of great Canute 1 It is this that gives 
 my sons now the right to the loyal love of the Danes. 
 The throne passed from Canute and his race, and the 
 Saxons again had their hour ; and I gave, as Jephtha gave 
 his daughter, my blooming Edith, to the cold bed of the 
 Saxon king. Had sons sprung from that union, the 
 grandson of Godwin, royal alike from Saxon and Dane, 
 would reign on the throne of the isle. Fate ordered 
 otherwise, and the spider must weave web anew. Thy 
 brother Tostig has added more splendor than solid strength 
 to our line, in his marriage with the daughter of Baldwin 
 the Count. The foreigner helps us little in England. 
 Thou, Harold, must bring new props to the House. I 
 would rather see thee wed to the child of one of our 
 great rivals than to the daughter of kaisar, or outland 
 king. Siward hath no daughter undisposed of. Algar, 
 son of Leofric, hath a daughter fair as the fairest ; make 
 her thy bride, that Algar may cease to be a foe. This 
 alliance will render Mercia, in truth, subject to our prin- 
 cipalities, since the stronger must quell the weaker. It 
 doth more. Algar himself has married into the royalty 
 of Wales.^ Thou wilt win all those fierce tribes to thy 
 
 1 Teigner's " Frithiof." 
 
 2 Some of the chronicler.s say that he married the dausjhter of 
 Gryffyth, the king of North Wales, but Gryffyth certaiuly married
 
 HAROLD. 167 
 
 side. Their forces will gain thee the marches, now held 
 so freely under Rolf the Norman ; and, in case of brief 
 reverse or sharp danger, their mountains will give refuge 
 from all foes This day, greeting Algar, he told me he 
 meditated bestowing his daughter on Gryffyth, the rebel 
 under-king of North Wales. Therefore," continued the 
 old earl, with a smile, " thou must si)eak in time, and win 
 and woo in the same breath. No hard task, methinks, 
 for Harold of the golden tongue." 
 
 '' Sir, and father," replied the young earl, whom the 
 long speech addressed to him had prepared for its close, 
 and whose habitual self-control saved him from disclosing 
 his emotion, " I thank you duteously for your care for 
 my future, and hope to profit by your wisdom. I will 
 ask the king's leave to go to my East Anglians, and hold 
 there a folkmuth, administer justice, redress grievances, 
 and make thegn and ceorl content with Harold, their 
 earl. But vain is peace in the realm, if there is strife in 
 the house. And Aldyth, the daughter of Algar, cannot 
 be housewife to me." 
 
 " Why V asked the old earl, calmly, and surveying his 
 son's face with those eyes so clear yet so unfathomable. 
 
 " Because, though I grant her fair, she pleases not my 
 fancy, nor would give warmth to my hearth. Because, 
 as thou knowest well, Algar and I have ever been opposed, 
 both in camp and in council ; and I am not the man who 
 can sell my love, though I may stifle my anger. Earl 
 Harold needs no bride to bring spearmen to his back at 
 his need ; and his lordships he will guard with the shield 
 of a man, not the spindle of a woman." 
 
 " Said in spite and in error," replied the old earl, coolly. 
 
 Algar's daughter, and that doulde alliance could not have been 
 permitted. It was probably, therefore, some more distant kins- 
 woman of Gryffyth's that was united to Algar.
 
 168 HAEOLD. 
 
 " Small pain had it given thee to forgive Algar old quar. 
 rels, and clasp his hand as a father-in-law, if thou hadst 
 had for his daughter what the great are forbidden t(j re- 
 gard save as a folly." 
 
 " Is love a folly, my father ? " 
 
 " Surely, yes," said the earl, with some sadness, — 
 " surely, yes ; for those who know that life is made up of 
 business and care, spun out in long years, not counted by 
 the joys of an hour. Surely, yes ; thinkest thou that I 
 loved my first wife, the proud sister of Canute, or that 
 Edith, thy sister, loved Edward, when he placed the crown 
 on her head ! " 
 
 " My father, in Edith, my sister, our House hath 
 sacrificed enow to selfish power." 
 
 " I grant it, to selfish power," answered the eloquent 
 old man, "but not enow for England's safety. Look 
 to it, Harold; thy years, and thy fame, and thy state, 
 place thee free from my control as a fatlier, but not till 
 thou sleepest in thy cerements art thou free from that 
 father, — thy land! Ponder it in thine own wise miiul, 
 — wiser already than that which speaks to it under the 
 hood of gray hairs. Ponder it, and ask thyself if thy 
 power, when I am dead, is not necessary to the weal of 
 England ; and if aught that thy schemes can suggest 
 would so strengthen that power, as to find in the heart 
 of the kingdom a host of friends like the Mercians ; — 
 or if there could be a trouble, and a bar to thy great- 
 ness, a wall in thy path, or a thorn in thy side, like the 
 hate or the jealousy of Algar, the son of Leofric ! " 
 
 Thus addressed, Harold's face, before serene and calm, 
 grew overcast, and he felt the force of his father's words 
 when appealing to his reason, — not to his aff"eotions. 
 The old man saw the advantage he had gained, and pru- 
 dently forbore to press it. Rising, he drew round him
 
 HAROLD, 169 
 
 his sweeping gonna lined with furs, and only when he 
 leached the door, he added : — 
 
 " The old see afar ; they stand on the height of experi- 
 ence, as a warder on the crown of a tower ; and I tell 
 thee, Harold, that if thou let slip this golden occasion, 
 years hence — long and many — thou wilt rue the loss 
 of the hour. And that, unless Mercia, as the centre of 
 the kingdom, be reconciled to thy power, thou wilt stand 
 high indeed, — but on the shelf of a precipice. And if, 
 as I suspect, thou lovest some other, wlio now clouds thy 
 perception, and will then check thy ambition, thou wilt 
 break her heart with thy desertion, or gnaw thine own 
 with regret. For love dies in possession, — ambition has 
 no fruition, and so lives forever." 
 
 " That ambition is not mine, my father," exclaimed 
 Harold, earnestly ; " I have not thy love of power, glori- 
 ous in thee, even in its extremes. I have not thy — " 
 
 " Seventy years ! " interrupted the old man, concluding 
 the sentence. " At seventy all men who have been great 
 will speak as I do ; yet all will have known love. Thou 
 not ambitious, Harf>ld ? Thou knowest not thyself, nor 
 knowest thou yet what ambition is. That which I see 
 far before me as thy natural prize, I dare not, or I will not 
 say. When time sets that prize within reach of thy 
 spear's point, say then, ' I am not ambitious ! ' Ponder 
 and decide." 
 
 And Harold pondered long, and decided not as God- 
 win could have wished. For he had not the seventy 
 years of his father, and the prize lay yet in the womb of 
 the mountains ; though the dwarf and the gnome were 
 already fashioning the ore to the shape of a crown.
 
 170 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 While Harold mused over his father's words, Edith, 
 seated on a low stool beside the Lady of England, lis- 
 tened with earnest but mournful reverence to her royal 
 namesake. 
 
 The queen's^ closet opened, like the king's, on one 
 hand to an oratory, on the other to a spacious anteroom ; 
 the lower part of the walls was covered with arras, leav- 
 ing space for a niche that contained an image of the 
 Virgin. Near the doorway to the oratory, was tlie stoupe 
 or aspersorium for holy water ; and in various cysts and 
 crypts, in either room, were caskets containing the relics 
 of saints. The purple light from the stained glass of a 
 high, narrow window shaped in the Saxon arch, streamed 
 ricli and full over the queen's bended head like a glory, 
 and tinged her pale cheek, as with a maiden blush ; and 
 she might have furnished a sweet model for early artist, 
 in his dreams of St. Mary the Mother, not when, young 
 and blest, she held the divine Infant in her arms, but 
 when sorrow had reached even the immaculate bosom, 
 and the stone had been rolled over the Holy Sepulchre. 
 For beautiful the face still was, and mild beyond all 
 words ; but, beyond all words also, sad in its tender 
 resignation. 
 
 And thus said the queen to her godchild : — 
 
 1 The title of queen is employed in these pages as one which 
 our historians have unhesitatingly given to the consorts of our 
 Saxon kings ; hut th.e usual and correct designation of Edward's 
 royal wife, in her own time, would be Edith the Lady.
 
 HAROLD. 171 
 
 "Why dost thou hesitate and turn away? Thinkest 
 thou, poor child, in thine ignorance of life, that the world 
 ever can give thee a bliss greater than the calm of the 
 cloister ! Pause, and ask thyself, young as thou art, if 
 all the true happiness thou hast known is not bounded 
 to hope. As long as thou hopest thou art happy." 
 
 Edith sighed deeply, and moved her young head in 
 involuntary acquiescence. 
 
 " And what is life to the nun, but hope 1 In that hope 
 she knows not the present, she lives in the future ; she 
 hears ever singing the chorus of the angels, as St. Dun- 
 stan heard theiu sing at the birth of Edgar,^ That hope 
 i;nfolds to her the heiligthum of the future. On earth 
 her body, in heaven her soul ! " 
 
 " And her heart, Lady of England 1 " cried Edith, 
 with a sharp pang. 
 
 The queen paused a moment, and laid her pale hand 
 kindly on Edith's bosom. 
 
 "Not beating, child, as thine does now, with vain 
 thoughts, and worklly desires ; but calm, calm as mine 
 It is in our power," resumed the queen, after a second 
 pause — "it is in our power to make the life within us 
 all soul, so that the heart is not, or is felt not ; so that 
 grief and joy have no power over us ; so that we look 
 tranquil on the stormy earth, as yon image of the Virgin, 
 whom we make our example, looks from the silent niclie. 
 Listen, my godchild and darling. I have known human 
 state and human debasement. In these halls I woke 
 Lady of England, and ere sunset my lord banished me, 
 without one mark of honor, without one word of com- 
 fort, to the convent of Wherwell ; — my father, my 
 mother, my kin, all in exile ; and my tears falling fast 
 for them, but not on a husband's bosom." 
 
 1 Ethel. : "De Gen. Keg. Aug."
 
 172 HAROLD. 
 
 "Ah, then, noble Edith," said the girl, coloring with 
 anger at the remembered wrong for her queen, — " ah, 
 then, surely at least thy heart made itself heard." 
 
 " Heard ! yea, verily," said the queen, looking up, and 
 pressing her hands ; " heard, but the soul rebuked it. 
 And the soul said, ' Blessed are they that mourn ; ' and I 
 rejoiced at the new trial which brought me nearer to Him 
 who chastens those He loves." 
 
 " But thy banished kin, — the valiant, the wise ; they 
 who placed thy lord on the throne ? " 
 
 " Was it no comfort." answered the queen, simply, " to 
 think that in the House of God my prayers for tliem 
 woidd be more accepted than in the hall of kings? Yes, 
 my child, I have known the world's honor, and the 
 Avorld's disgrace, and I have schooled my heart to be 
 calm in both." 
 
 " Ah, thou art above human strength. Queen and 
 Saint," exclaimed Edith ; " and I have heard it said of 
 thee, that as thou art now, thou wert from thine earliest 
 years ; ^ ever the sweet, the calm, the holy, — ever less 
 on earth than in heaven." 
 
 Something there was in the queen's eyes, as she raised 
 them towards Edith atthisimrst of enthusiasm, that gave for 
 a moment, to a face otherwise so dissimilar, the likeness to 
 her father ; something, in that large pupil, of the impenetra- 
 ble, unrevealing depth of a nature close and secret in self- 
 control. And a more acute observer than Edith misht 
 long have been perplexed and haunted with that look, 
 Avondering if, indeeil, under the divine and spiritual com- 
 posure, lurked the mystery of human passion. 
 
 " My child," said the queen, with the faintest smile 
 upon her lips, and drawing Edith towards her, "there are 
 moments when all that breathe the breath of life feel, or 
 
 1 AiLRED: "De Yit. Edward Confess."
 
 HAROLD. 173 
 
 have felt, alike. lu my vain youth I read, I mused, I 
 pondered, but over worldly lore ; and what men called 
 the sanctity of virtue, was perhaps but the silence of 
 thought. Now I have put aside those early and childish 
 dreams and shadows, remembering them not, save " — 
 here the smile grew more pronounced — " to puzzle some 
 poor schoolboy with the knots and riddles of the sharp 
 grammarian : ^ but not to speak of myself have I sent for 
 thee. Edith, again and again, solemnly and sincerely, I 
 pray thee to obey the wish of my lord the king. And 
 now, while yet in all the bloom of thought, as of youth, 
 •while thou hast no memory save the child's, enter on the 
 Realm of Peace." 
 
 " I cannot, I dare not, I cannot, — ah, ask me not," 
 said poor Edith, covering her face with her hands. 
 
 Those hands the queen gently withdrew ; and looking 
 steadfastly in the changeful and half-averted face, she 
 said mournfully, " Is it so, my godchild ? and is thy heart 
 set on the hopes of earth — thy dreams on the love of 
 man ? " 
 
 "I^ay," answered Edith, equivocating; "but I have 
 promised not to take the veil." 
 
 " Promised to Hilda 1 " 
 
 " Hilda," exclaimed Edith, readily, " would never con- 
 sent to it. Thou knowest her strong nature, her distaste 
 to — to — " 
 
 " The laws of our holy Church — I do ; and for that 
 reason it is, mainly, that I join with the king in seeking 
 to abstract thee from her influence : but it is not Hilda 
 that thou hast promised ? " 
 
 Edith hung her head. 
 
 " Is it to woman or to man 1 " 
 
 Before Edith could answer, the door from the ante- 
 
 1 lugulfus.
 
 174 HAROLD. 
 
 room opened gently, but without the usual ceremony, and 
 Harold entered. His quick, quiet eye embraced both 
 forms, and curbed Edith's young impulse, which made 
 her start from her seat, and advance joyously towards him 
 as a protector. 
 
 "Fair day to thee, my sister," said the earl, advancing; 
 " and pardon, if I break thus rudely on thy leisure ; for 
 few are the moments when beggar and Benedictine leave 
 thee free to receive thy brother." 
 
 " Dost thou reproach me, Harold 1 " 
 
 " No, Heaven forefend ! " replied the earl, cordially, and 
 with a look at once of pity and admiration ; " for thou 
 art one of the few, in this court of simulators, sincere 
 and true ; and it pleases thee to serve the Divine Power 
 in thy way, as it pleases me to serve Him in mine." 
 
 " Thine, Harold ? " said the queen, shaking her head, 
 but with a look of some human pride and fondness in hex 
 fair face. 
 
 " Mine : as I learned it from thee when I was thy 
 pupil, Edith ; when to those studies in which thou didst 
 precede me, thou first didst lure me from sport and pas- 
 time ; and from thee I learned to glow over the deeds of 
 Greek and Koman, and say, ' They lived and died as 
 men ; like them may I live and die ! ' " 
 
 " Oh, true, — too true ! " said the queen, with a sigh ; 
 " and I am to blame grievously that I did so pervert to 
 earth a mind that might otherwise have learned holier 
 examples ; — nay, smile not with that haughty lip, my 
 brother, for, believe me, — yea, believe me, — there is 
 more true valor in the life of one patient martyr than in 
 the victories of Caesar, or even the defeat of Brutus." 
 
 " It may be so," replied the earl, " but out of the same 
 oak we carve the spe;ir and the cross ; and those not 
 worthy to hold the one, may yet not guiltily wield the
 
 HAEOLD. 175 
 
 otlier. Each to liis path of life, — and mme is chosen." 
 Then, changing his voice, with some abruptness, he said : 
 " But what hast thou been saying to thy fair godchild, 
 that her cheek is pale, and her eyelids seem so heavy 1 
 Edith, Edith, my sister, beware how thou shapest the lot 
 of the martyr without the peace of the saint. Had Algive 
 the nun been wedded to Sweyn our brother, Sweyn were 
 not wending, barefooted and forlorn, to lay the wrecks of 
 desolated life at the Holy Tomb." 
 
 " Harokl, Harold ! " faltered the queen, much struck 
 with his words, 
 
 " But," the earl continued, — and something of the 
 pathos which belongs to deep emotion vibrated in the 
 eloquent voice, accustomed to command and persuade, — 
 " we strip not the green leaves for our yulediearths : we 
 gather them up when dry and sere. Leave youth on the 
 bough ; let the bird sing to it ; let it play free in the airs 
 of heaven. Smoke comes from the branch which, cut in 
 the sap, is cast upon the lire, and regret from the heart 
 which is severed from the world while the world is in its 
 May." 
 
 The queen paced slowly, but in evident agitation, to 
 and fro the room, and her hands clasped convulsively the 
 rosary round her neck ; then, after a pause of thought, slie 
 motioned to Edith, and, pointing to the oratory, said, ■with 
 forced composure, " Enter there, and there kneel ; com- 
 mune with thyself, and be still. Ask for a sign from 
 a I love, — pray for the grace within. Go ; I would speak 
 alone with Harold." 
 
 Edith crossed her arms on her bosom meekly, and 
 passed into the oratory. The queen w^atched her for a 
 few moments, tenderly, as the slight, childlike form bent 
 before the sacred symbol. Then she closed the door 
 gently, and, coming with a quick step to Harold, said, in 
 a low but clear voice, " Dost thou love the maiden 1 "
 
 176 HAROLD. 
 
 *' Sister," answered the earl, sadly, " I love her as a 
 man should love woman, — more tlian my life, hut less 
 than the ends life lives for." 
 
 " Oh, world, world, world ! " cried the queen, passion- 
 ately, " not even to thine own ohjects art thou true. O 
 world ! world ! thou desirest happiness below, and at 
 every turn, with every vanity, thou tramplest happiness 
 under foot ! Yes, yes ; they said to me, ' For the sake 
 of our greatness, thou shalt wed King Edward.' And I 
 live in the eyes that loathe me — and — and — " The 
 queen, as if conscience-stricken, paused aghast, kissed 
 devoutly the relic suspended to her rosary, and continued, 
 with such calmness that it seemed as if two women were 
 Went in one, so startling was the contrast. " And I have 
 had my reward, but not from tlie world ! Even so, Harold 
 the Earl, and earl's son, thou lovest yon fair child, and 
 she thee ; and ye might be happy, if happiness were 
 earth's end ; but, though high-born, and of fair temporal 
 possessions, she brings thee not lands broad enough for 
 her dowry, nor troops of kindred to swell thy lithsmen, 
 and she is not a mark-stone in thy march to ambition : 
 and so thou lovest her as man loves woman, — ' less than 
 the ends life lives for ! ' " 
 
 " Sister," said Harold, " thou speakest as I love to hear 
 thee speak, — as my bright-eyed, rose-lipped sister spoke 
 in the days of old ; thou speakest as a woman with warm 
 heart, and not as the mummy in the stiff cerements of 
 priestly form ; and if thou art with me, and thou wilt 
 give me countenance, I will marry thy godchild, and save 
 her alike from the dire superstitions of Hilda, and the 
 grave of the abhorrent convent." 
 
 " But my father — my fatlier ! " cried the queen ; 
 " who ever bended that soul of steel ? " 
 
 "It is not my father I fear ; it is thee and thy monks.
 
 HAROLD. 177 
 
 Forgettest thou that Edith and I are within the six 
 banned degrees of the Church 1 " 
 
 " True, most true," said the queen, with a look of great 
 terror ; " I had forgotten. Avaunt, the very thought ! 
 Pra}^ fast, banish it, — my poor, poor brother ! " and she 
 kissed his brow. 
 
 " So, there fades the Avoman, and the mummy speaks 
 again I " said Harold, bitterly. " Be it so ; I bow to my 
 doom. Well, there may be a time, when Jfature, on the 
 throne of England, shall prevail over Priest-craft ; and, 
 in guerdon for all my services, I will then ask a king who 
 hath blood in his veins to win me the Pope's pardon and 
 benison. Leave me that hope, my sister, and leave thy 
 godchild on the shores of the living world." 
 
 The queen made no answer ; and Harold, auguring ill 
 from her silence, moved on and opened the door of the 
 oratory. But the image that there met him — that figure 
 still kneeling, those eyes, so earnest in the tears that 
 streamed from them fast and unheeded, fixed on the holy 
 rood — awed his step and checked his voice. Nor till 
 the girl had risen, did he break silence ; then he said 
 gently, " My sister will press thee no more, Edith — " 
 
 " I say not that ! " exclaimed the queen. 
 
 " Or if she doth, remember thy plighted promise under 
 the wide cope of blue heaven, the old nor least holy tem- 
 ple of our common Father ! " 
 
 With these words he left the room. 
 
 VOL. I. — 12
 
 178 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Harold passed into the queen's antechamber. Here the 
 attendance was small and select compared with the crowds 
 which we shall see presently in the anteroom to the king's 
 closet : for here came chiefly the more learned ecclesias- 
 tics, attracted instinctively by the queen's own mental 
 cidture, and few indeed were they at that day (perhaps 
 the most illiterate known in England since the death of 
 Alfred ^) ; and here came not the tribe of impostors, and 
 the relic-venders, whom the infantine simplicity and 
 lavish waste of the Confessor attracted. 8ome four or 
 five priests and monks, some lonely widow, some orphan 
 child, hundile worth, or unprotected sorrow, made the 
 noiseless levee of the sweet sad queen. 
 
 The groups turned, with patient eyes, towards the earl 
 as he emerged from that chamber, which it was rare 
 indeed to quit unconsoled, and marvelled at the flush in 
 his cheek, and the disquiet on his brow ; but Harold was 
 dear to the clients of his sister ; for, despite his supposed 
 indifi'erence to the mere priestly virtues (if virtues we call 
 them) of the decrepit time, his intellect was respected by 
 yon learned ecclesiastics ; and his character as the foe of 
 
 1 The clergy (says Malmesbury), contented with a very slight 
 share of learning, conld scarcely stammer out the words of the 
 sacraments ; and a person who understood grammar was an object 
 oi wonder and astonishment. Other authorities likely to be impar- 
 tial speak quite as strongly as to the prevalent ignorance of the 
 time.
 
 HAROLD. 179 
 
 all injustice, and the fosterer of all that were desolate, 
 was known to yon pale-eyed widow, and yon trembling 
 orphan. 
 
 In the atmosphere of that quiet assembly, the earl 
 seemed to recover his kindly temperament, and he paused 
 to address a friendly or a soothing word to each ; so that 
 when he vanished, the hearts there felt more light ; and 
 the silence, hushed before his entrance, was broken by 
 many whispers in praise of the good earl. 
 
 Descending the staircase without the walls — as even in 
 royal halls the principal staircases were then — Harold 
 gained a wide court, in which loitered several house- 
 carles ^ and attendants, whether of the king or the 
 visitors ; and, reaching the entrance of the palace, took 
 his way towards the king's rooms, which lay near, and 
 round, what is now called " The Painted Chamber," then 
 used as a bedroom by Edward on state occasions. 
 
 And now he entered the antechamber of his royal 
 
 brother-in-law. Crowded it was, but rather seemed it 
 
 the hall of a convent than the anteroom of a king. 
 
 Monks, pilgrims, priests, met his eye in every nook ; and 
 
 not there did the earl pause to practise the arts of popular 
 
 favor. Passing erect through the midst, he beckoned 
 
 forth the officer, in attendance at the extreme end, who, 
 
 after an interchange of whispers, ushered him into the 
 
 royal presence. The monks and the priests, gazing 
 
 towards the door which had closed on his stately form, 
 
 said to each other, " The king's Norman favorites at least 
 
 honored the Church." 
 
 1 House-carles in the royal court were the body-guard, mostly, 
 if not all, of Danish origin. They appear to have been first formed, 
 or at least employed, in that capacity by Canute. With the great 
 earls, the house-carles probably exercised the same functions, but 
 in the ordinary acceptation of the word in families of lower rank, 
 house-carle was a domestic servant.
 
 180 HAROLD. 
 
 " That is true," said an abbot ; " and an it were not for 
 two things, I should love the Norman better than the 
 Saxon." 
 
 *' What are they, my father ? " asked an aspiring young 
 monk. 
 
 " Inprinis" quoth the abbot, proud of the one Latin 
 word he thought he knew, but that, as we see, Avas an 
 error ; " they cannot speak so as to be understood, and 
 I fear me much they incline to mere carnal learning." 
 
 Here there was a sanctified groan. 
 
 " Count William himself spoke to me in Latin ! " con- 
 tinued the abbot, raising his eyebrows. 
 
 " Did he 1 — Wonderful ! " exclaimed several voices. 
 *' And what did you answer, holy father 1 " 
 
 " Marry," said the abbot, solemnly, " I replied, ' In- 
 prints.^ " 
 
 " Good ! " said the young monk, with a look of pro- 
 found admiration. 
 
 " Whereat the good Count looked puzzled, — as I meant 
 him to be : a heinous fault, and one intolerant to the 
 clergy, that love of profane tongues ! And the next thing 
 against your Norman is," added the abbot, with a sly wink, 
 "that he is a close man, who loves not his stoup : now, 
 I say that a priest never has more hold over a sinner 
 than when he makes the sinner open his heart to him." 
 
 " That 's clear ! " said a fat priest, with a lubricate and 
 shining nose. 
 
 " And how," pursued the abbot, triumphantly, " can a 
 sinner open his heavy heart until you have given him 
 something to lighten it ? Oh, many and many a wretched 
 man have I comforted spiritually over a flagon of stout 
 ale ! and many a good legacy to the Church hath come 
 out of a friendly wassail between watchful shepherd and 
 strayed sheep ! But what hast thou there ? " resumed the
 
 HAROLD. 181 
 
 abbot, turning to a man, clad in the lay garb of a burgess 
 of London, who had just entered the room, followed by 
 a youtli bearing wliat seemed a coffer, covered with a fine 
 linen cloth. 
 
 " Holy father ! " said the burgess, wiping his forehead, 
 " it is a treasure so great, that I trow Hugoline, the king's 
 treasurer, will scowl at me for a year to come, for he likes 
 to keep his own grip on the king's gold ! " 
 
 At this indiscreet observation, the abbot, the monks, 
 and all the priestly bystanders looked grim and gloomy, 
 for each had his own special design upon the peace of 
 poor Hugoline, the treasurer, and liked not to see him the 
 prey of a layman. 
 
 " Inprinis ! " quoth the abbot, puffing out the word 
 with great scorn ; " thinkest thou, son of Mammon, that 
 our good king sets his pious heart on gew-gaws, and gems, 
 and such vanities ? Tliou shouldst take the goods to 
 Count Baldwin of Flanders ; or Tostig, the proud earl's 
 proud son." 
 
 " Marry ! " said the cheapman, with a smile ; " my 
 treasure Avill find small price with Baldwin the scoffer, 
 and Tostig the vain ! Nor need ye look at me so sternly, 
 my fathers ; but rather vie with each other who shall 
 win this wonder of wonders for his own convent ; know, 
 in a word, that it is the right thumb of St Jude, which a 
 worthy man bought at Rome for me, for 3000 lb. weight 
 of silver ; and I ask but 500 lb. over the purchase for my 
 pains and my fee. " ^ 
 
 " Humph ! " said the abbot. 
 
 "Humph!" said the aspiring young monk: the rest 
 gathered wistfully round the linen cloth. 
 
 1 This was cheap, for Agehioth, Archbishop of Canterbury, gave 
 the Pope 6000 lb. weight of silver for the arm of St. Augustiue. — 
 Malmeseury.
 
 182 HAROLD. 
 
 A fiery exclamation of wrath and disdain was here 
 heard : and all turning, saw a tall, fierce-looking thegn, 
 who had found his way into that group, like a hawk in a 
 rookery. 
 
 " Dost thou tell me, knave," quoth the thegn, in a dia- 
 lect that bespoke him a Dane by origin, with the broad 
 burr still retained in the north, — " dost thou tell me 
 that the king will waste his gold on such fooleries, while 
 the fort built by Canute at the flood of the Humber is all 
 fallen into ruin, without a man in steel jacket to keep 
 watch on the war fleets of Swede and iSTorwegian ?" 
 
 " Worshipful minister," replied the cheapman, with 
 some slight irony in his tone ; " these reverend fathers 
 will tell thee that the thumb of St. Jude is far better aid 
 against Swede and Norwegian than forts of stone and 
 jackets of steel : nathless, if thou wantest jackets of steel, 
 I have some to sell at a fair price, of the last fashion, and 
 helms with long nose-pieces, as are worn by the N^ormans." 
 
 " The thumb of a withered old saint," cried the Dane, 
 not heeding the last words, " more defence at the mouth 
 of the Humber than crenellated castles, and mailed 
 men ! " 
 
 " Surely, naught son," said the abbot, looking shocked, 
 and taking part with the cheapman. " Dost thou not 
 remember that, in the pious and famous council of 1014, 
 it was decreed to put aside all weapons of flesh against 
 thy heathen countrymen, and depend alone on St. Michael 
 to fight for us ? Thinkest thou that the saint would ever 
 suffer his holy thumb to fall into the hands of the Gen- 
 tiles 1 — never ! Go to ; thou art not fit to have conduct 
 of the king's wars. Go to, and repent, my son, or the 
 king shall hear of it." 
 
 "Ah, wolf in sheep's- clothing ! " muttered the Dane, 
 turning on his heel ; "if thy monastery were but built 
 on the other side of the Humber ! "
 
 HAROLD. 18 
 
 o 
 
 The cheapman heard him and smiled. While such the 
 scene in the anteroom, we follow Harold into the king's 
 presence. 
 
 On entering, he found there a man in the prime of life, 
 and, though richly clad, in embroidered gonna, and with 
 o-ilt ate'diar at his side, still with the loose robe, the long 
 
 DO ' 
 
 mustache, and the skin of the throat and right hand 
 punctured with characters and devices, which proved his 
 adherence to the fashions of the Saxon.^ And Harold's 
 eye sparkled, for in this guest he recognized the father of 
 Aldyth, Earl Algar, son of Leofric. The two nobles 
 exchanged grave salutations, and each eyed the other 
 wistfully. 
 
 The contrast between the two was striking. The 
 Danish race were men generally of larger frame and 
 grander mould than the Saxon ; ^ and though in all else, 
 as to exterior, Harold was eminently Saxon, yet, in com- 
 mon with his brothers, he took from the mother's side 
 the lofty air and iron frame of the old kings of the sea. 
 But Algar, below the middle height, though well set, was 
 slight in comparison with Harold. His strength was that 
 which men often take rather from the nerve than the 
 muscle ; a strength that belongs to quick tempers and 
 restless energies. His light blue eye, singularly vivid and 
 glittering ; his quivering lip ; the veins swelling at each 
 
 1 William of Malmesbiiry says that the English, at the time of 
 the Conquest, loaded their arms with gold bracelets, and adorned 
 their skins with punctured designs, that is, a sort of tattooing. He 
 says that they then wore short garments, reaching to the mid knee ; 
 but that was a Norman fashion, and the loose robes assigned in the 
 text to Algar were the old Saxon fashion, which made but little 
 distinction between the dress of women and that of men. 
 
 2 And in England, to this day, the descendants of the Anglo- 
 Danes, in Cumberland and Yorkshire, are still a taller and bonier 
 race than those of the Anglo-Saxons, as in Surrey and Sussex.
 
 184 HAROLD. 
 
 emotion, on the fair white temples ; the long, yellow hair, 
 bright as gold, and resisting in its easy curls all attempts 
 to curb it into the smooth flow most in faslii(jn ; the ner- 
 vous movements of the gesture ; the somewhat sharp and 
 liasty tones of the voice : all opposed, as much as if the 
 two men were of different races, the steady, deep eye of 
 Harold, his composed mien, sweet and majestic, his deco- 
 rous locks parted on the kinglike front, with their large, 
 single curl, where they touched the shoulder. Intelli- 
 gence and will were apparent in both the men ; but the 
 intelligence of one was acute and rapid, that of the other 
 profound and steadfast ; the will of one broke in flashes 
 of lightning, that of the other was calm as the summer 
 sun at noon. 
 
 " Thou art welcome, Harold," said the king with less 
 than his usual listlessness, and with a look of relief, as 
 the earl approached him. 
 
 " Our good Algar comes to us with a suit well worthy 
 consideration, though pressed somewhat hotly, and evinc- 
 ing too great a desire for goods worldly ; contrasting in 
 this his most laudable father, our well-beloved Leofric, 
 Avho spends his substance in endowing monasteries, and 
 dispensing alms ; wherefore he shall receive a hundred- 
 fold in the treasure-house above." 
 
 " A good interest, doubtless, my lord the king," said 
 Algar, quickly, " but one that is not paid to his heirs ; 
 and the more need, if my father (whom I blame not for 
 doing as he lists with his own) gives all he hath to the 
 monks, — tlie more need, I say, to take care that his son 
 shall be enabled to follow his example. As it is, most 
 noble king, I fear me that Algar, son of Leofric, will 
 have nothing to give. In brief, Earl Harold," continued 
 Algar, turning to his fellow-thegn, — " in brief, thus 
 stands the matter. When our lord the king was first
 
 HAKOLD, 185 
 
 graciously pleased to consent to rule in England, the two 
 chiefs who most assured his throne were thy father and 
 mine : often foes, they laid aside feud and jealousy for 
 the sake of the Saxon line. Now, since then, thy fatlier 
 hath strung earldom to earldom, like links in a coat-mail. 
 And, save North umbria and Mercia, wellnigh all England 
 falls to him and his sons ; whereas my father remains 
 Avhat he was, and my father's son stands landless and 
 penceless. In thine absence the king was graciously 
 pleased to bestow on me thy father's earldom ; men say 
 that I ruled it well. Thy father returns, and though " — 
 here Algar's eyes shot fire, and his hand involuntarily 
 rested on his ateghar — "I could have held it, methinks, 
 by the strong hand, I gave it up at my father's prayer, 
 and the king's best, with a free heart. Now, therefore, 
 I come to my lord, and I ask, ' What lands and what 
 lordships canst thou spare in broad England to Algar, 
 once Earl of Wessex, and son to the Leofric whose hand 
 smoothed the way to thy throne 1 ' IMy lord the king is 
 pleased to preach to me contempt of the world ; thou 
 dost not despise the world, Earl of the East Angles, — 
 what sayest thou to the heir of Leofric 1 " 
 
 "That thy suit is just," answered Harold, calmly, 
 " but urged with small reverence." 
 
 Earl Algar bounded like a stag that the arrow hath 
 startled. 
 
 " It becomes thee, who hast backed thy suits with 
 war-ships and mail, to talk of reverence, and rebuke one 
 whose fathers reigned over earldoms,^ when thine were, 
 
 1 Ver}' few of the greater Saxon nobles could pretend to a length- 
 ened succession in their demesnes The wars with the Danes, the 
 many revolutions which threw new families uppermost, the confisca- 
 tions and banishments, and the invariable rule of rejecting the heir, 
 if not of mature years at his father's death, caused rapid changes of 
 dynasty in the several earldoms ; but the family of Leofric had just
 
 186 HAROLD. 
 
 no doubt, ceorls at the plough. But for Edric's Streone, 
 the traitor and low-born, what had been Wolnoth, thy 
 grandsire 1 " 
 
 So rude and home an assault in tlie presence of the 
 king, who, though personally he loved Harold in Iiis 
 lukewarm way, yet, like all weak men, was not displeased 
 to see the strong split their strength against each other, 
 brought the blood into Harold's cheek ; but he answered 
 calmly, — 
 
 " We live in a land, son of Leofric, in which birth, 
 though not disesteemed, gives of itself no power in coun- 
 cil or camp. We belong to a land where men are valued 
 for what they are, not for what their dead ancestors might 
 have been. So has it been for ages in Saxon England, 
 where my fathers, through Godwin, as thou sayest, might 
 have been ceorls ; and so, I have heard, it is in the land 
 of the martial Danes, where my fathers, through Githa, 
 reigned on the thrones of the North." 
 
 " Thou dost well," said Algar, gnawing his lip, " to 
 shelter thyself on the spindle side, but we Saxons of 
 pure descent think little of your kings of the North, 
 pirates and idolaters, and eaters of horse-flesh ; but enjoy 
 •what thou hast, and let Algar have his due," 
 
 " It is for the king, not his servant, to answer the 
 prayer of Algar," said Harold, withdrawing to the farther 
 end of the room. 
 
 Algar's eye followed him, and, observing that the king 
 "was fast sinking into one of the fits of religious reverie in 
 which he sought to be inspired with a decision whenever 
 
 claims to a very rare antiquity in their Mercian lordship. Leofric 
 was the sixth earl of Chester and Coventry, in lineal descent from 
 his namesake Leofric I. ; he extended the supremacy of his hered- 
 itary lordship over all Mercia. See Dugdalk : " Mouast.," vol. iii. 
 ]>. 102; and Palgrave's "Commonwealth, Proofs, and Illustra- 
 tioDS," p. 29L
 
 HAROLD. 187 
 
 his mind was perplexed, he moved with a light step to 
 Harold, put his hand on his shoulder, and whispered, — 
 
 " We do ill to quarrel with each other ; I repent me 
 of hot words : — enough. Thy father is a wise man, and 
 sees far, — thy father would have us friends. Be it so. 
 Hearken : my daughter Aldyth is esteemed not the least 
 fair of the maidens in England ; I will give her to thee 
 as thy wife, and as thy morgen gift thou shalt win for 
 me from the king the earldom forfeited by thy brother 
 Sweyn, now parcelled out among sub-earls and thegns, — 
 easy enow to control. By the shrine of St. Alban, dost 
 thou hesitate, man ? " 
 
 " iS^o, not an instant," said Harold, stung to the quick. 
 " Not, couldst thou offer me all Mercia as her dower, 
 would I wed the daughter of Algar ; and bend my knee 
 as a son to a wife's father, to the man who despises my 
 lineage, while he truckles to my power." 
 
 Algar's face grew convulsed with rage ; but without 
 saying a word to the earl he strode back to Edward, who 
 now with vacant eyes looked up from the rosary over 
 which he had been bending, and said abruptly, — 
 
 "My lord the king, I have spoken as I think it 
 becomes a man who knows his own claims, and believes 
 in the gratitude of princes. Three days will I tarry in 
 London for your gracious answer ; on the fourth I depart. 
 May the saints guard your throne, and bring around it its 
 best defence, the thegn-born satraps whose fathers fought 
 with Alfred and Athelstan. All went well with merrie 
 England till the hoof of the Dane king broke the soil, and 
 mushrooms sprang up where the oak-trees fell." 
 
 When the son of Leofric had left the chamber, the 
 king rose wearily, and said, in Norman-French, to which 
 language he always yearningly returned, when with those 
 who could speak it, —
 
 188 HAROLD. 
 
 " Beau frere and hien aime, in what trifles must a king 
 pass his life ! And, all this while, matters grave and 
 urgent demand me. Know that Eadmer, the cheapman, 
 waits without, and hath brought me, dear and good man, 
 the thumb of St. Jude ! What thought of delight ! And 
 this unmannerly son of strife, with his jay's voice and 
 wolf's eyes, screaming at me for earldoms ! — oh, the folly 
 of man ! Naught, nauglit, very naught ! " 
 
 " Sir and king," said Harold, " it ill becomes me to 
 arraign your pious desires, but these relics are of vast 
 cost ; our coasts are ill defended, and the Dane yet lays 
 claim to your kingdom. Three thousand pounds of silver 
 and more does it need to repair even the old wall of Lon- 
 don and Southweorc." 
 
 " Three thousand pounds ! " cried the king ; " thou art 
 mad, Harold ! I have scarce twice that sum in the 
 treasury ; and besides the thumb of St. Jude, I daily 
 expect the tooth of St. Remigius, — the tooth of St. 
 Remigius ! " 
 
 Harold sighed. " Vex not yourself, my lord ; I will 
 see to the defences of London. For, thanks to your 
 grace, my revenues are large, while my wants are simple. 
 I seek you now to pray your leave to visit my earldom. 
 My lithsmen murmur at my absence, and grievances, 
 many and sore, have arisen in my exile." 
 
 The king stared in terror ; and his look was that of a 
 child when about to be left in the dark. 
 
 " Nay, nay ; I cannot spare thee, beau frere. Thou 
 curbest all these stiif thegns, — thou leavest me time for 
 the devout ; moreover thy father, thy father, I will not 
 be left to thy father ! I love him not ! " 
 
 " My father," said Harold, mournfully, " returns to his 
 own earldom ; and of all our liouse you will have but the 
 mild face of your queen by your side ! "
 
 HAROLD. 189 
 
 The king's lip writhed at that hinted rebuke, or im- 
 plied consolation. 
 
 " Edith, the queen," he said, after a slight pause, " is 
 pious and good ; and she hath never gainsaid my will, and 
 she hath set before her as a model the chaste Susannah, 
 as I, unworthy man, from youth upward, have walked in 
 the pure steps of Joseph.^ But," added the king, with 
 a tou(;h of human feeling in his voice, " canst thou not 
 conceive, Harold, thou who art a warrior, what it would 
 be to see ever before thee the face of thy deadliest foe — 
 the one against whom all thy struggles of life and death 
 had turned into memories of hyssop and gall 1 " 
 
 " My sister ! " exclaimed Harold, in indignant amaze, 
 — " my sister thy deadliest foe ! She who never once 
 murmured at neglect, disgrace ; she whose youth hath 
 been consumed in prayers for thee and thy realm, — my 
 sister ! king, I dream ! " 
 
 " Thou dreamest not, carnal man," said the king, pee- 
 vishly. " Dreams are the gifts of the saints, and are 
 not granted to such as thou ! Dost thou think that, in 
 the prime of my manhood, I could, have youth and beauty 
 forced on my sight, and hear man's law and man's voice 
 say, ' The}-- are thine, and thine only,' and not feel that 
 war was brought to my hearth, and a snare set on my bed, 
 and that the fiend had set watch on my soul ? Verily, 
 I tell thee, man of battle, that thou hast known no strife 
 as awful as mine, and achieved no victory as hard and 
 as holy. And now, when my beard is silver, and the 
 Adam of old is expelled at the precincts of death, — now, 
 thinkest thou that I can be reminded of the strife and 
 temptation of yore, without bitterness and shame : when, 
 days were spent in fasting, and nights in fierce prayer ; 
 and in the face of woman I saw the devices of Satan 1 " 
 
 1 AiLRED : " De Vit. Edw."
 
 190 HAROLD. 
 
 Edward colored as he spoke, aud bis voice trembled 
 Avith tbe accents of what seemed hate. Harold gazed on 
 him mutely, and felt that at last he had won tlie secret 
 that had ever perplexed him, and that in seeking to be 
 above the humanity of love, the would-be saint had indeed 
 turned love into the hues of hate, — a thought of anguish 
 and a memory of pain. 
 
 The king recovered himself in a few moments, and 
 said, with some dignity, " But God and his saints alone 
 should know tlie secrets of the household. What I have 
 said was wrung from me. Bury it in thy heart. Leave 
 me, then, Harold, sith so it must be. Put thine earldom 
 in order, attend to the monasteries and the poor, and 
 return soon. As for Algar, what sayest thou 1 " 
 
 "I fear. me," answered the large-souled Harold, with a 
 victorious effort of justice over resentment, " that if you 
 reject his suit you will drive him into some perilous 
 extremes. Despite his rash and proud spirit, he is brave 
 against foes, and beloved by the ceorls, who oft like best 
 the frank and hasty spirit. Wherefore some power and 
 lordship it were wise to give, without dispossessing others, 
 and not more wise than due, for his father served you 
 well." 
 
 " And hath endowed more houses of God than any earl 
 in the kingdom But Algar is no Leofria We will con- 
 sider your words and heed them. Bless you, beau frere / 
 and send in the cheapman. The thumb of St. Jude ! 
 What a gift to my new church of St. Peter ! The thumb 
 of St. Jude ! — N'on nobis gloria / Sancta Maria ! The 
 thumb of St. Jude ! "
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 DEATH AND LOVi. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Harold, without waiting once more to see Edith, nor 
 even taking leave of his father, repaired to Dunwich,i the 
 capital of his earldom. In his absence, the king wholly 
 forgot Algar and his suit ; and in the mean while the only 
 lordships at his disposal, Stigand, the grasping bishop, got 
 from him without an effort. In much wrath. Earl Algar, 
 on the fourth day, assembling all the loose men-at-arms 
 he could find around the metropolis, and at tlie head of a 
 numerous disorderly band, took his way into Wales, with 
 his young daughter Aldyth, to whom the crown of a 
 Welsh king was perhaps some comfort for the loss of the 
 fair earl, though the rumor ran that she had long since 
 lost her heart to her father's foe. 
 
 Edith, after a long homily from the king, returned to 
 Hilda; nor did her godmother renew the subject of the 
 convent. All she said on parting was, " Even in youth 
 the silver cord may be loosened, and the golden bowl may 
 be broken ; and rather perhaps in youth than in age, 
 when the heart has grown hard, wilt thou recall with a 
 sigh my counsels." 
 
 1 Dunwich, now swallowed up by the sea — hostile element to 
 the house of Godwin!
 
 102 HAEOLD. 
 
 Godwin haJ departed to Wales ; all his sons were at 
 their several lordships ; Edward was left alone to his 
 monks and relic-venders. And so months passed. 
 
 N'ow, it was the custom with the old kings of England 
 to hold state and wea th;ir c)cv;ns thrice a year, at 
 Christmas, at Easter, and at Whitsuntide ; and in those 
 times their nobles ca'^'? round them, and there was much 
 feasting and great pomp. 
 
 So, in the Easter of the year of our Lord 1053, King 
 Edward kept his court at AVindshore,^ and Earl Godwin 
 and his sons, and many others of high degree, left their 
 homes to do honor to the king. And Earl Godwin came 
 first to his house in London, — near the Tower Palatine, 
 in what is now called the Fleet, — and Harold the Earl, 
 and Tostig, and Leofwine, and Gurth, were to meet him 
 there, and go thence, with the full state of their sub- 
 thegns, and cnehts, and house-carles, their falcons, and 
 their hounds, as become men of such rank, to tlie court 
 of King Edward. 
 
 Earl Godwin sat with his wife, Githa, in a room out of 
 the hall, which looked on the Thames, awaiting Harold, 
 who was expected to arrive ere nightfall. Gurth had 
 ridden forth to meet his brother, and Leofwine and 
 Tostig had gone over to South wark, to try their band-dogs 
 on the great bear, which had been brought from the North 
 a few days before, and was saiii to have hugged many 
 good hounds to death ; and a large train of thegns and 
 house-carles had gone with them to see the sport ; so tliat 
 the old earl and his lady the Dane sat alone. And there 
 was a cloud upon Earl Godwin's large forehead, and he 
 sat l)y the fire, spreading his hands before it, and looking 
 thoughtful]}'' on tlie flame, as it broke through the smoke 
 which burst out into the covei\ or hole in the I'oof, And 
 
 1 Windsor.
 
 HAROLD. 19 
 
 o 
 
 in that large house there were no less than three " covers," 
 or rooms wherein fires could be lit in the centre of the 
 floor ; and the rafters above were blackened with tlie 
 smoke ; and in those good old days, ere chimneys, if 
 existing, were much in use, " poses, and rheumatisms, and 
 catarrhs " were unknown, — so wholesome and healtliful 
 was the smoke. Earl Godwin's favorite hound, old, like 
 himself, lay at his feet, dreaming, for it whined and was 
 restless. And the earl's old hawk, with its feathers all 
 stiff and sparse, perched on the dossel of the earl's chair ; 
 and the floor was pranked with rushes and sweet herbs, 
 — the first of *the spring ; and Githa's feet were on her 
 stool, and she leaned her proud face on the small hand 
 which proved her descent from the Dane, and rocked her- 
 self to and fro, and thought of her son Wolnoth in the 
 court of the Norman. 
 
 " Githa," at last said the earl, "thou hast been to me 
 a good wife and a true, and thou hast borne me tall and 
 bold sons, some of whoin have caused us sorrow, and 
 some joy ; and in sorrow and in joy we have but drawn 
 closer to each other. Yet when we wed, thou wert in 
 thy first youth, and the best part of my years was fled ; 
 and thou wert a Dane, and I a Saxon ; and thou a king's 
 niece, and now a king's sister, and I but tracing two 
 descents to thegn's rank." 
 
 Moved and marvelling at this touch of sentiment in 
 the calm earl, — in whom, indeed, such sentiment was 
 rare, — Githa roused herself from her musings, and said 
 simply and anxiously, — 
 
 " I fear my lord is not well, that he speaks thus to 
 Githa ! " 
 
 The earl smiled faintly. 
 
 " Thou art right with thy woman's wit, wife. And for 
 the last few weeks, though I said it not to alarm thee, I 
 
 VOL. I. — 13
 
 194 HAROLD. 
 
 have had strange noises in my ears, and a surge, as of 
 blood, to the temples." 
 
 " Godwin ! dear spouse," said Githa, tenderly, " and 
 I was blind to the cause, but wondered why there was 
 some change in thy manner ! But I will go to Hilda to- 
 morrow ; she hath charms against all disease." 
 
 " Leave Hilda in peace, to give her charms to the 
 young ! age defies Wigh and Wicca. Now hearken to 
 me. I feel that my tliread is nigh spent, and, as Hilda 
 would say, my Fylgia forewarns me that we are about to 
 part. Silence, I say, and hear me. I have done proud 
 things in my day ; I have made kings and built thrones, 
 and I stand higher in England than ever thegn or earl 
 stood befora I would not, Githa, that the tree of my 
 house, planted in the storm, and watered with lavish 
 blood, should wither away." 
 
 The old earl paused, and Githa said loftily, — 
 
 " Fear not that thy name will pass from the earth, or 
 thy race from power ; for fame has been wrought by thy 
 hands, and sons have been born to thy embrace ; and the 
 boughs of the tree thou hast planted shall live in th« 
 sunlight when we, its roots, my husband, are buried in 
 the earth." 
 
 " Githa," replied the earl, " thou speakest as the daugh- 
 ter of kings and the mother of men ; but listen to me, for 
 my soul is heavy. Of these our sons, our first-born, alas ! 
 is a wanderer and outcast, — Sweyn, once the beautiful 
 and brave ; and Wolnoth, thy darling, is a guest in the 
 court of the Norman our foe. Of the rest, Gurth is so 
 mild and so calm that I predict without fear that he will 
 be a warrior of fame, for the mildest in hall are ever the 
 boldest in field : but Gurth hath not the deep wit of these 
 tangled times ; and Leofwine is too light, and Tostig too 
 fierce. So, wife mine, of these our six sons, Harold alone,
 
 HAROLD. 195 
 
 dauntless as Tostig, mild as Gurth, hath his father's 
 thoughtful brain. And, if the king reniams as aloof as 
 now from his royal kinsman, Edward the Atheling, who " 
 ■ — the earl hesitated and looked round — ■ " who so near 
 to the throne when I am no more, as Harold, the joy of 
 the ceorls, and the pride of the thegns l he, — whose 
 tongue never falters in the Witan, and whose arm never 
 yet hath known defeat in the field 1 " 
 
 Githa's heart swelled, and her cheek grew flushed. 
 
 " But what I fear the most," resumed the earl, " is, not 
 the enemy without, but the jealousy within. By the side 
 of Harold stands Tostig, rapacious to grasp, but impotent 
 to hold, — able to ruin, strengthless to save." 
 
 " Nay, Godwin, my lord, thou wrongest our handsome 
 son. " 
 
 " Wife, wife," said the earl, stamping his foot, " hear 
 me and obey me, for my words on earth may be few ; 
 and whilst thou gainsayest me, the blood mounts to my 
 brain, and my eyes see through a cloud." 
 
 " Forgive me, sweet lord," said Githa, humbly. 
 
 " Mickle and sore it repents me that in their youth I 
 spared not the time from my worldly ambition to watch 
 over the hearts of my sons ; and thou wert too proud of 
 the surface without to look well to the workings within, 
 and what was once soft to the touch is now hard to the 
 hammer. In the battle of life the arrows we neglect to 
 pick up, Fate, our foe, will store in her quiver ; we have 
 armed her ourselves with the shafts, — the more need to 
 beware with the shield. Wherefore, if thou survivest 
 me, and if, as I forebode, dissension break out between 
 Harold and Tostig, I charge thee by memory of our 
 love, and reverence for my grave, to deem wise and just 
 all that Harold deems just and wise ; for when Godwin is 
 in the dust, his House lives alone in Harold. Heed me
 
 196 HAF.OLD. 
 
 now, and heed ever. And so, while the day yet lasts, I 
 will go forth into the marts and the gnilds, and talk with 
 the burgesses, and smile on their wives, and be to the 
 last Godwin the smooth and the strong." 
 
 So saying, the old earl arose, and walked forth Avith a 
 firm step ; and his old hound sprang up, pricked its ears, 
 and followed him ; the blinded falcon turned its head 
 towards the clapping door, but did not stir from the 
 dossel. 
 
 Then Githa again leaned her cheek on her hand, and 
 again rocked herself to and fro, gazing into the red flame 
 of the fire, — red and fitful through the blue smoke, — 
 and thought over her lord's words. It might be the third 
 part of an hour after Godwin had left the house, when 
 the door opened, and Githa, expecting the return of her 
 sons, looked up eagerly, but it was Hilda, who stooped 
 her head under the vault of the door; and behind Hilda 
 came two of her maidens, bearing a small cyst or chest. 
 The Vala motioned to her attendants to lay the cyst at 
 the feet of Githa, and, that done, with lowly salutation 
 they left the room. 
 
 The superstitions of the Danes were strong in Githa ; 
 and she felt an indescribable awe when Hilda stood 
 before her, the red light playing on the Vala's stern mar- 
 'ble face and contrasting robes of funereal black. But, 
 •with all her awe, Githa, who, not educated like her 
 daughter Edith, had few feminine resources, loved the 
 visits of her mysterious kinswoman. She loved to live 
 lier youth over again in discourse on the wild customs and 
 dark rites of the Dane ; and even her awe itself had the 
 charm which the ghost-tale has to the child, — for the 
 illiterate are ever children. So, recovering her surprise and 
 her first pause, she rose to welcome the Vala, and said : 
 
 " Hail, Hilda, and thrice hail ! The day has been
 
 HAROLD. 197 
 
 warm and the way long ; and, ere thou takest food and 
 wine, let me prepare for thee the bath for thy form, or 
 the bath for thy feet. For as sleep to the young, is the 
 bath to the old." 
 
 Hilda shook her head. 
 
 " Bringer of sleep am I, and the baths I prepare are in 
 the halls of Valhalla. Offer not to the Vala the bath for 
 mortal weariness, and the wine and the food meet for 
 human guests. Sit thee down, daughter of the Dane, and 
 thank thy new gods for the past that hath been thine. 
 Is^ot ours is the present, and the future escapes from our 
 dreams ; but the past is ours ever, and all eternity cannot 
 revoke a single joy that the moment hath known." 
 
 Then seating herself in Godwin's large chair, she leaned 
 over her seid-statf, and was silent, as if absorbed in her 
 thoughts. 
 
 " Githa," she said at last, " where is thy lord 1 I came 
 to touch his hands and to look on his brow." 
 
 " He hath gone forth into the mart, and my sons are 
 from home ; and Harold comes hither ere night from his 
 earldom." 
 
 A faint smile, as of triumph, broke over the lips of the 
 Vala, and then as suddenly yielded to an expression of 
 great sadness. 
 
 " Githa," she said slowly, " doubtless thou remem- 
 berest in thy young days to have seen or heard of the 
 terrible hell-maid Belsta 1 " 
 
 " Ay, ay," answered Githa shuddering ; " I saw her 
 once in gloomy weather, driving before her herds of dark- 
 gray cattle. Ay, ay ; and my father beheld her ere his 
 death, riding the air on a wolf, with a snake for a bridle. 
 Why asketh thou 1 " 
 
 " Is it not strange," said Hilda, evading the question, 
 " that Belsta, and Heidr, and Hulla of old, the wolf-
 
 198 HAROLD. 
 
 riders, the men-devourers, could win to the uttermost 
 secrets of galdra, though applied only to purposes the 
 direst and fellest to man, and that I, though ever in the 
 future — I, though tasking the Normans not to afflict a 
 foe, but to shape the careers of those I love — I find, 
 indeed, my predictions fulfilled ; but how often, alas ! 
 only in horror and doom ! " 
 
 " How so, kinswoman, how so ? " said Githa, awed, yet 
 charmed in the awe, and drawing her chair nearer to the 
 mournful sorceress. " Didst thou not foretell our return 
 in triumph from the unjust outlawry, and, lo, it hath come 
 to pass? and hast thou not" — here Githa's proud face 
 flushed — - " foretold also that my stately Harold shall wear 
 the diadem of a king 1 " 
 
 " Truly, the first came to pass," said Hilda ; " but — " 
 she paused, and her eye fell on the cyst ; then breaking 
 oflF, she continued, speaking to herself rather than to 
 Githa, " And Harold's dream, what did that portend ? 
 The runes fail me, and the dead give no voice. And 
 beyond one dim day, in which his betrothed shall clasp 
 him with the arms of a bride, all is dark to my vision, — 
 dark, dark. Speak not to me, Githa; for a burden, 
 heavy as the stone on a grave, rests on a weary heart ! " 
 
 A dead silence succeeded, till, pointing with her staff 
 to the fire, the Vala said, " Lo, where the smoke and 
 the flame contend ! — the smoke rises in dark gyres to 
 the air, and escapes to join the wrack of clouds. From the 
 first to the last we trace its birth and its fall ; from the 
 heart of the fire to the descent in the rain : so is it with 
 human reason, which is not the light but the smoke ; it 
 struggles but to darken us ; it soars but to melt in the 
 vapor and dew. Yet lo, the flame burns in our hearth 
 till the fuel fails, and goes at last, none know whither. 
 But it lives in the air, though we see it not ; it lurks in
 
 HAEOLD. 199 
 
 the stone, and waits the flash of the steel ; it coils round 
 the dry leaves and sere stalks, and a touch reillumines 
 it ; it plays in the marsh ; it collects in the heavens ; it 
 appalls us in the liglitning ; it gives warmth to the air, — 
 life of our life, and element of all elements. Githa, the 
 flame is the light of the soul, the element everlasting ; 
 and it liveth still, when it escapes from our view ; it 
 burnetii in the shapes to which it passes ; it vanishes, 
 hut is never extinct." 
 
 So saying, the Vala's lips again closed ; and again both 
 the women sat silent by the great fire, as it flared and 
 flickered over the deep lines and high features of Githa, 
 the earl's wife, and the calm, unwrinkled, solemn face of 
 the melancholy Vala.
 
 200 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 While these conferences took place in the House of 
 Godwin, Harold, on his way to London, dismissed his 
 train to precede him to his father's roof, and, striking 
 across the country, rode fast and alone towards the old 
 Roman abode of Hilda. Months had elapsed since he 
 had seen or heard of Edith. IS'ews at that time, I need 
 not say, was rare and scarce, and limited to public events, 
 either transmitted by special nuncius, or passing pilgrim, 
 or borne from lip to lip by the talk of the scattered mul- 
 titude. But even in his busy and anxious duties Harold 
 had in vain sought to banish from his heart the image of 
 that young girl, whose life he needed no Vala to predict 
 to him was interwoven with the fibres of his own. The 
 obstacles which, while he yielded to, he held unjust and 
 tyrannical, obstacles allowed by his reluctant reason and 
 his secret ambition, — not sanctified by conscience, — only 
 inflamed the deep strength of the solitary passion his 
 life had known ; a passion that, dating from the very 
 childhood of Edith, had, often unknown to himself, ani- 
 mated his desire of fame, and mingled with his visions of 
 power. Nor, though hope was far and dim, was it extinct. 
 The legitimate heir of Edward the Confessor was a prince 
 living in the court of the Emperor, of fair repute, and 
 himself wedded ; and Edward's health, always precarious, 
 seemed to forbid any very prolonged existence to the 
 reigning king. Therefore, he thought that through the
 
 HAROLD. 201 
 
 successor, whose tlirone would rest in safety upon Harold's 
 support, lie might easily obtain that dispensation from the 
 Pope which he knew the present king would never ask, 
 — a dispensation rarely, indeed, if ever, accorded to any 
 subject, and which, therefore, needed all a king's power to 
 back it. 
 
 So in that hope, and fearful lest it should be quenched 
 forever by Edith's adoption of the veil and the irrevocable 
 vow, with a beating, disturbed, but joyful heart, he rode 
 over field and through forest to the old Roman house. 
 
 He emerged at length to the rear of the villa, and the 
 sun, fast hastening to its decline, shone full upon the 
 rude columns of the Druid temple ; and there, as he had 
 seen her before, when he had first spoken of love and its 
 barriers, he beheld the young maiden. 
 
 He sprang from his horse, and, leaving the well-trained 
 animal loose to browse on the waste land, he ascended the 
 knoll. He stole noiselessly behind Edith, and his foot 
 stumbled against the gravestone of the dead Titan-Saxon 
 of old ; but the apparition, whether real or fancied, and 
 the dream that had followed, had long passed from his 
 memory, and no superstition was in the heart springing to 
 the lips that cried " Editii " once again. 
 
 The girl started, looked round, and fell upon his breast. 
 
 It was some moments before she recovered conscious- 
 ness, and then, withdrawing herself gently from his arms, 
 she leaned for support against the Teuton altar. 
 
 She was much changed since Harold had seen her last : 
 her cheek had grown pale and thin, and her rounded form 
 seemed wasted ; and sharp grief, as he gazed, shot through 
 the soul of Harold. 
 
 "Thou hast pined, thou hast suffered," said he, mourn- 
 fully ; " and I, wlio would shed my life's blood to take 
 one from tliy sorrows, or a'ld to one of thy joys, have
 
 202 HAROLD. 
 
 been afar, unable to comfort, perhaps only a cause of thy 
 woe." 
 
 " No, Harold," said Edith, faintly, " never ot woe ; 
 ahvays of comfort, even in absence. I have been ill, and 
 Hilda hath tried rune and charm all in vain ; but I am 
 better, now that spring hath come tardily forth, and I 
 look on the fresh flowers, and hear the song of the 
 birds." 
 
 But tears were in the sound of her voice while she 
 spoke. 
 
 " And they have not tormented thee again with the 
 thoughts of the convent 1 " 
 
 " They ? no ; — but my soul, yes. Harold, release 
 me from my promise ; for the time already hath come 
 that thy sister foretold to me ; the silver cord is loosened, 
 and the golden bowl is broken, and I would fain take the 
 wings of the dove, and be at peace." 
 
 "Is it so? — Is there peace in the home where the 
 thought of Harold becomes a sin ? " 
 
 " Not sin then and there, Harold, not sin. Thy sister 
 hailed the convent when she tliought of prayer for those 
 she loved." 
 
 " Prate not to me of my sister ! " said Harold, through 
 his set teeth. " It is but a mockery to talk of prayer for 
 th-e heart that thou thyself rendest in twain. Where is 
 Hilda 1 I would see her." 
 
 " She hath gone to thy father's house with a gift ; and 
 it was to watch for her return that I sat on the green 
 knoll." 
 
 The earl then drew near and took her hand and sat by 
 her side, and they conversed long. But Harold saw with 
 a fierce pang that Edith's heart was set upon the convent, 
 and that even in his presence, and despite his soothing 
 words, she was broken-spirited and despondent. It seemed
 
 HAROLD. 203 
 
 as if her youth and life had gone from her, and the day 
 had come in which she said, " There is no pleasure." 
 
 I^ever had he seen her thus ; and, deeply moved as 
 Avell as keenly stung, he rose at length to depart ; her 
 hand lay passive in his parting clasp, and a slight shiver 
 Avent over her frame. 
 
 " Farewell, Edith ; when I return from "Windshore, I 
 shall be at my old home yonder, and we shall meet again." 
 
 Edith's lips murmured inaudibly, and she bent her eyes 
 to the ground. 
 
 Slowly Harold regained his steed, and as he rode on he 
 looked behind, and waved oft his hand ; but Edith sat 
 motionless, her eyes still on the ground, and he saw not 
 the tears that fell from them fast and burning ; nor heard 
 he the low voice that groaned amidst the heathen ruins, 
 " Mary, sweet mother, shelter me from my own heart ! " 
 
 The sun had set before Harold gained the long and 
 spacious abode of his father. All around it lay the 
 roofs and huts of the great earl's special tradesmen, for 
 even his goldsmith was but his freed ceorl. The house 
 itself stretched far from the Thames inland, with several 
 low courts built only of timber, rugged and shapeless, 
 but filled Avith bold men, then the great furniture of a 
 noble's halls. 
 
 Amidst the shouts of hundreds, eager to hold his stir- 
 rup, the earl dismounted, passed the swarming hall, and 
 entered the room, in which he found Hilda and Githa, 
 — and Godwin, who had preceded his entry but a few 
 minutes. 
 
 In the beautiful reverence of son to father, which 
 made one of the loveliest features of the Saxon charac- 
 ter ^ (as the frequent want of it makes the most hateful 
 
 1 The chronicler, however, laments that the liousehold ties, for- 
 merly so strong with the Anglo-Saxon, had been much weakened 
 in the age prior to the Conquest.
 
 204 HAROLD. 
 
 of the Norman vices), the all-powerful HaroM bowed 
 his knee to the old earl, who placed his hand on his 
 head in benediction, and then kissed him on the cheek 
 and brow. 
 
 " Thy kiss, too, dear mother," said the younger earl ; 
 and Githa's embrace, if more cordial than her lord's, was 
 not, perhaps, more fond. 
 
 " Greet Hilda, my son," said Godwin ; " she hath 
 brought me a gift, and she hath tarried to place it under 
 thy special care. Thou alone must heed the treasure, 
 and open the casket. But wdien and where, my kins- 
 woman 1 " 
 
 " On the sixth day after thy coming to the king's 
 hall," answered Hilda, not returning the smile with 
 which Godwin spoke, — " on the sixth day, Harold, open 
 the chest, and take out the robe which hath been spun 
 in the house of Hilda for Godwin the Earl. And now, 
 Godwin, I have clasped thine hand, and I have looked 
 on thy brow, and my mission is done ; and I must wend 
 liomeward." 
 
 " That shalt thou not, Hilda," said the hospitable earl ; 
 " the meanest wayfarer hath a right to bed and board in 
 this house for a night and a day, and thou wilt not dis- 
 grace us by leaving our thresliold, the bread unbroken 
 and the couch unpressed. Old friend, we were young 
 together, and thy face is welcome to me as the memory 
 of former days." 
 
 Hilda shook her head, and one of those rare, and, for 
 that reason, most touching expressions of tenderness, of 
 wliich the calm and rigid character of her features, when 
 in repose, seemed scarcely susceptible, softened her eye, 
 and relaxed the firm lines of her lips. 
 
 " Son of Wolnoth," said she, gently, " not under thy 
 roof-tree should lodge the raven of bode. Bread have I
 
 HAROLD. 205 
 
 not broken since yestere'en, and sleep will be far from 
 my eyes to-night. Fear not, for my people without are 
 stout and armed, and for the rest there lives not the man 
 whose arm can have power over Hilda." 
 
 She took Harold's hand as she spoke, and, leading him 
 forth, whispered in his ear, " I would have a word with 
 thee ere we part." Then, reaching the threshold, she 
 Avaved her wand thrice over the floor, and muttered in 
 tlie Danish tongue a rude verse, which, translated, ran 
 somewhat thus : — 
 
 " All free from the knot 
 
 Glide the thread of the skein, 
 And rest to the labor, 
 And peace to the pain ! " 
 
 " It is a death-dirge," said Githa, with whitening lips ; 
 but she spoke inly, and neither husband nor son heard 
 her words. 
 
 Hilda and Harold passed in silence through the hall, 
 and the Vala's attendants, with spears and torches, rose 
 from the settles, and went before to the outer court, where 
 snorted impatiently her black palfrey. 
 
 Halting in the midst of the court, she said to Harold in 
 a low voice, — 
 
 " At sunset Ave part, — at sunset we shall meet again. 
 And behold, the star rises on the sunset ; and the star, 
 broader and brighter, shall rise on the sunset then ! 
 When thy liand draws the robe from the chest, think on 
 Hilda, and know that at that hour she stands Ijy the 
 grave of the Saxon warrior, and that from the grave 
 dawns the future. Farewell to thee ! " 
 
 Harold longed to speak to her of Edith, but a strange 
 aM'e at his heart chained his lips ; so he stood silent by 
 the great wooden gates of the rude house. The torches
 
 206 HAEOLD. 
 
 flamed round him, and Hilda's face seemed lurid in the 
 glare. There he stood musing long after torch and ceorl 
 had passed away, nor did he wake from his reverie till 
 Gurth, springing from his panting horse, passed his arm 
 round the earl's shoulder, and cried, — 
 
 " How did I miss thee, my brother? and why didst 
 thou forsake thy train 1 " 
 
 " I will tell thee anon Gurth, has ray father ailed ? 
 There is that in his face which I like not." 
 
 " He hath not complained of misease," said Gurth, 
 startled ; " hut now thou speakest of it, his mood hath 
 altered of late, and he hath wandered much alone, or 
 only with the old hound and the old falcon." 
 
 Then Harold turned back, and his heart was full, and 
 "when he reached the house, his father was sitting in the 
 hall on his chair of state ; and Githa sat on his right liand, 
 and a little below her sat Tostig and Leofwine, who had 
 come in from the bear-hunt by the river-gate, and were 
 talking loud and merrily ; and thegns and cnehts sat all 
 around, and there was wassail as Harold entered ; but 
 the earl looked only to his father, and he saw that his 
 eyes were absent from the glee, and that he was bending 
 his head over the old falcon which sat on his wrist.
 
 HAROLD. 207 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 No subject of England, since the race of Cerdic sat on 
 the throne, ever entered the courtyard of Windshore 
 with such train and such state as Earl Godwin. Proud 
 of that first occasion, since his return, to do homage to 
 him with whose cause that of England against the 
 stranger was bound, all truly English at heart amongst 
 the thegns of the land swelled his retinue. Whether 
 Saxon or Dane, those who alike loved tlie laws and the 
 soil came from north and from south to the peaceful ban- 
 ner of the old earl ; but most of these were of the past 
 generation, for the rising race vierc still dazzled by the 
 pomp of the Noi'man ; and the fashion of English man- 
 ners, and the pride in English deeds, had gone out of 
 date with long locks and 1)earded chins. Nor there were 
 the bishops and abbots and the lords of the Church : for 
 dear to them already the fame of the Norman piety, and 
 they shared the distaste of their holy king to the strong 
 sense and homely religion of Godwin, who founded no 
 convents, and rode to war with no relics round his neck ; 
 but they with Godwin were the stout and the frank and 
 the free, in whom rested the pith and marrow of English 
 manhood ; and they who were against him were the blind 
 and willing and fated fathers of slaves unborn. 
 
 Not then the stately castle we now behold, which is 
 of the masonry of a prouder race, nor on the same site, 
 but two miles distant on the winding of the river-shore 
 (whence it took its name), a rude building, partly of tim-
 
 208 HAT^OI.D. 
 
 ber and partly of Roman brick, adjoining a large monas- 
 tery and surrounded by a small hamlet, constituted the 
 palace of the saint king. 
 
 So rode the earl and his four fair sons, all abreast, into 
 the courtyard of Windshore.^ Now when King Edward 
 heard the tramp of the steeds and the hum of the multi- 
 tudes, as he sat in his closet with his abbots and priests, 
 all in still contemplation of the thumb of St. Judc, the 
 king asked, — 
 
 " What army, in the day of peace and the time of 
 Easter, enters the gates of our palace?" 
 
 Then an al)liot rose and looked out of the narrow win- 
 dow, and said with a groan, — 
 
 " Army thou mayest well call it, king ! — -and foes to 
 us and to thee head the legions — " 
 
 " Injyrinis,'^ quoth our abbot the scholar ; " thou speak- 
 est, I trow, of the wicked earl and his sons." 
 
 Tlie king's face clianged. " Come they," said he, 
 " with so large a train ? This smells more of vaunt than 
 of loyalty : naught, — ■ very naught." 
 
 " Alack ! " said one of the conclave, " I fear me that 
 tlie men of Belial will work us harm ; the heathen are 
 mighty, and — " 
 
 "Fear not," said Edward, with I)enign loftiness, observ- 
 ing that his guests grew pale, and himself, though often 
 weak to childishness, and morally wavering and irreso- 
 lute, still so far king and gentleman that he knew no 
 
 1 Some authorities state Winchester as tlie scene of these mem- 
 orable festivities. Old Windsor Castle is supposed by Mr. Lysons 
 tu have ocnupied the site of a farm bf Mr. Islierwood's, surrounded 
 hy a moat, about two miles distant from New Windsor. He con- 
 jectures that it was still occasionally inhabited by tlie Norman 
 kinjj:s till 1110. The ville surronndiiifij it only contained ninety- 
 five houses, paying gabeltax, in the Norman survey.
 
 HAROLD. 209 
 
 craven fear of the body. " Fear not for me, my fathers ; 
 humble as I am, I am strong in the faith of heaven and 
 its angels." 
 
 The churchmen looked at each other, sly, yet abashed ; 
 it was not precisely for the king that they feared. 
 
 Then spoke Aired, the good prelate and constant 
 peacemaker, — • fair column and lone one of the fast- 
 crumbling Saxon Church. " It is ill in you, brethren, 
 to arraign the truth and good meaning of those who 
 honor your king ; and in these days that lord should 
 ever be the most welcome who brings to the halls of his 
 king the largest number of hearts, stout and leal." 
 
 " By your leave, brother Aired," said Stigand, who, 
 though from motives of policy he had aided those who 
 besought the king not to peril his crown by resisting the 
 return of Godwin, benefited too largely by the abuses of 
 the Church to be sincerely espoused to the cause of the 
 strong-minded earl, — " by your leave, brother Aired, to 
 every leal heart is a ravenous mouth ; and the treasures 
 of the king are wellnigh drained in feeding these hungry 
 and welcomeless visitors. Durst I counsel, my lord, I 
 would pray him, as a matter of policy, to baffle this astute 
 and proud earl. He would fain have the king feast in 
 public, that he might daunt him and the Church with 
 the array of his friends." 
 
 "I conceive thee, my father," said Edward, M-ith more 
 quickness than habitual, and with the cunning, sharp, 
 though guileless, that belongs to minds undeveloped, — 
 " I conceive thee ; it is good and most politic. This our 
 orgulous earl shall not have his triumph, and, so fresh 
 from his exile, brave his king with the mundane parade 
 of his power. Our health is our excuse for our absence 
 from the banquet, and, sooth to say, we marvel much 
 why Easter should be held a fitting time for feasting and 
 
 VOL. I. — 14
 
 210 HAROLD. 
 
 mirth. Wherefore, Hugoline, my chamberlain, advise 
 the earl that to-day we keep fast till the sunset, when 
 temperately, with eggs, bread, and fish, we will sustain 
 Adam's nature. Pray him and his sons to attend us, — 
 they alone be our guests." And with a sound that 
 seemed a laugh, or the ghost of a laugh, low and chuck- 
 ling, — for Edward had at moments an innocent humor 
 Avhich his monkish biographer disdained not to note,^ — 
 he flung himself back in his chair. The priests took the 
 cue, and shook their sides heartily, as Hugoline left the 
 room, not ill pleased, by the way, to escape an invitation 
 to the eggs, bread, and fish. 
 
 Aired sighed ; and said, " For the earl and his sons 
 this is honor ; but the other earls and the thegns will 
 miss at the banquet him whom tliey design but to honor, 
 and — " 
 
 " I have said," interrupted Edward, dryly, and with a 
 look of fatigue. 
 
 " And," observed another churchman, with malice, " at 
 least the young earls will be humbled, for they will not 
 sit with the king and their fatlier, as they would in the 
 Hall, and must serve my lord with napkin and wine." 
 
 " I7ip7'inis," quoth our scholar the abbot, " that will be 
 rare ! I would I were by to see ; but this Godwin is a 
 man of treachery and wile, and my lord should beware of 
 the fate of murdered Alfred, his l^rother ! " 
 
 The king started, and pressed his hands to his eyes. 
 
 " How darest thou. Abbot of Fatchere," cried Aired, 
 indignantly, — " how darest thou revive grief without 
 remedy, and slander without proof 1 " 
 
 " Without proof 1 " echoed Edward, in a hollow voice. 
 "He who couM murder, could well stoop to forswear! 
 Without proof before man ; but did lie try the ordeals of 
 1 AiLKED : " De y it. Edward, Confess."
 
 HAROLD. 211 
 
 God? — did his feet pass the ploughshare? — did his 
 hand grasp the seething-irou 1 Verily, verily, thou didst 
 wrong to name to me Alfred my brother ! I shall see his 
 sightless and gore-dropping sockets iii the face of Godwin, 
 this day, at my board." 
 
 The king rose in great disorder ; and after pacing the 
 room some moments, disregardful of the silent and scared 
 looks of his churchmen, waved his hand, in sign to them 
 to depart. All took the hint at once save Aired ; but he, 
 lingering the last, approached the king with dignity in 
 his step and compassion in his eyes. 
 
 " Banish fron^ thy breast, king and son, thoughts 
 unmeet, and of doubtful charity ! All that man could 
 know of Godwin's innocence or guilt — the suspicion of 
 the vulgar, the acquittal of his peers — was known to 
 thee before thou didst seek his aid for thy throne, and 
 didst take his child for thy wife. Too late is it now to 
 suspect ; leave thy doubts to the solemn day, which draws 
 nigh to the old man, thy wife's father ! " 
 
 " Ha ! " said the king, seeming not to heed, or wilfully 
 to misunderstand the prelate, — " ha, leave him to God ; 
 — I will ! " 
 
 He turned away impatiently ; and the prelate reluc- 
 tantly departed.
 
 212 HAKOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TosTiG chafed mightily at the king's message ; and, on 
 Harold's attempt to pacify him, grew so violent that 
 nothing short of the cold, stern command of his father, 
 who carried with him that weight of authority never 
 known but to those in whom wrath is still and passion 
 noiseless, imposed sullen peace on his son's rugged nature. 
 But the taunts heaped by Tostig upon Harold disquieted 
 the old earl, and his brow was yet sad with prophetic care 
 when he entered the royal apartments. He had been 
 introduced into the king's presence but a moment before 
 Hugoline led the way to the chamber of repast, and the 
 greeting between king and earl had been brief and 
 formal. 
 
 Under the canopy of state were placed but two chairs, 
 for the king and the queen's father ; and the four sons, 
 Harold, Tostig, Leofwine, and Gurth, stood behind. 
 Such was the primitive custom of ancient Teutonic 
 kings ; and the feudal J^orman monarchs oidy enforced, 
 though with more pomp and more rigor, the ceremonial 
 of the forest patriarchs, — youth to wait on age, and the 
 ministers of the realm on those whom their policy had 
 made chiefs in council and war. 
 
 The earl's mind, already embittered by the scene with 
 his sons, was chafed yet more by the king's unloving 
 coldness ; for it is natural to man, however worldly, to 
 feel affection for those he has served, and Godwin had 
 won Edward his crown ; nor, despite his warlike though
 
 HAROLD. 213 
 
 bloodless return, coukl even monk or ISTorman, in count- 
 ing up the old earl's crimes, say that he had ever failed 
 in personal respect to the king he had made ; nor over- 
 great for sul)ject, as the earl's power must be confessed, 
 will historian now be found to say that it had not been 
 well for Saxon England if Godwin had found more favor 
 witli his king, and monk and Norman less.^ 
 
 ■So the old earl's stout heart was stung, and he looked 
 from those deep, impenetrable eyes mournfully upon 
 Edward's chilling brow. 
 
 And Harold, with whom all household ties were strong, 
 "but to whom his great father was especially dear, watched 
 his face, and saw that it was very flushed. But the prac- 
 tised courtier sought to rally his spirits, and to smile and 
 jest. 
 
 From smile and jest, the king turned and asked for 
 wine. Harold, starting, advanced with the goblet ; as he 
 did so, he stumbled with one foot, but lightl}'' recovered 
 himself with the other ; and Tostig laughed scornfully at 
 Harold's awkwardness. 
 
 The old earl observed both stumble and laugh, and, 
 willing to suggest a lesson to both his sons, said, laugh- 
 ing pleasantly, " Lo, Harold, how the left foot saves 
 the right ! — so one brother, thou seest, helps the 
 other! "2 
 
 King Edward looked up suddenly. 
 
 1 "Is it astonishing," asked the people (referring to Edward's 
 preference of the Normans), "that the anther and support of 
 Edward's reign should be indignant at seeing new men from a 
 foreign nation raised above him, and yet never does he utter one 
 harsh word to the man whom he himself created king ? " — 
 Hazlitt's "Thierry," vol. i. p. 126. 
 
 This is the English account {versus the Norman), There can be 
 little doubt that it is the true one. 
 
 ^ Henry of Huntingdon, &c.
 
 214 HAIIOLD. 
 
 " And SO, Godwin, also, had my brother Alfred helped 
 me, hadst thou permitted." 
 
 The old earl, galled to the quick, gazed a moment on 
 the king, and his cheek was purple, and his eyes seemed 
 bloodshot. 
 
 " O Edward ! " he exclaimed, " thou speakest to me 
 hardly and unkindly of thy brother Alfred, and often 
 hast thou thus more than hinted that I caused his 
 death." 
 
 The king made no answer. 
 
 *' May this crumb of bread choke me," said the earl, 
 in great emotion, " if I am guilty of thy brother's 
 blood ! " 1 
 
 But scarcely had the bread touched his lips, when, 
 his eyes fixed, the long warning symptoms Avere ful- 
 filled. And he fell to the ground, under the table, 
 sudden and heavy, smitten by the stroke of apoplexy, 
 
 Harold and Gurth sprang forward ; they drew their 
 father from the ground. His face, still deep-red with 
 streaks of purple, rested on Harold's breast ; and the son, 
 kneeling, called in anguish on his father : the ear was 
 deaf. 
 
 Then said the king, rising, — 
 
 " It is the hand of God : remove him ! " and he swept 
 from the room, exulting. 
 
 1 Henry of Huntingdon: "Bromt. Chron." &c.
 
 HAKOLD. 215 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 For five days and five nights did Godwin lie speechless.^ 
 And Harold watclied over liim niglit and day. And tlie 
 leeches '^ would not bleed him because the season was 
 against it, in the increase of the moon and the tides, but 
 they bathed his temples with wheat Hour boiled in milk, 
 according to a prescription which an angel, in a dream, ^ 
 had advised to another patient ; and tliey placed a plate 
 of lead on his breast, marked with five crosses, saying a 
 paternoster over each cross ; together with other metlical 
 specifics in great esteem.'* But, nevertheless, five days 
 and five nights did Godwin lie speechless ; and the leeches 
 then feared that human skill was in vain. 
 
 The effect produced on the court, not more by the 
 earl's death-stroke than the circumstances preceding it, 
 was such as defies description. With Godwin's old com- 
 rades in arms it was simple and honest grief ; but with 
 all those under the influence of the priests, the event was 
 regarded as a direct punishment from Heaven. The pre- 
 vious words of the king, repeated by Edward to his 
 monks, circulated from lip to lip, with sundry exaggera- 
 tions as it travelled : and the superstition of the day had 
 the more excuse, inasmuch as the speech of Godwin 
 
 1 Hoveclen. 
 
 2 The origin of the word leech (physician), which has puzzled 
 some inquirers, is from lich, or leac, a body. Leich is the old 
 Saxon word for surgeon. 
 
 3 Sharon Turner, vol. i. p. 472. * Fosbrooke.
 
 216 HAROLD. 
 
 touched near upon the defiance of one of the most pop- 
 ular ordeals of the accused, — namely, that called the 
 "corsned," in which a piece of bread was given to the 
 supposed criminal ; if he swallowed it with ease, he was 
 innocent; if it stuck in his throat, or choked him, nay, 
 if he shook and turned pale, he was guilty Godwin's 
 words had appeared to invite the ordeal ; God had heard 
 and stricken down the presumptuous perjurer ! 
 
 Unconscious, happily, of these attempts to blacken the 
 name of his dying father, Harold, towards the gray dawn 
 succeeding the fifth night, thought that he heard Godwin 
 stir in his bed. So he put aside the curtain, and bent 
 over him. The old earl's eyes were wide open, and the 
 red color had gone from his cheeks, so that he was pale 
 as death. 
 
 " How fares it, dear father? " asked Harold. 
 
 Godwin smiled fondly, and tried to speak, but his voice 
 died in a convulsive rattle. Lifting himself up, however, 
 with an effort, he pressed tenderly the hand that clasped 
 his own, leaned his head on Harold's breast and so gave 
 up the ghost. 
 
 When Harold was at last aware that the struggle was 
 over, he laid the gray head gently on the pillow ; he closed 
 the eyes, and kissed the lips, and knelt down and prayed. 
 Then, seating himself at a little distance, he covered his 
 face with his mantle. 
 
 At this time his brother Garth, wlio had chiefly 
 shared watch with Harold, — for Tostig, foreseeing his 
 father's death, was busy soliciting thegn and earl to sup- 
 port his own claims to the earldom about to be vacant ; 
 and Leofwine had gone to London on the previous day 
 to summon Gitlia, who was hourly expected, — Gurth, I 
 say, entered the room on tiptoe, and seeing his brother's 
 attitude, guessed that ;t]l was over. He passed on to the
 
 HAROLD. 217 
 
 table, touk up the lamp, and looked long on his father's 
 face. That strange smile of the dead, common alike to 
 innocent and guilty, had already settled on the serene 
 lips ; and that no less strange transformation from age to 
 youth, when the wrinkles vanish, and the features come 
 out clear and sharp from the hollows of care and years, 
 had already begun. And the old man seemed sleeping in 
 his prime. 
 
 So Gurth kissed the dead, as Harold had done before 
 him, and came up and sat himself by his brother's feet, 
 and rested his head on Harold's knee ; nor would he 
 speak, till, appalled by the long silence of the earl, he 
 drew away the mantle from his brother's face with a 
 gentle hand, and the large tears were rolling down 
 Harold's cheeks. 
 
 " Be soothed, my brother," said Gurth ; " our father 
 has lived for glory ; his age was ])ros]3erous, and his years 
 more than those which the Psalmist allots to man. 
 Come and look on his face, Harold ; its calm will comfort 
 thee." 
 
 Harold obeyed the hand that led him like a child ; in 
 passing towards the bed, his eye fell upon the cyst which 
 Hilda had given to the old earl, and a chill shot through 
 his veins. 
 
 "Gurth," said he, "is not this the morning of the 
 sixth day in which we have been at the king's court 1 " 
 
 " It is the morning of the .sixth day." 
 
 Then Harold toolc forth the key which Hilda had 
 given him, and unlocked the cyst, and there lay the 
 white winding-sheet of the dead, and a scroll. Harold 
 took the scroll, and bent over it, reading by the mingled 
 light of the lamp and the dawn, — 
 
 " All hail, Harold, heir of Godwin the great, and Githa 
 the king-born ! Thou hast obeyed Hilda, and thou
 
 218 HAROLD. 
 
 knowest now that Hilda's eyes read the future, and her 
 lips speak the dark words of truth. Bow thy heart to 
 the Vala, and mistrust the wisdom that sees only the 
 things of the daylight. As the valor of the warrior and 
 the song of the scald, so is the lore of the prophetess. 
 It is not of the bod}', it is soul within soul ; it marshals 
 events and men, like the valor, — it moulds the air into 
 substance, like the song. Bow thy heart to the Vala. 
 Flowers bloom over the grave of the dead. And the 
 young plant soars high, when the king of the woodland 
 'aes low ! "
 
 HAROLD. 219 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 The sun rose, and the stairs and passages without were 
 filled with the crowds that pressed to hear news of the 
 earl's health. The door stood open, and Gurth led in the 
 multitude to look their last on the hero of council and 
 camp, who had restored with strong hand and wise brain 
 the race of Cerdic to the Saxon throne. Harold stood by 
 the bed-head silent, and tears were shed and sobs were 
 heard. And many a thegn who had before half believed 
 in the guilt of Godwin as the murderer of Alfred, whis- 
 pered in gasps to his neighbor, — 
 
 " There is no weregeld for manslaying on the head of 
 him who smiles so in death on his old comrades in life ! " 
 
 Last of all lingered Leofric, the great Earl of Mercia : 
 and when the rest had departed, he took the pale hand, 
 that lay heavy on the coverlid, in his own, and said, — 
 
 " Old foe, often stood we in Witan and field against 
 each other ; but few are the friends for whom Leofric 
 would mourn as he mourns for thee, Peace to thy soul ! 
 Whatever its sins, England should judge thee mildly, for 
 England beat in each pulse of thy heart, and with thy 
 greatness was her own ! " 
 
 Then Harold stole round the bed, and put his arms 
 round Leofric's neck, and embraced him. The good old 
 earl was touched, and he laid his tremulous hands on 
 Harold's brown locks and blessed him. 
 
 " Harold," he said, " thou succeedest to thy father's 
 power : let thy father's foes be thy friends. Wake from 
 thy grief, for thy country now demands thee, — the honor
 
 220 HAKOLD. 
 
 of thy House, and tlie memory of the dead. Many even 
 now plot against thee and tliine. Seek the king, demand 
 as thy right thy father's earldom, and Leofric will back 
 thy claim in the Witan." 
 
 Harold pressed Leofric's hand, and, raising it to Ids 
 lips, replied, " Be our houses at peace henceforth and 
 forever ! " 
 
 Tostig's vanity indeed misled him, when he dreamed 
 that any combination of Godwin's party could meditate 
 supporting his claims against the popular Harold, — nor 
 less did the monks deceive themselves, when they sup- 
 posed that with Godwin's death the power of his family 
 would fall. 
 
 There was more than even the unanimity of the chiefs 
 of the Witan in favor of Harold ; there was that univer- 
 sal noiseless impression throughout all England, Danish 
 and Saxon, that Harold was now the sole man on whom 
 rested the state, — wliich, whenever it so favors one 
 individual, is irresistible. Xor was Edward himself hos- 
 tile to Harold, whom alone of that House, as we have 
 before said, he esteemed and loved. 
 
 Harold was at once named Earl of Wessex ; and, relin- 
 quishing the earldom he held before, he did not liesi- 
 tate as to the successor to be recommended in his place. 
 Conquering all jealousy and dislike for Algar, he united 
 the strength of his party in favor of the son of Leofric, 
 and the election fell upon him. "With all his hot errors, 
 the claims of no other earl, whether from his own capaci- 
 ties or his father's servi(;es, were so strong ; and his elec- 
 tion probably saved the state from a great danger, in the 
 results of that angry mood and that irritated ambition 
 with which he had thrown himself into the arms of Eng- 
 land's most valiant aggressor, Gryifyth, king of I^orth 
 Wales.
 
 HAROLD. 221 
 
 To outward appearance, by this election, the House of 
 Leofric — uniting in father and son the two mighty dis- 
 tricts of Mercia and the East Anglians — became more 
 powerful than that of Godwin ; for, in that last House, 
 Harold was now the only possessor of one of the great 
 earldoms, and Tostig and the other brothers had no other 
 provision beyond the comparatively insignificant lordships 
 they held before. But if Harold had ruled no earldom at 
 all, he had still been immeasuraljly the first man in Eng- 
 land, — so great was the confidence reposed in his valor 
 and wisdom. He was of that height in himself that he 
 needed no pedestal to stand on. 
 
 The successor of the first great founder of a House suc- 
 ceeds to more than his predecessor's power, if he but 
 know how to wield ami maintain it; for who makes his 
 way to greatness witliout raising foes at every step ? and 
 who ever rose to power supreme without grave cause for 
 blame 1 But Harold stood free from the enmities liis 
 father had provoked, and pure from the stains tliat 
 slander or repute cast upon his father's name. The sun 
 of the yesterday had shone through cloud ; the sun of 
 the day rose in a clear firmament. Even Tostig recog- 
 nized the superiority of his brother ; and, after a strong 
 struggle between baffled rage and covetous ambition, 
 yielded to him, as to a father. He felt that all Godwin's 
 House was centred in Harold alone ; and that only from 
 his brother (despite his own daring valor, and despite his 
 alliance with the blood of Charlemagne and Alfred, through 
 the sister of Matilda, the Norman duchess) could his 
 avarice of power be gratified. 
 
 " Depart to thy home, my brother," said Earl Harold 
 to Tostig, " and grieve not that Algar is preferred to 
 thee ; for even had his claim been less urgent, ill would 
 it have beseemed us to arrogate the lordships of all Eng-
 
 222 HAROLD. 
 
 land as our dues. Rule thy lordship with wisdom : gain 
 the love of thy lithsmen. High claims hast thou in our 
 father's name, and moderation now will but strengthen thee 
 in the season to come. Trust on Harold somewhat, on thy- 
 self more. Thou hast but to add temper and judgment 
 to valor and zeal, to be worthy mate of the first earl in 
 England. Over my father's corpse I embraced my 
 father's foe. Between brother and brother shall there 
 not be love, as the best bequest of the dead 1 " 
 
 " It shall not be my fault, if there be not," answered 
 Tostig humbled, though chafed. And he summoned his 
 men and returned to his domains.
 
 HAROLD. 223 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Fair, broad, and calm set the sun over the western wood- 
 lands ; and Hilda stood on the mound, and looked with 
 undazzled eyes on the sinking orb. Beside her, Edith 
 reclined on the sward, and seemed, with idle hand, tracing 
 characters in the air. Tlie girl had grown paler still since 
 Harold last parted from her on the same spot, and the same 
 listless and despondent apathy stamped her smileless lips 
 ami her bended head. 
 
 " See, child of my heart," said Hilda, addressing Edith, 
 while she still gazed on the western luminary, — "see, 
 the sun goes down to the far deeps, where Rana and 
 JEgiv 1 watch over the worlds of the sea ; but with morn- 
 ing he comes from the halls of the Asas, — the golden 
 gates of the East, — and joy comes in his train. And yet 
 thou thinkest, sad child, whose years have scarce passed 
 into woman, that the sun, once set, never comes back to 
 life ! But even while we speak, thy morning draws near, 
 and the dunness of cloud takes the hues of the rose ! " 
 
 Edith's hand paused from its vague employment, and 
 fell droopingly on her knee ; — she turned with an 
 unquiet and anxious eye to Hilda, and after looking some 
 moments wistfully at the Vala, the color rose to her 
 
 ^ ^gir, the Scandinavian God of the ocean. Not cue of the 
 Aser, or Asas (the celestial race), but sprung from the giants. 
 Ran or Rana, his wife, a more malignant character, who caused 
 shipwrecks, and drew to herself by a net all that fell into the sea. 
 The offspring of this marriage were nine daughters, who became 
 the Billows, the Currents, and the Storms.
 
 224 HAROLD. 
 
 cheek, and she said, in a voice that had an accent half of 
 an^er. — 
 
 " Hilda, thou art cruel ! " 
 
 " So is Fate ! " answered the Yala ; " but men call not 
 Fate cruel when it smiles on their desires. Why callest 
 thou Hilda cruel, when she reads in the setting sun the 
 runes of thy coming joy 1 " 
 
 " There is no joy for me," returned Edith, plaintively ; 
 "and I have that on my heart," she added, with a sudden 
 and almost fierce change of tone, " which at last I will 
 dare to speak. I rejiroach thee, Hilda, that thou hast 
 marred all my life, that thou hast duped me with dreams, 
 and left me alone in despair." 
 
 " Speak on," said Hilda, calmly, as a nurse to a fro- 
 ward child. 
 
 " Hast thou not told me, from the first dawn of my 
 wondering reason, that my life and lot were inwoven 
 with — with (the word, mad and daring, must out) — with 
 those of Harold the peerless ? But for that, which my 
 infancy took from thy lips as a law, I had never been so 
 vain and so frantic ! I had never watched each play of his 
 face, and treasured each word from his lips ; I had never 
 made my life l)ut a part of his life, — all my soul but the 
 shadow of his sun. But for that, I had hailed the calm 
 of the cloister, — but for that I had glided in peace to 
 my grave. And now — 7iow, Hilda — " Edith paused, 
 and that break had more eloquence than any words she 
 could command. " And," she resumed quickly, " thou 
 knowest that these hopes were but dreams ; that the law 
 ever stood between him and me, — and that it was guilt 
 to love him." 
 
 " I knew the law," answered Hilda, " but the law of 
 fools is to the wise as the cobweb swung over the brake 
 to the wing of the bird. Ye are sibbe to each other, some
 
 HAROLD. 225 
 
 five times removed, and tlierefore an old man at Eome 
 saith tliat ye ouglit not to wed. When the shaveh'ngs 
 obey the old man at Rome, and put aside their own wives 
 and frillas,^ and abstain from the wine-cui), and the chase, 
 and the brawl, I will stoop to hear of their laws, — with 
 disrelish it may be, but witliont scorn. ^ It is no sin to 
 love Harold ; and no moidv and no law shall prevent your 
 luiion on the day appointed to bring ye together, form 
 and heart." 
 
 " Hilda ! Hilda ! madden me not with joy," cried 
 Edith, starting up in rapturous emotion, her young face 
 dyed with blushes, and all her renovated beauty so celes- 
 tial that Hilda herself was almost awed, as if by the 
 vision of Freya, the northern Venus, charmed by a spell 
 from tlie halls of Asgard. 
 
 " But that day is distant," renewed the Vala, 
 
 " What matters ! what matters !" cried the pure child 
 of Mature ; " I ask but hope. Enough, — oh ! enough, 
 if we were but wedded on the borders of the grave ! " 
 
 " Lo, then," said Hilda, "behold, the sun of thy life 
 dawns again ! " 
 
 As she spoke, the Vala stretched her arm, and through 
 the intersticed columns of the fane Edith saw the large 
 shadow of a man cast over the still sward. Presently 
 into the space of the circle came Harold, her beloved. 
 His face was pale with grief yet recent ; but, perhaps, 
 
 1 Frilla, the Danish word for a lady who, often with the wife's 
 consent, was added to the domestic circle by the husband The 
 word is here used by Hilda in a 2:eneral sense of reproach. Both 
 niarriajre and concubinage were common ainongst the Anjrlo-Saxon 
 priesthood, despite the unheeded canons; and so, indeed, they were 
 with the French clercry. 
 
 ■- Hilda, not only as a heathen, but as a Dane, would be no 
 favorer of monks. They were unknown in Denmark at that time, 
 and the Danes held them in odium. — " Ord. Vital." lib. vii. 
 
 VOL. I. — 15
 
 226 HAROLD. 
 
 more than ever, dignity was in his step and command on 
 his brow, for he felt that now alone with him rested the 
 might of Saxon England. And what royal robe so invests 
 with imperial majesty the form of man as the grave sense 
 of power responsible, in an earnest soul ? 
 
 " Thou comest," said Hilda, " in the hour I predicted, 
 — at the setting of the sun and the rising of the star." 
 
 " Vala," said Harold, gloomily, " I will not oppose my 
 sense to thy prophecies ; for who shall judge of that 
 power of which he knows not the elements 1 or despise 
 the marvel of which he cannot detect the imposture ] 
 But leave me, I pray thee, to walk in the broad light of 
 the common day. These hands are made to grapple with 
 things palpable, and these eyes to measure the forms that 
 front my way. In my youth, 1 turned in despair or 
 disgust from the subtleties of the schoolmen, which split 
 upon hairs the brains of Lombard and Frank ; in my 
 busy and stirring manhood, entangle me not in the meshes 
 which confuse all my reason, and sicken my waking 
 thoughts into dreams of awe. Mine be the straight path 
 and the plain goal ! " 
 
 The Vala gazed on him with an earnest look, that par- 
 took of admiration, and yet more of gloom ; but she spoke 
 not, and Harold resumed, — 
 
 " Let the dead rest, Hilda, — proud names with glory 
 on earth, and shadows escaped from our ken, submissive 
 to mercy in heaven. A vast chasm have my steps over- 
 leaped since we met, Hilda, — sweet Edith : a vast 
 chasm, but a narrow grave." His voice faltered a 
 moment, and again he renewed, "Thou weepest, Edith; 
 ah, how thy tears console me ! Hilda, hear me ! I love 
 thy grandchild, — loved her by irresistible instinct 
 since her blue eyes first smiled on mine. I loved her in 
 her childhood as in her youth, — in the blossom as in the
 
 HAKOLD. 227 
 
 flower ; and thy grandchild loves me. The laws of the 
 Church proscribe our marriage, and therefore we parted ; 
 but I feel, and thine Edith feels, that the love remains as 
 strong in absence : no other will be her wedded lord, no 
 other my wedded wife. Therefore, with a heart made 
 soft by sorrow, and, in my father's death, sole lord of my 
 fate, I return, and say to thee in her presence, 'Suffer 
 us to hope still ! ' The day may come, when, under 
 some king less enthralled than Edward by formal Church 
 laws, we may obtain from the Pope absolution for our 
 nuptials, — a day, perhaps, far off ; but we are both 
 young, and love is strong and jiatient : we can wait." 
 " Harold," exclaimed Edith, " we can wait ! " 
 " Have I not told thee, son of Godwin," said the Vala, 
 solemnly, " that Edith's skein of life was envvoven with 
 thine ? Dost thou deem that my charms have not 
 explored the destiny of the last of my race 1 Know that 
 it is in the decrees of the fates that ye are to be united, 
 never more to be divided. Know that there shall come a 
 day, though I can see not its morrow, and it lies dim and 
 afar, which shall be the most glorious of thy life, and on 
 which Edith and fame shall be thine, — the day of thy 
 nativity, on which hitherto all things have prospered with 
 thee. In vain against the stars preach the mone and the 
 priest : what shall be, shall be. Wherefore, take hope 
 and joy, Children of Time ! And now, as I join your 
 hands, I betroth your souls." 
 
 Rapture unalloyed and unprophetic, born of love deep 
 and pure, shone in the eyes of Harold as he clasped the 
 hand of his promised bride. But an involuntary and 
 mysterious shudder passed over Edith's frame, and she 
 leaned close, close, for support upon Harold's breast. 
 And, as if by a vision, there rose distinct in her memor}- a 
 stern brow, a form of power and terror, ■ — the brow and
 
 228 HAROLD. 
 
 the form of liim who but once again in her waking life 
 the Prophetess had told her she should behold. The 
 vision passed away in the warm clasp of those protecting 
 arms ; and, looking up into Harold's face, she there 
 beheld the mighty and deep delight that transfused itself 
 at once into her own soul. 
 
 Then Hilda, placing one hand over their heads, and 
 raising the other towards heaven, all radiant with burst- 
 ing stars, said, in her deep and thrilling tones, — 
 
 " Attest the betrothal of these young hearts, ye 
 Powers that draw nature to nature by spells which no 
 galdra can trace, and have wrought in the secrets of crea- 
 tion no mystery so perfect as love. Attest it, thou temple, 
 thou altar ! — attest it, sun and air ! While the 
 forms are divided, may the souls cling together, — sorrow 
 with sorrow, and joy with joy. And when, at length, 
 bride and bridegroom are one, — stars, may the trouble 
 with which ye are charged have exhausted its burden ; 
 may no danger molest, and no malice disturb, but over 
 the marriage-bed shine in peace, ye stars ! " 
 
 Up rose the moon. May's nightingale called its mate 
 from the breathless boughs ; and so Edith and Harold 
 were betrothed by the grave of the son of Cerdic. And 
 from the line of Cerdic had come, since Ethelbert, all 
 the Saxon kings who with sword and with sceptre had 
 reigned over Saxon England.
 
 BOOK VL 
 
 AMBITION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Thkrb was great rejoicing in England. King Edward 
 had been induced to send Aired the prelate ^ to the 
 court of the German Emperor, for his kinsman and name- 
 sake, Edward Atheling, the son of the great Ironsides. 
 In his childhood, this prince, with his brother Edmund, 
 had been committed by Canute to the charge of his 
 vassal, the King of Sweden ; and it has been said (though 
 without sufficient authority) that Canute's design was 
 that they should be secretly made away with. The King 
 of Sweden, however, forwarded the children to the court 
 of Hungary ; they were there honorably reared and re- 
 ceived. Edmund died young without issue. Edward 
 married a daughter of the German Emperor, and during 
 the commotions in England, and the successive reigns of 
 Harold Harefoot, Hardicanute, and the Confessor, had 
 remained forgotten in his exile, until now suddenly re- 
 called to England as the heir-presumptive of his childless 
 namesake. He arrived with Agatha his wife, one infant 
 son, Edgar, and two daughters, Margaret and Christina. 
 
 1 " Chron. Knyghton."
 
 230 HAEOLD. 
 
 Great were the rejoicings. The vast crowd that liad 
 followed the royal visitors in their procession to the old 
 London palace (not far from St. Paul's), in which they 
 were lodged, yet swarmed through the streets, when two 
 thegns who had personally accompanied the Atheling 
 from Dover, and had just taken leave of him, now 
 emerged from the palace, and with some difficulty made 
 their way through the crowded streets. 
 
 The one in the dress and short hair imitated from the 
 Norman was our old friend, Godrith, whom the reader 
 may remember as the rebuker of Taillefer, and the friend 
 of Mallet de Graville ; the other, in a plain, linen Saxon 
 tunic, and the gonna worn on state occasions, to which 
 he seemed unfamiliar, but with heavy gold bracelets on 
 his arms, long-haired and bearded, was Vebba, the Ken- 
 tish thegn, who had served as nuncius from Godwin to 
 Edward. 
 
 " Troth and faith ! " said Vebba, wiping his brow, 
 " this crowd is enow to make plain man stark wode. I 
 would not live in London for all the gauds in the gold- 
 smiths' shops, or all the treasures in King Edward's 
 vaults. My tongue is as parched as a hay-field in the 
 weyd-month.-^ Holy Mother be blessed ! I see a 
 cumen-hiis ^ open ; let us in and refresh ourselves with a 
 horn of ale." 
 
 "Nay, friend," quoth Godrith, with a slight disdain ; 
 " such are not the resorts of men of our rank. Tarry 
 yet awhile, till we arrive near the bridge by the river- 
 side ; there, indeed, you will find worthy company and 
 dainty cheer." 
 
 " Well, well, I am at your hest, Godrith," said the 
 Kent man, sighing : " my wife and my sons will be sure 
 
 1 Weyd-month — Meadow month, June. 
 
 2 Cu men-h us — Tavern,
 
 HAROLD. 231 
 
 to ask me what sights I have seen, and I may as well 
 know from thee the last tricks and ways of this hurly- 
 burly town." 
 
 Godrith, who was master of all the fashions in tlie 
 reign of our lord King Edward, smiled graciously, and 
 the two proceeded in silence, only broken by the sturdy 
 Kent man's exclamations ; now of anger when rudely 
 jostled, now of wonder and delight when, amidst the 
 tlirong, he caught sight of a gleeman, with his bear or 
 monkey, who took advantage of some space near convent 
 garden or Roman ruin to exliibit his craft : till they 
 gained a long low row of booths, most pleasantly situated 
 to the left of this side London Bridge, and which was ap- 
 propriated to the celebrated cookshops, that even to the 
 time of Fitzstephen retained their fame and their fashion. 
 
 Between the shops and the river was a space of grass 
 worn brown and bare by tlie feet of the customers, with 
 a few clipped trees with vines trained from one to the 
 other in arcades, under cover of which were set tables 
 and settles. The place was thickly crowded, and but for 
 Godrith's pO])ularity amongst the attendants, they might 
 have found it difficult to obtain accommodation. How- 
 ever, a new table was soon brought forth, placed close by 
 the cool margin of the water, and covered in a trice with 
 tankards of hippocras, pigment, ale, and some Gascon as 
 well as British wines ; varieties of the delicious cake-bread 
 for which England was then renowned ; wliile viands, 
 strange to the honest eye and taste of the wealthy Kent 
 man, were served on spits. 
 
 " What bird is this ? " said he, grumbling. 
 
 " Oh, enviable man, it is a Phrygian attagen i that 
 thou art about to taste for the first time ; and when thou 
 hast recovered that delight, I commend to thee a Moorish 
 
 1 Fitzstephea.
 
 232 IIAEOLD. 
 
 compound, made of eggs and roes of carp from the old 
 Southweorc stewponds, which the cooks here dress 
 notably." 
 
 " Moorish ! — Iloly Virgin ! " cried Yebba, with his 
 mouth full of the Phrygian attagen, " how came any- 
 thing Moorish in our Christian island 1 " 
 
 Godrith laughed outright. 
 
 " Why, our cook here is Moorish ; the best singers in 
 Loudon are Moors. Look yonder ! see those grave comely 
 Saracens ? " 
 
 " Comely, quotha, — ■ burnt and black as a charred pine- 
 pole ! " grunted Vebba ; " well, who are tliey 1 " 
 
 " Wealthy traders ; thanks to whom, our pretty maids 
 have risen higli in the market." ^ 
 
 " More the shame," said the Kent man ; " that selling 
 of English youth to foreign masters, whether male or 
 female, is a blot on the Saxon name." 
 
 " So saith Harold our Earl, and so preach the monks," 
 returned Godrith. " But thou, my good friend, who art 
 fond of all things that our ancestors did, and hast sneered 
 more than once at my ±^orman robe and cropped Imir, 
 thou shouldst not be the one to find fault with what our 
 fathers have done since the days of Cerdic." 
 
 " Hem," said the Kent man, a little perplexed ; " cer- 
 tainly old manners are the best, and I suppose there is 
 some good reason for this practice, A\diich I, who never 
 trouble myself about matters that concern me not, do not 
 see. 
 
 " AVell, Vebba, and how likest thou the Atheling 1 he 
 is of the old line," said Godrith. 
 
 Again the Kent man looked perplexed, and had recourse 
 
 ^ William of Maltnesbury speaks with just indignation of the 
 Anglo-Saxon custom of selling female servants, either to public 
 prostitution or foreign slavery.
 
 HAROLD. 233 
 
 to the ale, •which he preferred to all more delicate liquor, 
 before he replied, — 
 
 "Why, he speaks Euglisli worse than King Edward! 
 and as for his boy Edgar, the child can scarce speak Eng- 
 lish at all. And then their German carles and cnehts ! — 
 An I had known what manner of folk they were, I had 
 not spent my mancuses in running from my homestead to 
 give them the welcome. But they told me that Harold 
 the good earl had made the king send for them ; and 
 whatever the earl counselled, must, I thought, be wise, 
 and to the weal of sweet England." 
 
 "That is true," said Godrith, with earnest emphasis; 
 for, with all his affectation of Norman manners, he was 
 thoroughly Englisli at heart, and was now aniong the 
 stanchest snppoitei's of Harold, who had become no less 
 the pattern and pride of the young nobles than the darling 
 of the humbler population, — " that is true ; and Harold 
 showed us his iioble I^nglish heart when he so urged the 
 king to liis own loss." 
 
 As Godrith thus spoke, — nay, from the first mention 
 of Harold's name, — two men, richly clad, but with tlieir 
 bonnets drawn far over their brows, and their long gonnas 
 so worn as to hide their forms, who were seated at a table 
 behind Godrith, and had thus escaped his attention, had 
 paused from their wine-cups, and they now listened with 
 much earnestness to the conversation that followed. 
 
 " How to the earl's loss?" asked Vebba. 
 
 " Why, simple thegn," answered Godrith, " why, sup- 
 pose that Edward had refused to acknowledge the Atheling 
 as his heir, — suppose the Atheling had remained in the 
 German court, and our good king died suddenly, — wdio, 
 thinkest thou, could succeed to the English tlirone?" 
 
 " Marry, I have never thought of that at all," said the 
 Kent man, scratching his head.
 
 234 HAROLD. 
 
 "No, nor have the English generally ; yet whom could 
 we choose but Harold ? " 
 
 A sudden start from one of the listeners was checked 
 by the warning finger of the other 3 and the Kent man 
 exclaimed, — 
 
 " Body o' me ! But we have never chosen king (save 
 the Danes) out of the line of Cerdic. These be new 
 cranks, with a vengeance : we shall be choosing German, 
 or Saracen, or Norman next." 
 
 " Out of the line of Cerdic ! but that line is gone, root 
 and branch, save the Atheling, and lie, thou seest, is mure 
 German than English. Again I say, failing the Atheling, 
 whom could we choose but Harold, brother-indaw to the 
 king ; descended through Githa from the royalties of the 
 iSTorse, the head of all armies under the Herr-ban, 
 the chief who has never fought without victory, yet who 
 lias always preferred conciliation to conquest, — the first 
 counsellor in the Witan, the first man in the realm : who 
 but Harold 1 Answer me, staring Vebba." 
 
 " I take in thy words slowly," said the Kent man, 
 shaking his head, " and, after all, it matters little wdro is 
 king, so he be a good one. Yes, I see now that the earl 
 was a just and generous man when he made the king 
 send for the Atheling. Drink heel ! long life to them 
 both ! " 
 
 " Wasdisel," answered Godrith, draining his hippocras 
 to Vebba's more potent ale. " Long life to them both ! 
 may Edward the Atheling reign, but Harold the Earl 
 rule ! Ah, then, indeed, we may sleep without fear of 
 fierce Algar and still fiercer Gryffyth the Walloon, — who 
 now, it is true, are stilled for the moment, thanks to 
 Harold ; but not more still than the smooth waters in 
 Gwyned, that lie just above the rush of a torrent." 
 
 " So little news hear I," said Vebba, " and in Kent so
 
 HAROLD. 235 
 
 little are we plagued with the troubles elsewhere (for 
 there Harold governs us, and the hawks come not where 
 the eagles hold eyrie ! ), that I will thank thee to tell me 
 something aboiit our old earl for a year/ Algar the rest- 
 less, and this Gryffyth the Welsh king, so that 1 may seem 
 a wise man when I go back to my homestead." 
 
 " Why, thou knowest at least that Algar and Harold 
 were ever opposed in the Witan, and hot words thou hast 
 heard pass between them 1 " 
 
 " Marry, yes ! But Algar was as little match for Earl 
 Harold in speech as in sword-play." 
 
 Now again one of the listeners started (but it was not 
 the same as tlie one before), and muttered an angry 
 exclamation. 
 
 " Yet is he a troublesome foe," said Godrith, who did 
 not hear the sound Vebba had provoked, " and a thorn 
 in the side both of the earl and of England ; and sorrow- 
 ful for both England and earl was it, that Harold refused 
 to marry Aldyth, as it is said his father, wise Godwin, 
 counselled and wished." 
 
 " Ah ! but I have heard scops and harpers sing pretty 
 songs that Harold loves Edith the Fair, a wondrous 
 proper maiden, they say ! " 
 
 " It is true ; and for the sake of his love, he played ill 
 for his ambition." 
 
 " I like him the better for that," said the honest Kent 
 man : " why does he not marry the girl at once 1 she hath 
 broad lands, I know, for they run from the Sussex shore 
 into Kent." 
 
 " But they are cousins five times removed, and the 
 Church forbids the marriage ; nevertheless, Harold lives 
 
 1 It will be remembered that Algar governed Wessex, which 
 principality included Kent, during the year of Godwin's outlawry.
 
 236 HAROLD. 
 
 only for Editli : they have exchanged the true-lofa,^ and 
 it is whispered tliat Harold hopes the Atheling, when he 
 comes to be king, will get him the Pope's dispensation. 
 But to return to Algar ; in a day most unlucky he gave 
 his daughter to Grytfyth, the most turbulent sub-king the 
 land ever kneAv, who, it is said, will not be content till 
 he has won all Wales for himself, without homage or 
 service, and the iMarches to boot. 8ome letters between 
 him and Earl Algar, to whom Harold had secured the 
 earldom of the East Angles, were discovered, and in a 
 Witan at Winchester thou wilt doubtless have heard (for 
 thou didst not, I know, leave thy lands to attend it) that 
 Algar ^ was outlawed." 
 
 " Oh, yes, these are stale tidings ; I heard thus much 
 from a palmer, — and then Algar got ships from the 
 Irish, sailed to ^^orth Wales, and beat Rolf, the Norman 
 
 1 Trtilofa from which comes our popular corruption ' ' true 
 lover's knot," a veteri Dan'icotvaloi^, — that is, Jidem do, to pledge 
 faith.— Hickes' " Thesaur. " 
 
 " A knot, among the ancient northern nations, seems to hnve 
 been the emblem of love, faith, and frendship." — Brande's " Pop. 
 Antiq." 
 
 - The " Saxon Chronicle " contradicts itself as to Algar's out- 
 lawry, stating in one passage tliat he was outlawed without any 
 kind of guilt, and in another that he was outlawed as mvike, or 
 traitor, and that he made a confession of it Ijefore all tlie men there 
 gatliered. His treason, however, seems naturally occasioned by his 
 close connection witli Gryffytli, and proved by his share in t'nat 
 king's rebellion. Some of our historians have unfairly assumed 
 that his outlawry was at Harold's instigation. Of this there is not 
 only no proof, but one of the best authorities among tlie chroniclers 
 says just the contrary, — tliat Harold did all lie could to intercede 
 for him; and it is certain that he was fairly tried and condemned 
 by the Witan, and afterwards restored by the concurrent articles 
 of agreement between Harold and Leofric. Harold's policy with 
 his own countrymen stands out very markedly prominent in the 
 annals of the time ; it was invariably tliat of conciliation.
 
 HAROLD. 237 
 
 earl, at Hereforil. Oh, yes, I heard that, and," added 
 the Kent man, laughing, " I was not sorry to hear that 
 my old Earl Algar, since he is a good and true Saxon, 
 beat the cowardly Norman, — more shame to the king for 
 giving a iSlorman the ward of the Marches ! " 
 
 " It was a sore defeat to the king and to England," 
 said Godrith, gravely, " The great Minster of Hereford, 
 built by King Athelstan, was burned and sacked by the 
 Welsh ; and the Crown itself was in danger, when Harold 
 came up at the head of the Fyrd, Hard is it to tell the 
 distress, and the marching, and the camping, and the 
 travail, and destruction of men, and also of horses, which 
 the English endured ' till Harold came ; and then luckily 
 came also the good old Leofric, and Bishop Aired the 
 peacemaker, and so strife was patched up, — Gryffyth 
 swore oaths of faith to King Edward, and Algar was 
 inlawed ; and there for the nonce rests the matter now. 
 But well I ween that Gryffyth will never keep troth with 
 the English, and that no hand less strong than Harold's 
 can keep in check a spirit as fiery as Algar's : therefore 
 did I wish that Harold might be king." 
 
 " Well," quotli the honest Kent man, " I hope, never- 
 theless, that Algar will sow his wild oats, and leave the 
 "Walloons to grow the hemp for their own halters ; for, 
 though he is not of the height of our Harold, he is a true 
 Saxon, and we liked him well enow when he ruled us. 
 And how is our earl's brother, Tostig, esteemed by the 
 Northmen ? It must be hard to please those who had 
 Siward of the strong arm for their earl before," 
 
 " Why, at first, when (at Siward's death in the wars 
 for young Malcolm) Harold secured to Tostig the North- 
 umbrian earldom, Tostig went by his brother's counsel, 
 and ruled well and won favor. Of late I hear that the 
 ^ " Sax. Chron.," verliatim.
 
 238 HAEOLD. 
 
 Xortlimen murmur. Tostig is a man indeed dour and 
 haughty." 
 
 After a few more questions and answers on the news 
 of the day, Vebba rose and said, — 
 
 " Thanks for thy good fellowship ; it is time for me 
 now to be jogging homeward. I left my ceorls and 
 horses on the other side the river, and must go after 
 them. And now forgive me my bluntness, fellow-thegn ; 
 but ye young courtiers have plenty of need for your man- 
 cuses, and when a plain countryman like me comes sight- 
 seeing, he ought to stand payment ; wherefore " — here 
 he took from his belt a great leathern purse — " where- 
 fore, as these outlandish birds and heathenish puddings 
 must be dear fare — " 
 
 " How ! " said Godrith, reddening, " thinkest thou so 
 meanly of us thegns of Middlesex as to deem we cannot 
 entertain thus humbly a friend from a distance ? Ye 
 Kent men, I know, are rich. But keep your pennies to 
 buy stufls for your wife, ray friend." 
 
 The Kent man, seeing he had displeased his companion, 
 did not press his liberal offer, — put up his purse, and 
 suffered Godrith to pay the reckoning. Then, as the two 
 thegns shook hands, he said, — 
 
 " But I should like to have said a kind word or so to 
 Earl Harold, — for he was too busy and too great for me 
 to come across him in the old palace yonder. 1 have a 
 mind to go back and look for him at his own house." 
 
 " You will not find him there," said Godrith, " for I 
 know that as soon as he hath finished his conference with 
 the Atheling, he will leave the city ; and I shall be at 
 his own favorite manse over the water at sunset, to take 
 orders for repairing the forts and dykes on the Marches. 
 You can tarry awhile and meet us ; you know his old 
 lodge in the forest land 1 "
 
 HAROLD. 239 
 
 " Nay I must be back and at home ere night, for all 
 things go wrong when the master is away. Yet, indeed, 
 my good wife will scold me for not having shaken hands 
 with the handsome earl." 
 
 " Thou shalt not come under that sad infliction," said 
 the good-natured Godrith, who was pleased with the 
 thegn's devotion to Harold, and who, knowing the great 
 weight which Vebba (homely as he seemed) carried in 
 his important county, was politically anxious that the 
 earl should humor so sturdy a friend, — "thou shalt not 
 sour thy wife's kiss, man. For look you, as you ride 
 back you will pass by a large old house, with broken 
 columns at the back." 
 
 " I have marked it well," said the thegn ; " when I 
 have gone that way, with a heap of queer stones on a 
 little hillock, which they say the witches or the Britons 
 heaped together." 
 
 " The same. When Harold leaves London, I trow 
 ■well towards that house will his road wend ; for there 
 lives Edith the swan's neck, with her awful grandam, the 
 Wicca. If thou art tliere a little after noon, depend on 
 it thou wilt see Harold riding that way." 
 
 "Thank thee heartily, friend Godrith," said Vebba, 
 taking his leave, " and forgive my bluntness if I lauglied 
 at thy cropped head, for 1 see thou art as good a Saxon 
 as ere a franklin of Kent, — and so the saints keep 
 thee." 
 
 Vebba then strode briskly over the bridge ; and God- 
 rith, animated by the wine he had drunk, turned gayly 
 on his heel to look amongst the crowded tables for some 
 chance friend with whom to while away an hour or so at 
 the games of hazard then in vogue. 
 
 Scarce had he turned, when the two listeners, who, 
 having paid their reckoning, liad moved under shade of
 
 240 HAROLD. 
 
 one of the arcades, dropped into a boat, which they had 
 summoned to tlie margin by a noiseless signal, and were 
 rowed over the water. They preserved a silence which 
 seemed thoughtful and gloomy until they reached the 
 opposite shore : then one of them, pushing back his 
 bonnet, showed the sharp and haughty features of Algar, 
 
 "Well, friend of Gryffyth," said he, with a bitter ac- 
 cent, " thou hearest that Earl Harold counts so little on 
 the oaths of thy king that he intends to fortify the 
 Marches against him ; and thou hearest also, that nought 
 save a life, as fragile as the reed which thy feet are 
 trampling, stands between the throne of England and 
 the only Englishman who could ever liave humbled my 
 sou-in-Iaw to swear oath of service to Edward." 
 
 " Shame upon that hour," said the other, whose speech, 
 as well as the gold collar round his neck and the peculiar 
 fashion of his hair, betokened him to be Welsh. " Little 
 did 1 think that the great son of Llewellyn, whom our 
 bards had set above Roderic Mawr, would ever have 
 acknowledged the sovereigntv of the Saxon over the hills 
 of Cymry. " 
 
 " Tut, Meredydd," answered Algar, " thou knowest 
 well that no Cymrian ever deems himself dishonored 
 by breaking faith witli the Saxon ; and we sliall yet 
 see the lions of Gryffyth scaring the sheepfolds of Here- 
 foril" 
 
 " So be it," snid Meredydd, fiercel3^ " And Harold 
 shall give to his Atheling the Saxon land, shorn at least 
 of the Cymrian kingdom." 
 
 " Meredydd," said Algar, with a seriousness that seemed 
 almost solemn, " no Atheling will live to rule these 
 realms ! Thou knowest that I was one of the first to 
 hail the news of his coming, — I hastened to Dover to 
 meet him. Methought I saw death writ on his counte-
 
 HAROLD. 241 
 
 nance, and I bribed the German leech who attends him 
 to answer my questions ; the Athehng knows it not, but 
 he bears within him the seeds of a mortal complaint. 
 Thou wettest well what cause I have to hate Earl Har- 
 old ; and were I the only man to oppose his way to the 
 throne, he should not ascend it but over my corpse. But 
 when Godrith his creature spoke, I felt that he spoke 
 the truth ; and, the Atheling dead, on no head but 
 Harold's can fall the crown of Edward." 
 
 '' Ha ! " said the Cymrian chief, gloomily ; " thinkest 
 thou so indeed ? " 
 
 *' I think it not ; I know it. And for that reason, 
 Meredydd, we must wait not till he wields against us all 
 the royalty of England. As yet, while Edward lives 
 there is hope. For the king loves to spend wealth on 
 relics and priests, and is slow when the mancuses are 
 ■wanted for fighting men. The king, too, poor man ! is 
 not so ill pleased at my outbursts as he would fain have it 
 thought ! he thinks, by pitting earl against earl, that he 
 himself is the stronger.^ While Edward lives, therefore, 
 Harold's arm is half-crippled ; wherefore, Meredydd, ride 
 thou with good speed back to King Gryffyth, and tell him 
 all I have told thee. Tell him that our time to strike 
 the blow and renew the war will be amidst the dismay 
 and confusion that the Atheling's death will occasion. 
 Tell him, that if we can entangle Harold himself in the 
 Welsh defiles, it will go hard but what we shall find some 
 arrow or dagger to pierce the heart of the invader. And 
 were Harold but slain, — who then would be king in 
 England? The line of Cerdic gone, the House of Godwin 
 lost in Earl Harold (for Tostig is hated in his own domain, 
 Leofwine is too light, and Gurth is too saintly for such 
 ambition), — who then, I say, can be king in England 
 
 ^ Hume. 
 
 VOL. I. — 16
 
 242 HAROLD. 
 
 but Algar, the heir of the great Leofric ? And I, as king 
 of England, will set all Cymry free, and restore to the 
 realm of Gryffyth the shires of Hereford and Worcester. 
 Kide fast, Meredydd, and heed well all I have said." 
 
 " Dost thou promise and swear that, wert thou king of 
 England, Cymry should Vje free from all service 1 " 
 
 " Free as air, — free as under Arthur and Uther : I 
 swear it. And remember well how Harold addressed the 
 Cymrian chiefs, when he accepted Gryftyth's oaths of 
 service." 
 
 " Remember it, — ay," cried Meredydd, his face light- 
 ing up with intense ire and revenge ; " the stern Saxon 
 said, ' Heed well, ye chiefs of Cymry, and thou, Gryfiyth 
 the king, that if again ye force, by ravage and rapine, by 
 sacrilege and murder, the majesty of England to enter 
 your borders, duty must be done : God grant that your 
 Cymrian lion may leave us in peace, — if not, it is mercy 
 to human life that bids us cut the talons and draw the 
 fangs.' " 
 
 " Harold, like all calm and mild men, ever says less 
 than he means," returned Algar ; " and were Harold king, 
 small pretext would he need for cutting the talons and 
 drawing the fangs." 
 
 "It is well," said Meredydd, with a fierce smile. "I 
 will now go to my men who are lodged yonder ; and it is 
 better that thou should.st not be seen with me." 
 
 " Right ; so St. David be with you, — and forget not a 
 word of my message to Gryffyth my son-indaw." 
 
 "Not a word," returned Meredydd, as with a wave of 
 his hand he moved towards an hostlery, to which, as 
 kept by one of their own countrymen, the Welsh habitu- 
 ally resorted in the visits to the capital which the various 
 intrigues and dissensions in their unhappy land made 
 frec[uent.
 
 HAROLD. 243 
 
 The chiefs train, which consisted of ten men, all of 
 high birth, were not drinking in the tavern, — for sorry 
 customers to mine host were the abstemious Welsh. 
 Stretched on the grass under the trees of an orchard that 
 backed the hostlery, and utterly indifferent to all the 
 rejoicings that animated the population of Southwark and 
 London, they were listening to a wild song of the old 
 hero-days from one of their number ; and round them 
 grazed the rough, shagged ponies which they had used 
 for their journey. Meredydd, approaching, gazed round, 
 and, seeing no stranger was present, raised his hand to 
 hush the song, and then addressed his countrymen briefly 
 in "Welsh, — briefly, but with a passion that was evident 
 in his flashing eyes and vehement gestures. The passion 
 was contagious ; they all sprang to their feet with a low 
 but fierce cry, and in a few moments they had caught and 
 saddled their diminutive palfreys, while one of the band, 
 who seemed singled out by Meredydd, sallied forth alone 
 from the orchard, and took his way on foot to the bridge. 
 He did not tarrj^ there long ; at the sight of a single 
 horseman, whom a shout of welcome, on that swarming 
 thoroughfare, proclaimed to be Earl Harold, the Welsh- 
 man turned, and with a fleet foot regained his com- 
 panions. 
 
 Meanwhile Harold smilingly returned the greetings he 
 received, cleared the bridge, passed the suburbs, and soon 
 gained the wild forest-land that lay along the great Kent- 
 ish road. He rode somewhat slowly, for he was evidently 
 in deep thought ; and he had arrived about half-way 
 towards Hilda's house, when he heard behind quick, pat- 
 tering sounds, as of small unshod hoofs : he turned, and 
 saw the Welshmen at the distance of some fifty yards. 
 But at that moment there passed along the road in front 
 several persons bustling into London to share in the fes-
 
 244 HAEOLD. 
 
 tivities of the day. This seemed to disconcert the Welsh 
 in the rear ; and, after a few whispered words, they left 
 the high-road and entered the forest-land. Various 
 groups from time to time continued to pass along the 
 thoroughfare. But still, ever through tlie glades, Harold 
 caught glimpses of the riders, — now distant, now near. 
 Sometimes he heard the snort of their small horses, and 
 saw a fierce eye glaring through the bushes ; then, as at 
 the sight or sound of approaching passengers, the riders 
 wheeled, and shot off through the brakes. 
 
 The earl's suspicions were aroused ; for (though he 
 knew of no enemy to apprehend, and the extreme severity 
 of the laws against robbers made the high-roads much 
 safer in the latter days of the Saxon domination than they 
 were for centuries under that of the subsequent dynasty, 
 when Saxon thegns themselves had turned kings of the 
 greenwood) the various insurrections in Edward's reign 
 had necessarily thrown upon society many turbulent, 
 disbanded mercenaries. 
 
 Harold was unarmed, save the spear which, even on 
 occasions of state, the Saxon noble rarely laid aside, and 
 the ateghar in his belt ; and, seeing now that the road 
 had become deserted, he set spurs to his horse, and was 
 just in sight of the Druid Temple when a javelin whizzed 
 close by his breast and another transfixed his horse, which 
 fell head-foremost to the ground. 
 
 The earl gained his feet in an instant, and that haste 
 was needed to save his life ; for while he rose ten swords 
 flashed around him. The Welshmen had sprung from 
 their palfreys as Harold's horse fell. Fortunately for 
 him, only two of the party bore javelins (a wenpon which 
 the Welsh wielded with deadly skill), and, those already 
 wasted, they drew their short swords, which were prob- 
 ably imitated from the Romans, and rushed upon him
 
 HAROLD. 245 
 
 in simultaneous onset. Versed in all the weapons of the 
 time, with his right hand seeking by his spear to keep 
 off the rush, with the ateghar in his left parrying the 
 strokes aimed at him, the brave earl transfixed the first 
 assailant, and sore wounded the next ; but his tunic was 
 dyed red with three gashes, and his sole chance of life 
 was in the power yet left him to force his way through 
 the ring. Dropping his spear, shifting his ateghar into 
 the right hand, wrapping round his left arm his gonna as 
 a shield, he sprang fiercely on the onslaught, and on the 
 flashing swords. Pierced to the heart fell one of his foes 5 
 dashed to the earth another ; from the hand of a third 
 (dropping his own ateghar) he wrenched the sword. 
 Loud rose Harold's cry for aid, and swiftly he strode 
 towards tlie hillock, turning back, and striking as he 
 turned ; and again fell a foe, and again new blood oozed 
 through his own garb. At that moment his cry was 
 echoed bj^ a shriek so sharp and so piercing that it 
 startled the assailants, it arrested the assault ; and ere 
 the unequal strife could be resumed, a woman was in the 
 midst of the fray; — a woman stood dauntless between 
 the earl and his foes. 
 
 " Back ! Edith. Oh, God ! Back, back ! " cried the 
 earl, recovering all his strength in the sole fear which 
 that strife had yet stricken into his bold heart ; and, draw- 
 ing Edith aside with his strong arm, he again confronted 
 the assailants. 
 
 " Die ! " cried, in the Cyrarian tongue, the fiercest of 
 the foes, whose sword had already twice drawn the earl's 
 blood, — " die, that Cymry may be free ! " 
 
 Meredydd sprang, with him sprang the survivors of 
 his band ; and by a sudden movement Edith had thrown 
 herself on Harold's breast, leaving his right arm free, but 
 sheltering his form with her own.
 
 246 HAEOLD. 
 
 At that sight every sword rested still in air. These 
 Cymrians, hesitating not at the murder of the man whose 
 death seemed to their false virtue a sacrifice due to their 
 hopes of freedom, were still the descendants of Heroes, 
 and the cliildren of noble Song, and their swords were 
 harmless against a woman. The same pause which saved 
 the life of Harold, saved that of Meredydd, for the 
 Cymrian's lifted sword had left his breast defenceless, 
 and Harold, despite his Avrath, and his fears for Edith, 
 touched by that sudden forbearance, forbore himself the 
 blow. 
 
 " Why seek ye my life ? " said he. " Whom in broad 
 England hath Harold wronged 1 " 
 
 That speech broke the charm, revived the suspense of 
 vengeance. With a sudden aim, Meredydd smote at the 
 head which Edith's embrace left unprotected. The sword 
 shivered on the steel of that which parried the stroke, 
 and the next moment, pierced to the heart, Meredydd 
 fell to the earth, bathed in his gore. Even as he fell, aid 
 was at hand. The ceorls in the Roman house had caught 
 the alarm, and were hurrying down the knoll, with arms 
 snatched in haste, while a loud whoop broke from the 
 forest-land hard by : and a troop of horse, headed by 
 Vebba, rushed through the bushes and brakes. Those of 
 the Welsh still surviving, no longer animated by their 
 fiery chief, turned on the instant, and fled with that won- 
 derful speed of foot which characterized tlieir active race ; 
 calling, as they fled., to their Welsh pigmy steeds, which, 
 snorting loud and lashing out, came at once to the call. 
 Seizing the nearest at hand, the fugitives sprang to selle, 
 while the animals unchosen paused by the corpses of their 
 former riders, neighing piteously, and shaking their long 
 manes. And then, after wheeling round and round the 
 coming horsemen, with many a plunge and lash and
 
 HAROLD. 247 
 
 savage cry, they darted after their companions, and dis- 
 appeared amongst the bushwood. Some of the Kentish 
 men gave chase to the fugitives, but in vain ; for the 
 nature of the ground favored flight. Vebba and the rest, 
 now joined by Hilda's lithsmen, gained the spot where 
 Harold, bleeding fast, yet strove to keep his footing, and, 
 forgetful of his own wounds, was joyfully assuring him- 
 self of Edith's safety. Vebba dismounted, and, recogniz- 
 ing the earl, exclaimed : — 
 
 " Saints in heaven ! are we in time 1 You bleed, you 
 faint ! — Speak, Lord Harold. How fares it 1 " 
 
 " Blood enow yet left here for our merrie England ! " 
 said Harold, with a smile. But as he spoke, his head 
 drooped, and he was borne senseless into the house of 
 Hilda.
 
 248 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 The Vala met them at the threshold, and testified so 
 little surprise at the sight of the bleeding and uncon- 
 scious earl, that Vebba, who had heard strange tales of 
 Hilda's unlawful arts, half suspected that those wild-look- 
 ing foes, with their uncannj'^, diminutive horses, were 
 imps conjured by her to punish a wooer to her grand- 
 child, — who had been perhaps too successful in the 
 wooing. And fears so reasonable were not a little 
 increased when Hilda, after leading the way up the steep 
 ladder to the chamber in which Harold had dreamed his 
 fearful dream, bade tliem all depart, and leave the 
 wounded man to her care. 
 
 "Not so," said Yebba, bluffly. "A life Hke this is 
 not to be left in the hands of woman, or wicca. I shall 
 go back to the great town, and summon the earl's own 
 leech. And I beg thee to heed, meanwhile, that every 
 head in this house shall answer for Harold's." 
 
 The great Vala, and high-born Hleafdian, little accus- 
 tomed to be accosted thus, turned round abruptly, with so 
 stern an eye and so imperious a mien, that even the stout 
 Kent man felt abashed. She pointed to the door opening 
 on the ladder, and said briefly : — 
 
 " Depart ! Thy lord's life hath been saved already, 
 and by woman. Depart ! " 
 
 " Depart, and fear not for the earl, brave and true 
 friend in need," said Editli, looking up from Harold's 
 pale lips, over which she bent ; and her sweet voice so
 
 HAROLD. 249 
 
 touched the good thegn, that, murmuring a blessing on 
 her fair face, he turned and departed. 
 
 Hilda then proceeded with a light and skilful hand to 
 examine the wounds of her patient. She opened the 
 tunic, and washed away the blood from four gaping ori- 
 fices on the breast and shoulders, And as she did so, 
 Edith uttered a faint cry, and, falling on her knees, bowed 
 her head over the drooping hand, and kissed it with sti- 
 fling emotions, of which perhaps grateful joy was the 
 strongest ; for over the heart of Harold was punctured, 
 after the fashion of the Saxons, a device, — and that 
 device was the knot of lietrothal, and in the centre of the 
 knot was graven the word " Edith."
 
 250 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Whether owing to Hilda's runes, or to the merely 
 human arts which accompanied them, the earl's recovery 
 was rapid, though the great loss of blood he had sustained 
 left him awhile weak and exhausted. But perhaps he 
 blessed the excuse which detained him still in the house 
 of Hilda, and under the eyes of Edith. 
 
 He dismissed the leech sent to him by Vebba, and con- 
 fided, not without reason, to the Vala's skill. And how 
 happily went his hours beneath the old Eoman roof! 
 
 It was not without a superstition, more characterized, 
 however, by tenderness than awe, that Harold learned 
 that Edith had been undefinably impressed with a fore- 
 l)oding of danger to her betrothed, and all that morning 
 she had watched his coming from the old legendary hill. 
 Was it not in that watch that his good Fylgia had saved 
 his life? 
 
 Indeed, there seemed a strange truth in Hilda's asser- 
 tions that, in the form of his betrothed, his tutelary spirit 
 lived and guarded. For smooth every step, and bright 
 every day, in his career, since their troth had been 
 pliglited. And gradually the sweet superstition had 
 mingled with human passion to hallow and refine it. 
 There was a purity and a depth in the love of these two, 
 which, if not uncommon in women, is most rare in men. 
 
 Harold, in sober truth, had learned to look on Edith as 
 on his better angel ; and, calming his strong, manly heart 
 in the hour of temptation, would have recoiled, as a sacri-
 
 HAROLD. 251 
 
 lege, from aught that could have sullied that image of 
 celestial love. With a noble and sublime patience, of 
 which perhaps only a character so thoroughly English in 
 its habits of self-control and steadfast endurance could 
 have been capable, he saw the months and. the years glide 
 away, and still contented himself with hope, — hope, the 
 sole, godlike joy that belongs to men ! 
 
 As the opinion of an age influences even those who 
 affect to despise it, so perhaps, this holy and unselfish 
 passion was preserved and guarded by that peculiar vene- 
 ration for purity which formed the characteristic fanati- 
 cism of the last days of the Anglo-Saxons, — when still, 
 as Aldhelm had previously sung in Latin less barbarous 
 than perhaps any priest in the reign of Edward could 
 command, — 
 
 " Virginitas castam servans sine crimine carnem 
 Csetera virtutem vincit prseconia laudi — 
 Spiritus altithroni templum sibi vindicat almus ; " ^ 
 
 when, amidst a great dissoluteness of manners, alike 
 common to Church and laity, the opposite virtues were, 
 as is invariable in such epochs of society, carried by the 
 few purer natures into heroic extremes. " And as gold, 
 the adorner of the world, springs from the sordid bosom 
 of earth ; so chastity, the image of gold, rose bright and 
 unsullied from the clay of human desire." ^ 
 
 And Edith, though yet in the tenderest flush of beau- 
 
 1 " The chaste who blameless keep unsullied fame, 
 Transcend all other worth, all other praise. 
 The Spirit, high enthroned, has made their hearts 
 His sacred temple " 
 
 Sharon Turner's " Translation of Aldhelm," vol. iii. p. 366. It ia 
 curious to see how, even in Latin, the poet preserves the alliUra- 
 tions that characterized the Saxon muse. 
 2 Slightly altered from Aldhelm.
 
 252 HAROLD. 
 
 tiful youth, had, under the influence of that sanctifying 
 and scarce earthly aflfection, perfected her full nature as 
 woman. She had learned so to live in Harold's life, that 
 — less, it seemed, by study than intuition — a knowledge 
 graver than that which belonged to her sex and her time, 
 seemed to fall upon her soul : fall as the sunlight falls on 
 the blossoms, expanding their petals, and brightening the 
 glory of their hues. 
 
 Hitherto, living under the shade of Hilda's dreary 
 creed, Edith, as we have seen, had been rather Christian 
 by name and instinct than acqviainted with the doctrines 
 of the Gospel, or penetrated by its faith. But the soul 
 of Harold lifted her own out of the Valley of the Shadow 
 lip to the Heavenly Hill. For the character of their love 
 was so pre-eminently Christian, so, by the circumstances 
 that surrounded it - — so by hope and self-denial elevated 
 out of the empire, not only of the senses, but even of tliat 
 sentiment which springs from them, and which made the 
 sole refined and poetic element of the heathen's love, that 
 but for Christianity it would have withered and died. It 
 required all the aliment of prayer ; it needed that patient 
 endurance which comes from the soul's consciousness of 
 immortality ; it could not have resisted earth, but from 
 the forts and armies it Avon from heaven. Thus from 
 Harold might Edith be said to have taken her very soul. 
 And with the soul, and through the soul, woke the mind 
 from the mists of childhood. 
 
 In the intense desire to be Avorthy the love of the fore- 
 most man of her land, — to be the companion of his mind, 
 as well as the mistress of his heart, — she had acquired, 
 she knew not how, strange stores of thought and intelli- 
 gence, and pure, gentle Avisdom. In opening to her confi- 
 dence his OAvn high aims and projects, he himself Avas 
 scarcely conscious how often he confided but to consult,
 
 HAROLD. 253 
 
 — how often and how insensibly she colored his reflec- 
 tions and shaped his designs. Whatever was highest and 
 purest, that, Edith ever, as by instinct, beheld as the 
 wisest. She grew to him like a second conscience, diviner 
 than his own. Each, therefore, reflected virtue on the 
 other, as planet illumines planet. 
 
 All these years of probation, then, which might have 
 soured a love less holy, changed into weariness a love less 
 intense, had only served to wed them more intimately 
 soul to soul ; and in that spotless union what happiness 
 there was ! what rapture in word and glance, and the 
 slight, restrained caress of innocence, beyond all the 
 transports love only human can bestow !
 
 254 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. • 
 
 It was a bright still summer noon, when Harold sat with 
 Edith amidst the columns of the Druid temple, and in 
 the shade which those vast and mournful relics of a faith 
 departed cast along the sward. And there, conversing 
 over the past, and planning the future, they had sat long, 
 when Hilda approached from the house, and, entering 
 the circle, leaned her arm upon the altar of the war-god, 
 and gazing on Harold with a calm triumph in her aspect, 
 said, — 
 
 "Did I not smile, son of Godwin, when, with thy 
 shortsighted wisdom, thou didst think to guard thy land 
 and secure thy love, by urging the monk-king to send 
 over the seas for the Atheling? Did I not tell thee, 
 ' Thou dost right, for in obeying thy judgment thou art 
 but the instrument of fate ; and the coming of the Athe- 
 ling shall speed thee nearer to the ends of thy life, but 
 not from the Atheling shalt thou take the crown of thy 
 love, and not by the Atheling shall the throne of Athelstan 
 be filled '1" 
 
 " Alas ! " said Harold, rising in agitation, " let me not 
 hear of mischance to that noble prince. He seemed sick 
 and feeble when I parted from him ; but joy is a great 
 restorer, and the air of the native land gives quick health 
 to the exile." 
 
 "Hark !" said Hilda, "you hear the passing bell for 
 the soul of the son of Ironsides ! " 
 
 The mournful knell, as she spoke, came dull from the 
 roofs of the city afar, borne to their ears by the exceeding
 
 HAROLD. 255 
 
 stillness of the atmosphere. Edith crossed herself, and 
 murmured a prayer according to the custom of the age ; 
 then raising her eyes to Harold, she murmured, as she 
 clasped her hands, — 
 
 "Be not saddened, Harold ; hope still." 
 
 " Hope ! " repeated Hilda, rising proudly from her re- 
 cumbent position, — " hope ! in that knell from St. Paul's, 
 dull indeed is thine ear, Harold, if thou hearest not 
 the joy-bells that inaugurate a future king ! " 
 
 The earl started : his eyes shot fire ; his breast heaved. 
 
 " Leave us, Edith," said Hilda, in a low voice ; and after 
 
 watching her grandchild's slow, reluctant steps descend 
 
 the knoll, she turned to Harold, and leading him towards 
 
 the gravestone of the Saxon chief, said, — 
 
 *■ Rememberest thou the spectre that rose from this 
 mound 1 — rememberest thou the dream that followed 
 it?" 
 
 " The spectre, or deceit of mine eye, I remember well," 
 answered the earl ; " the dream, not, — or only in confused 
 and jarring fragments." 
 
 " I told thee then that I could not unriddle the dream 
 by the light of the moment ; and that the dead who slept 
 below never appeared to men, save for some portent of 
 doom to the house of Cerdic. The portent is fulfilled ; 
 the Heir of Cerdic is no more. To whom appeared the 
 great Scin-lasca, but to him who shall lead a new race of 
 kings to the Saxon throne ! " 
 
 Harold breathed hard, and the color mounted bright 
 and glowing to his cheek and brow. 
 
 " I cannot gainsay thee, Vala. Unless, despite all con- 
 jecture, Edward should be spared to earth till the Athe- 
 ling's infant son acquires the age when bearded men will 
 acknowledge a chief,^ I look round in England for the 
 
 1 It is impossible to form any just view of the state of parties 
 and the position of Harold in the latter portions of this work, im-
 
 256 HAROLD. 
 
 coming king, and all England reflects but mine own 
 
 image. 
 
 His head rose erect as he spoke, and already the 
 brow seemed august, as if circled by the diadem of the 
 Basileus. 
 
 " And if it be so," he added, " I accept that solemn 
 trust, and England shall grow greater in my greatness." 
 
 " The flame breaks at last from the smouldering fuel," 
 cried the Vala, " and the hour I so long foretold to thee 
 hath come ! " 
 
 Harold answered not, for high and kindling emotions 
 deafened him to all but the voice of a grand ambition, 
 and the awakening joy of a noble heart. 
 
 " And then — and then," he exclaimed, " I shall need 
 no mediator between nature and monkcraft ; — then,0 
 Edith, the life thou hast saved will indeed be thine ! " 
 He paused, and it was a sign of the change that an ambi- 
 tion, long repressed, but now rushing into the vent 
 legitimately open to it, had already begun to work in the 
 character hitherto so self-reliant, when he said in a low 
 voice, " But that dream which hath so long lain locked, 
 not lost, in my mind, — that dream of which I recall 
 only vague remembrances of danger yet defiance, trouble 
 
 less the reader will bear constantly in mind the fact that, from the 
 earliest period, minors were set aside as a matter of course by the 
 Saxon customs. Henry observes that, in the whole history of 
 the Heptarchy, there is but one example of a minority, and that a 
 short and unfortunate one ; so, in the later times, the great Alfred 
 takes the throne, to the exclusion of the infant son of his elder 
 brother. Only under very peculiar circumstances, backed, as in 
 the case of Edmund Ironsides, by precocious talents and manhood 
 on the part of the minor, were there exceptions to the general 
 laws of succession. The same rule obtained with the earldoms ; 
 the fame, power, and popularity of Siward could not transmit his 
 Northumbrian earldom to his infant son Waltheof, so gloomily 
 renowned in a subsequent reign.
 
 HAROLD, 257 
 
 yet triumph, — canst thou unriddle it, Vala, into augu- 
 ries of success 1 " 
 
 " Harold," answered Hilda, " thou didst hear, at the 
 close of tliy dream, the music of the hymns that are 
 chanted at the crowning of a king, — and a crowned king 
 shalt thou be ; yet fearful foes shall assail thee, — fore- 
 shown in the shapes of the lion and raven that came in 
 menace over the blood-red sea. The two stars in the 
 heaven betoken that the day of thy birth was also the 
 birthday of a foe, whose star is fatal to thine ; and they 
 vi'arn thee against a battle-field, fought on the day when 
 those stars shall meet. Farther than this the mystery of 
 thy dream escapes from my lore ; — wouldst thou learn 
 thyself, from the phantom that sent the dream 1 — stand 
 by my side at the grave of the Saxon hero, and I will 
 summon the Scin-laeca to counsel the living. For what 
 to the Vala the dead may deny, the soul of the brave on 
 the brave may bestow ! " 
 
 Harold listened with a serious and musing attention, 
 which his pride or his reai5on had never before accorded 
 to the warnings of Hilda. But his sense was not yet fas- 
 cinated by the voice of the charmer, and he answered 
 with his wonted smile, so sweet, yet so haughty, — - 
 
 " A hand outstretched to a crown should be armed for 
 the foe ; and the eye that would guard the living should 
 not be dimmed by the vapors that encircle the dead." 
 
 VOL. I. — 17
 
 258 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 But from that date changes, slight, yet noticeable and 
 important, were at work both in the conduct and charac- 
 ter of the great earl. 
 
 Hitherto he had advanced on his career without calcu- 
 lation ; and nature, not policy, had achieved his power. 
 But henceforth he began thoughtfully to cement the 
 foundations of his house, to extend the area, to strengthen 
 the props. Policy now mingled with the justice that had 
 made him esteemed, and the generosity that had won him 
 love. Before, though by temper conciliatory, yet, through 
 honesty, indifferent to the enmities he provoked, in his 
 adherence to what his conscience approved, he now laid 
 himself out to propitiate all ancient feuds, soothe all 
 jealousies, and convert foes into friends. He opened 
 constant and friendly communication with his uncle 
 Sweyn, King of Denmark ; he availed himself sedvdously 
 of all the influence over the Anglo-Danes which his 
 mother's birth made so facile. He strove, also, and 
 wisely, to conciliate the animosities which the Church 
 had cherished against Godwin's House ; he concealed his 
 disdain of the monks and monk-ridden ; he showed him- 
 self the Church's patron and friend ; he endowed largely 
 the convents, and especially one at Walthara, which had 
 fallen into decay, though favorably known for the piety 
 of its brotherhood. But if in this he played a part not 
 natural to his opinions, Harold could not, even in simula- 
 tion, administer to evil. The monasteries he favored
 
 HAROLD. 259 
 
 were those distinguished for purity of life, for benevo- 
 lence to the poor, for bold denunciation of the excesses 
 of the great. He had not, like the Norman, the grand 
 design of creating in the priesthood a college of learning, 
 a school of arts ; such notions were unfamiliar in homely, 
 unlettered England. And Harold, though for his time 
 and his land no mean scholar, would have recoiled from 
 favoring a learning always made subservient to Rome ; 
 always at once haughty and scheming, and aspiring to 
 complete domination over both the souls of men and tlie 
 thrones of kings. But his aim was, out of the elements 
 he found in the natural kindliness existing between Saxon 
 priest and Saxon flock, to rear a modest, virtuous, homely 
 clergy, not above tender sympathy with an ignorant popu- 
 lation. He selected as examples for his monastery at 
 Waltham, two low-born, humble brothers, Osgood and 
 Ailred ; the one known for the courage with which he 
 had gone through the land, preaching to abbot and thegn 
 the emancipation of the theowes, as the most meritorious 
 act the safety of the soul could impose ; the other, who, 
 originally a clerk, had, according to the common custom 
 of the Saxon clergy, contracted the bonds of marriage, 
 and with some eloquence had vindicated that custom 
 against the canons of Rome, and refused the offer of 
 large endowments and thegn's rank to put away his wife. 
 But on the death of that spouse he had adopted the cowl, 
 and, while still persisting in the lawfulness of marriage 
 to the unmonastic clerks, had become famous for denounc- 
 ing the open concubinage which desecrated the holy 
 office and violated the solemn vows of many a proud 
 prelate and abbot. 
 
 To these two men (both of whom refused the abbacy 
 of Waltham) Harold committed the charge of selecting 
 the new brotherhood established there. And the monks
 
 260 HAROLD. 
 
 of Waltham were honored as saints throughout the 
 neiglihoring district, and cited as examples to all the 
 Cliurch. 
 
 But though in themselves the new politic arts of 
 Harold seemed blameless enough, a?-ts they were, and 
 as such they corrupted the genuine simplicity of his 
 earlier nature. He had conceived for the first time an 
 ambition apart from that of service to his country. It 
 was no longer only to serve the land, it was to serve it as 
 its ruler, that animated his heart and colored his thoughts. 
 Expediencies began to dim to his conscience the health- 
 ful loveliness of Truth. And now, too, gradually, that 
 empire which Hilda had gained over his brother Sweyn 
 began to sway this man, heretofore so strong in his sturdy 
 sense. The future became to him a dazzling mystery, 
 into which his conjectures plunged themselves more and 
 more. He had not yet stood in the Runic circle and 
 invoked the dead; but the spells were around his heart, 
 and in his own soul had grown up the familiar demon. 
 
 Still Edith reigned alone, if not in his thoughts, at 
 least in his affections ; and perhaps it was the hope of 
 conquering all obstacles to his marriage that mainly 
 induced him to propitiate the Church, through whose 
 agency the object he sought must be attained ; and still 
 that hope gave the briglitest lustre to the distant crown. 
 But he who admits Ambition to the companionship of 
 Love, admits a giant that outstrides the gentler footsteps 
 of its comrade. 
 
 Harold's brow lost its benign calm. He became thought- 
 ful and abstracted. He consulted Edith less, Hilda more. 
 Edith seemed to him now not wise enough to counsel. 
 The smile of his Fylgia, like the light of the star upon a 
 stream, lit the surface, but could not pierce to the deep. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the policy of Harold throve and
 
 HAROLD. 261 
 
 prospered. He liad already arrived at that height, that 
 the least effort to make power popular redoubled its 
 extent. Gradually all voices swelled the chorus in his 
 praise ; gradually men became familiar to the question, 
 " If Edward dies before Edgar, the grandson of Ironsi(les, 
 is of age to succeed, where can we find a king like 
 Harold 1 " 
 
 In the midst of this quiet but deepening sunshine of 
 his fate, there burst a storm, which seemed destined 
 either to darken his day or to disperse every cloud from 
 the horizon. Algar, the only possible rival to his power, 
 — the only opponent no arts could soften, — Algar, whose 
 hereditary name endeared him to the Saxon laity, whose 
 father's most powerful legacy was the love of the Saxon 
 Church, whose martial and turbulent spirit had only the 
 more elevated him in the esteem of the warlike Danes in 
 East Anglia (the earldom in which he had succeeded 
 Harold), by his father's death, lord of the great princi- 
 pality of Mercia, — -availed himself of that new power to 
 break out again into rebellion. Again he was outlawed, 
 again he leagued with the fiery Gryflyth. All Wales was 
 in revolt ; the Marches were invaded and laid waste. 
 Rolfe, the feeble Earl of Hereford, died at this critical 
 juncture, and the JSTornians and hirelings imder him 
 mutinied against other leaders ; a fleet of vikings from 
 Norway ravaged the western coasts, and, sailing up the 
 Menai, joined the ships of Gryffyth, and the whole empire 
 seemed menaced with dissolution, when Edward issued 
 his Herrbann, and Harold at the head of the royal armies 
 marched on the foe. 
 
 Dread and dangerous were those defiles of Wales ; 
 amidst them had been foiled or slaughtered all the war- 
 riors under Rolf the Norman ; no Saxon armies had won 
 laurels in the Cymrian's own mountain home within the
 
 262 HAROLD. 
 
 memory of man ; nor had any Saxon ships borne the 
 pahn from the terrible vikings of Norway. Fail, Harold, 
 and farewell the crown ! — succeed, and thou hast on 
 thy side the ultimam rationem regum (the last argu- 
 ment of kings), the heart of the army over which thou 
 art chief.
 
 HAROLD. 263 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 It was one day in the height of summer that two horse- 
 men rode slowly, and conversing with each other in 
 friendly wise, notwithstanding an evident difference of 
 rank and of nation, through the lovely country which 
 formed the Marches of AVales. The younger of these 
 men was unmistakably a Norman ; his cap only par- 
 tially covered the head, which was shaven from the 
 crown to the nape of the neck,^ while in front the hair, 
 closely cropped, curled short and thick round a haughty 
 but intelligent brow. His dress fitted close to his shape, 
 and was worn without mantle ; his leggings were curi- 
 ously crossed in the fashion of a tartan, and on his heels 
 were spurs of gold. He was wholly unarmed ; but 
 behind him and his companion, at a little distance, his 
 war-horse, completely caparisoned, was led by a single 
 squire, mounted on a good Norman steed ; while six 
 Saxon theowes, themselves on foot, conducted three sump- 
 ter-mules, somewhat heavily laden, not only with the 
 armor of the Norman knight, but panniers containing 
 rich robes, wines, and provender. At a few paces farther 
 behind, marched a troop, light-armed, in tough hides 
 curiously tanned, with axes swung over their shoulders 
 and bows in their hands. 
 
 The companion of the knight was as evidently a Saxon 
 as the knight was unequivocally a Norman. His square, 
 short features, contrasting the oval visage and aquiline 
 
 1 Bayeux tapestry.
 
 264 HAROLD. 
 
 profile of his close-shaven comrade, were half concealed 
 beneath a bushy beard and immense mustache. His 
 tunic also was of hide, and, tightened at the waist, fell 
 loose to his knee ; wliile a kind of cloak, fastened to the 
 right shoulder by a large round button or brooch, flowed 
 behind and in front, but left both arms free. His cap 
 difiered in shape from the Norman's, being round and 
 full at the sides, somewhat in shape like a turban. His 
 bare, brawny throat was curiously punctured with sundry 
 devices, and a verse from the Psalms. 
 
 His countenance, though without the high and haughty 
 brow, and the acute, observant eye of his comrade, had 
 a pride and intelligence of its own, — a pride somewhat 
 sullen, and an intelligence somewhat slow. 
 
 " My good friend Sexwolf," quoth the l^orman, in very 
 tolerable Saxon, "I pray you not so to misesteem us. 
 After all we i^Tormans are of your own race : our fathers 
 spoke the same language as yours." 
 
 " That may be," said the Saxon, bluntly ; " and so did 
 the Danes, with little difference, when they burned our 
 houses and cut our throats." 
 
 " Old tales, those," replied the knight, " and I thank 
 thee for the comparison ; for the Danes, thou seest, are 
 now settled amongst ye, peaceful subjects and quiet men, 
 and in a few generations it will be hard to guess who 
 comes from Saxon, who from Dane." 
 
 " We waste time talking such matters," returned the 
 Saxon, feeling himself instinctively no match in argu- 
 ment for his lettered companion, and seeing with his 
 native strong sense that some ulterior object, though he 
 guessed not what, lay hid in the conciliatory language of 
 his companion ; " nor do I believe. Master Mallet or 
 Gravel, — forgive me if I miss of the right forms to 
 address you, — that Norman will ever love Saxon, or
 
 HAROLD. 265 
 
 Saxon Norman ; so let us cut our words short. There 
 stands the convent, at which you would like to rest and 
 refresh yourself." 
 
 The Saxon pointed to a low, clumsy building of timber, 
 forlorn and decayed, close by a rank marsh, over which 
 swarmed gnats and all foul animalcules. 
 
 Mallet de Graville, for it was he, shrugged his shoulders, 
 and said, with an air of pity and contempt, — 
 
 " I would, friend Sexwolf, that thou couldst but see 
 the houses we build to God and his saints in our Nor- 
 mandy ; fabrics of stately stone, on the fairest sites. Our 
 Countess Matilda hath a notable taste for the masonry ; 
 and our workmen are the brethren of Lombardy, who 
 know all the mysteries thereof." 
 
 "I pray thee, Dan-Norman," cried the Saxon, "not to 
 put such ideas into the soft head of King Edward. We 
 pay enow for the Church, though built Ijut of timber ; 
 saints help us indeed, if it were builded of stone ! " 
 
 The Norman crossed liimself, as if he had heard some 
 signal impiety, and then said, — 
 
 "Thou lovest not Mother Church, worthy, Sexwolf?" 
 " I was brought up," replied the sturdy Saxon, " to 
 work and sweat hard, and I love not the lazy who devour 
 my substance, and say ' the saints gave it them.' Knovvest 
 thou not, Master Mallet, that one-third of all the lands 
 of England is in the hands of the priests ? " 
 
 " Hem ! " said the acute Norman, who, Avith all his 
 devotion, could stoop to wring worldly advantage from 
 each admission of his comrade; "then in this merrie 
 England of thine, thou hast still thy grievances and cause 
 of complaint?" 
 
 " Yea, indeed, and I trow it," quoth the Saxon, even 
 in that day a grumbler ; "but I take it, the main differ- 
 ence between thee and me is, that I can say, what mis-
 
 266 HAROLD. 
 
 likes me out like a man ; and it would fair ill with thy 
 limbs or thy life if thou wert as frank in the grim land of 
 thy lieretoghy 
 
 " Now, Notre Dame stop thy prating," said the Nor- 
 man, in high disdain, while his brow frowned and his 
 eye sparkled. " Strong judge and great captain as is 
 AVilliam the Norman, his barons and knights hold their 
 heads high in his presence, and not a grievance weighs 
 on the heart that we give not out with the lip." 
 
 " So have I heard," said the Saxon, chuckling ; " I 
 have heard, indeed, that ye thegns, or great men, are free 
 enow, and plain-spoken. But what of the commons, — ■ 
 the sixhcendmen, and the ceorls. Master Norman % Dare 
 they speak as we speak of king and of law, of thegn and 
 of captain ? " . 
 
 The Norman wisely curbed the scornful " No, indeed," 
 that rushed to his lips, and said, all sweet and debonair, — 
 
 " Each land hath its customs, dear Sexwolf ; and if the 
 Norman were king of England, he would take the laws as 
 he finds them, and the ceorls would be as safe with 
 William as Edward." 
 
 " The Norman, king of England ! " cried the Saxon, 
 reddening to the tips of his great ears ; " what dost thou 
 babble of, stranger? The Norman! — How could that 
 ever be? " 
 
 " Nay, I did but suggest, — but suppose such a case," 
 replied the knight, still smothering his wrath. " And 
 why thinkest thou the conceit so outrageous ? Thy king 
 is childless ; William is his next of kin, and dear to him 
 as a brother ; and if Edward did leave him the throne — " 
 
 " The throne is for no man to leave," almost roared the 
 Saxon. " Thinkest thou the people of England are like 
 cattle and sheep, and chattels and theowes, to be left by 
 will, as man fancies ? The king's wish has its weight, no
 
 HAROLD. 267 
 
 doubt, but the Witan hath its yea or its nay, and the 
 Witan and Commons are seldom at issue thereon. Tliy 
 duke king of England ! Marry ! Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " Brute ! " muttered the knight to himself ; then adding 
 aloud, with his old tone of irony (now much habitually 
 subdued by years and discretion), " Why takest thou so 
 the part of the ceorls? thou a captain, and wellnigh a 
 thegn ! " 
 
 " I was born a ceorl, and my father before me," 
 returned Sexwolf, " and I feel with my class ; though 
 my grandson may rank with the thegns, and, for aught I 
 know, with the earls." 
 
 The Sire de Graville involuntarily drew off from the 
 Saxon's side, as if made suddenly aware that he had 
 grossly demeaned himself in such unwitting familiarity 
 with a ceorl, and a ceorl's son ; and he said, with a much 
 more careless accent and lofty port than before, — 
 
 "Good man, thou wert a ceorl, and now thou leadest 
 Earl Harold's men to the war ! How is this ? I do not 
 quite comprehend it." 
 
 " How shouldst thou, poor Norman 1 " replied the 
 Saxon, compassionately. " Tlie tale is soon told. Know 
 that when Harold our Earl was banished, and his lauds 
 taken, we his ceorls helped with his sixhsendman, Clapa, 
 to purchase his land, nigh by London, and the house 
 wherein thou didst find me, of a stranger, thy country- 
 man, to whom they Avere lawlessly given. And we tilled 
 the land, we tended the herds, and we kept the house till 
 the earl came back." 
 
 " Ye had moneys then, — moneys of your own, ye 
 ceorls ! " said the Norman, avariciously. 
 
 " How else could we buy our freedom 1 Every ceorl 
 hath some hours to himself to employ to his profit, and 
 can lay by for his own ends. These savings we gave up
 
 268 HAROLD. 
 
 for our earl, and when the earl came back, he gave the 
 sixhcemlinan hides of land enow to make him a thegn ; 
 and he gave the ceorls who had holpen Clapa, their free- 
 dom and broad shares of his boc-land, and most of them 
 now hold their own ploughs and feed their own herds. 
 But I loved the earl (having no wife) better than swine 
 and glebe, and I prayed him to let me serve him in arms. 
 And so I have risen, as with us ceorls can rise." 
 
 " I am answered," said Mallet de Graville, thought- 
 fully, and still somewhat perplexed. " But these theowes 
 (they are slaves) never rise. It cannot matter to them 
 Avhether shaven Norman or bearded Saxon sit on the 
 throne 1 " 
 
 " Thou art right there," answered the Saxon ; " it 
 matters as little to them as it doth to thy thieves and 
 felons, for many of them are felons and thieves, or the 
 children of such ; and most of those who are not, it is said, 
 ar(? nt)t Saxons, but the barbarous folks whom the Saxons 
 subdued. No, wretched things, and scarce men, they 
 care nought for the land. Howbeit, even they are not 
 Avithout hope, for the Church takes their part ; and that, 
 at least, I for one think Church-worthy," added the 
 Saxon, with a softened eye. " And every abbot is bound 
 to set free three theowes on his lands, and few who own 
 theowes die without freeing some by their will ; so that 
 the sons of theowes may be thegns, and thegns some of 
 them are at this day." 
 
 " Marvels ! " cried the Norman. " But surely they 
 bear a stain and stigma, and their fellow-thegns flout 
 them ? " 
 
 " Not a whit, — why so ? Land is land, money money. 
 Little, I trow, care we what a man's father may have 
 been, if the man himself hath his ten hides or more of 
 good boc-land."
 
 HAROLD. 269 
 
 "Ye value land and the moneys," said the Norman; 
 "so do we, but we value more name and birth." 
 
 "Ye are still in your leading-strings, Norman." replied 
 the Saxon, waxing good-humored in his contempt. " We 
 liave an old saying and a wise one, ' All come from Adam 
 except Tib the ploughman ; but when Tib grows rich, 
 all call him dear brother.' " 
 
 " With such pestilent notions," quoth the Sire de Gra- 
 ville, no longer keeping temper, " I do not wonder that 
 our fathers of Norway and Daneland beat ye so ea.sily. 
 The love for things ancient — creed, lineage, and name — 
 is better steel against the stranger than your smiths ever 
 welded." 
 
 Therewith, and not waiting for Sexwolf's reply, he 
 clapped spurs to his palfrey, and soon entered the court- 
 yard of the convent. 
 
 A monk of the order of St. Benedict, then most in 
 favor,-' ushered the noble visitor into the cell of the 
 abbot ; who, after gazing at him a moment in wonder and 
 delight, clasped him to his breast, and kissed him heartily 
 on brow and cheek. 
 
 " Ah, Guillaume," he exclaimed in the Norman tongue, 
 " this is indeed a grace for which to sing Jubilate. Thou 
 canst not guess how welcome is the face of a countryman 
 in this horrible land of ill-cooking and exile." 
 
 "Talking of grace, my dear father, and food," said De 
 Graville, loosening the cincture of the tight vest which 
 gave him the shape of a wasp, — for even at that early 
 period small waists were in vogue with the warlike fops 
 of the French continent, — " talking of grace, the sooner 
 thou sayest it over some friendly refection, the more will 
 the Latin sound unctuous and musical. I have journeyed 
 since daybreak, and am now hungered and faint." 
 
 1 Indeed, apparently the only monastic order in England.
 
 270 HAROLD. 
 
 " Alack, alack ! " cried the abbot, plaintively, " thou 
 knowest little, ray son, what hardships Ave endure in 
 these parts, — how larded our larders, and how nefarious 
 our fare. The flesh of swine salted — " 
 
 " The flesh of Beelzebub ! " cried Mallet de Graville, 
 aghast. " But comfort thee, I have stores on my surap- 
 ter-mules, — poulardes and fishes, and other not despica- 
 ble comestibles, and a few flasks of wine, not pressed, 
 laud the saints ! from the vines of this country : where- 
 fore, wilt thou see to it, and instruct thy cooks how to 
 season the cheer ? " 
 
 "No cooks have I to trust to," replied the abbot; " of 
 cooking know they here as much as of Latin ; nathless, I 
 will go and do my best with the stew-pans. Meanwhile, 
 thou wilt at least have rest and the bath. For the 
 Saxons, even in tlieir convents, are a clean race, and 
 learned the bath from the Dane." 
 
 " That I have noted," said the knight, " for even at the 
 smallest house at which I have lodged in my way from Lon- 
 don, the host hath courteously ofi"ered me the bath, and 
 the hostess linen curious and fragrant ; and to say truth, 
 the poor peo]ile are hospitable and kind, despite their 
 uncouth hate of the foreigner ; nor is their meat to be 
 despised, plentiful and succulent ; but pardex, as thou 
 sayest, little helped by the art of dressing. Wherefore, 
 my father, I will while the time till the poidardes be 
 roasted, and the fish broiled or stewed, by the ablutions 
 thou profFerest me. I shall tarry with thee some hours, 
 for I have much to learn " 
 
 The abbot then led the Sire de Graville by the hand 
 to the cell of honor and guestship, and having seen that 
 the bath prepared was of warmth sufficient, — for both 
 Norman and Saxon (hardy men as they seem to us from 
 afar) so shuddered at the touch of cold water, that a bath
 
 HAKOLD. 271 
 
 of natural temperature (as well as a hard bed) was some- 
 times imposed as a penance, — the good father went his 
 way to examine the sumpter-mules, and admonish the 
 much-sutferiug and bewildered lay-brother who officiated 
 as cook, and who, speaking neither Norman nor Latin, 
 scarce made out one word in ten of his superior's elabo- 
 rate exhortations. 
 
 Mallet's squire, with a change of raiment, and goodly 
 cotiers of soaps, unguents, and odors, took his way to the 
 knight ; for a Norman of birth was accustomed to much 
 personal attendance, and had all respect for the body : 
 and it was nearly an hour before, in a long gown of fur, 
 reshaven, dainty, and decked, the Sire de Graville bowed, 
 and sighed, and prayed before the refection set out in the 
 abbot's cell. 
 
 The two Normans, despite the sharp apj^etite of the 
 layman, ate with great gravity and decorum, drawing 
 forth the morsels served to them on spits with silent 
 examination ; seldom more than tasting, with looks of 
 patient dissatisfaction, eacli of the comestibles ; sipping 
 rather than drinking, nibbling rather than devouring ; 
 washing their fingers in rose-water with nice care at the 
 close, and waving them afterwards gracefully in the air, 
 to allow the moisture somewhat to exhale before they 
 Aviped off the lingering dews with their napkins. Then 
 they exchanged looks and sighed in concert, as if recalling 
 the polished manners of Normandy, still retained in tliat 
 desolate exile. And their temperate meal thus concluded, 
 dishes, wines, and attendants vanished, and their talk 
 commenced. 
 
 " How earnest thou in England ? " asked the abbot, 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Sauf your reverence," answered De Graville, " not 
 wholly for reasons dift'erent from those that bring thee
 
 272 HAROLD. 
 
 hither. When, after the death of that truculent and 
 orgulous Godwin, King Edward entreated Harold to let 
 him have back some of his dear Norman favorites, tliou, 
 then little pleased with the plain fare and sharp discipline 
 of the convent of Bee, didst pray Bishop William of Lon- 
 don to accompany such train as Harold, moved by his 
 poor king's supplication, was pleased to permit. The 
 bishop consented, and thou wert enabled to change raoidc's 
 cowl tor abbot's mitre. In a word, ambition brought 
 thee to England, and ambition brings me hither." 
 
 " Hem ! and how ? Mayst thou thrive better tlian I 
 in this swine-sty ! " 
 
 " You remember," renewed De Graville, " that Lan- 
 franc, the Lombard, was pleased to take interest in my 
 fortunes, then not the most flourishing, and after his 
 return from Rome, with the Pope's dispensation for 
 Count William's marriage with his cousin, he became 
 W^illiam's most trusted adviser. Both William and Lan- 
 franc were desirous to set an example of learning to our 
 Latinless nobles, and therefore my scholarship found 
 grace in their eyes. lu brief, — since then I have pros- 
 pered and thriven. I have fair lands by the Seine, free 
 from clutch of merchant and Jew. I have founded a 
 convent, and slain some hundreds of Breton marauders. 
 Need I say that I am in higli favor? Now it so chanced 
 that a cousin of mine, Hugo de Magnaville, a brave lance 
 and franc-rider, chanced to murder his brother in a little 
 domestic affray, and being of conscience tender and nice, 
 the deed preyed on him, and he gave his lands to Odo of 
 Bayeux, and set off to Jerusalem. There, having prayed 
 at the Tomb (the knight crossed himself), he felt at once 
 miraculously cheered and relieved ; but, journeying back, 
 mishaps befell him. He was made slave by some infidel, 
 to one of whose wives he sought to be gallant, par
 
 HAEOLD. 273 
 
 amours, and only escaped at last by setting fire to paynim 
 and prison. ISTow, by the aid of the Virgin, he has got 
 back to Ronen, and holds his own land again in fief from 
 proud Odo, as a knight of the bishop's. It so happened 
 that, passing homeward through Lycia, before tliese mis- 
 fortunes befell him, he made friends with a fellow-pilgrim 
 who had just returned, like himself, from the Sepulchre, 
 but not lightened, like him, of the load of his crime. 
 This poor palmer lay broken-hearted and dying in the 
 hut of an eremite, where my cousin took shelter ; and, 
 learning that Hugo was on his way to Normandy, he 
 made himself known as Sweyn, the once fair and proud 
 Earl of England, eldest son to old Godwin, and father 
 to Haco, whom our count still holds as a hostage. He 
 besought Hugo to intercede with the count for Haco's 
 speedy release and return, if King Edward assented 
 thereto ; and charged my cousin, moreover, with a letter 
 to Harold, his brother, which Hugo undertook to send 
 over. By good-luck, it so chanced that, through all his 
 sore trials cousin Hugo kept safe round his neck a leaden 
 effigy of the Virgin. The infidels disdained to rob him 
 of lead, little dreaming the worth which the sanctity gave 
 to the metal. To the back of the image Hugo fastened 
 the letter, and so, though somewhat tattered and dam- 
 aged, he had it still with him on arriving in Rouen. 
 
 " Knowing then my grace with the count, and not, 
 despite absolution and pilgrimage, much wishing to trust 
 himself in the presence of William, who thinks gravely 
 of fratricide, he prayed me to deliver the message, and 
 ask leave to send to England the letter." 
 
 " It is a long tale," quoth the abbot. 
 
 " Patience, my father ! I am nearly at the end. Nothing 
 more in season could cliance for my fortunes. Know 
 that William has been long moody and anxious as to 
 
 VOL. I. — 18
 
 274 HAROLD. 
 
 matters in England. Tlie secret accounts he receives 
 from tlie Bishop of London make him see that Edward's 
 heart is much alienated from him, especially since the 
 count has had daughters and sons ; for, as thou knowest, 
 William and Edward both took vows of chastity in youth, ^ 
 and William got absolved from his, while Edward hath 
 kept firm to the plight. Not long ere my cousin came 
 back, William had heard that Edward had acknowledged 
 his kinsman as natural heir to his throne. Grieved and 
 troubled at this, William had said in my hearing, * Would 
 that amidst yon statues of steel there were some cool 
 head and wise tongue I could trust with my interests in 
 England ! and would that I could devise fitting plea and 
 excuse for an envoy to Harold the Earl ! ' Much had 
 I mused over these words, and a light-hearted man was 
 Mallet de Graville when, with Sweyn's letter in hand, 
 he went to Lanfranc the abbot and said, ' Patron and 
 father ! thou knowest that I, almost alone of the Nor- 
 man knights, have studied the Saxon language. And if 
 the duke wants messenger and plea, here stands the 
 messenger, and in this hand is the plea.' Then I told 
 my tale. Lanfranc went at once to Duke AVilliam. By 
 this time news of the Atheling's death had arrived, and 
 things looked more bright to my liege. Duke William 
 ■was pleased to summon me straightway, and give me 
 his instructions. So over the sea I came alone, save a 
 single squire ; reached London, learned the king and his 
 court were at Winchester (but with them I had little to 
 do), and that Harold the Earl was at the head of his 
 forces in Wales against Gryffyth the Lion King. The earl 
 had sent in haste for a picked and chosen band of his 
 own retainers, on his demesnes near the city. These I 
 
 1 See note to " Kobert of Gloucester," vol. ii. p. 372.
 
 HAllOLD. 275 
 
 joined, and, learning thy name at the monastery at 
 Gloucester, I stopped here to tell thee my news and hear 
 thine." 
 
 "Dear brother," said the abbot, looking enviously on 
 the knight, " would that, like thee, instead of entering 
 the Church, I had taken up arms ! Alike once was our 
 lot, well-born and penniless. Ah me ! — Thou art now as 
 the swan on the river, and I as the shell on the rock." 
 
 " But," quoth the knight, " though the canons, it is 
 true, forbid monks to knock people on the head, except 
 in self-preservation, thou knowest well that, even in Nor- 
 mandy (which, I take it, is the sacred college of all priestly 
 lore on this side the Alps), those canons are deemed too 
 rigorous for practice ; and, at all events, it is not forbid- 
 den thee to look on the pastime with sword or mace by 
 thy side in case of need. Wherefore, remembering thee 
 in times past, I little counted on finding thee, — like a 
 slug in thy cell ! No ; but with mail on thy back, the 
 canons clean forgotten, and helping stout Harold to sliver 
 and brain these turbulent Welshmen." 
 
 " Ah me ! ah me ! No such good fortune ! " sighed the 
 tall abbot. " Little, despite thy former sojourn in Lon- 
 don, and thy lore of their tongue, knowest thou of these 
 unmannerly Saxons. Rarely indeed do abbot and prelate 
 ride to the battle ; ^ and were it not for a huge Danish 
 monk, who took refuge here to escape mutilation for rob- 
 bery, and who mistakes the Virgin for a Valkyr, and 
 
 1 The Saxon priests were stricklj forbidden to bear arms. — 
 Spelm. : "Concil." p. 238. 
 
 It is mentioned in the English Chronicles, as a very extraordinary 
 circumstance, that a bishop of Hereford, who had been Harold's 
 chaplain, did actually take sword and shield against the Welsh. 
 Unluckily, this valiant prelate was slain so soon that it was no 
 encouraging example.
 
 276 HAROLD. 
 
 St. Peter for Thor, — were it not, I say, that we now and 
 then have a bout at sword-play together, my arm would 
 be quite out of practice." 
 
 " Cheer thee, old friend," said the knight, pityingly ; 
 " better times m.ay come yet. Meanwhile, now to affairs ; 
 for all I hear strengthens all William has heard, that 
 Harold the Earl is the first man in England. Is it not 
 so?" 
 
 " Truly, and without dispute." 
 
 " Is he married or celibate 1 For that is a question 
 which even his own men seem to answer equivocally." 
 
 " Why, all the wandering minstrels have songs, I am 
 told by those who comprehend this poor barbarous tongue, 
 of the beauty of Editha pulchi-a, to whom it is said the 
 earl is betrothed, or it may be worse. But he is certainly 
 not married, for the dame is akin to him within the 
 degrees of the Church." 
 
 " Hem, not married ! that is well ; and this Algar, or 
 Elgar, he is not now with the Welsh, I hear?" 
 
 " No ; sore ill at Chester with wounds and much 
 chafing, for he hath sense to see that his cause is lost. 
 The Norwegian fleet have been scattered over the seas by 
 the earl's ships like birds in a storm. The rebel Saxons 
 who joined Gryffyth under Algar have been so beaten, 
 that those who survive have deserted their chief, and 
 Gryffyth himself is penned up in his last defiles, and 
 cannot much longer resist the stout foe, who, by valorous 
 St. Michael, is truly a great captain. As soon as Gryffyth 
 is subdued, Algar will be crushed in his retreat, like a 
 bloated spider in his web ; and then England will have 
 rest, unless our liege, as thou hintest, set her to work 
 again." 
 
 The Norman knight mused a few moments before he 
 said, —
 
 HAROLD, 277 
 
 " I understand, then, that there is no man in the land 
 ■who is peer to Harold, — not, I suppose, Tostig his 
 brother 1 " 
 
 " Not Tostig, surely, whom nought but Harold's repute 
 keeps a day in his earldom. But of late — for he is brave 
 and skilful in war — he hath done much to command the 
 respect, though he cannot win back the love, of his fierce 
 Northumbrians ; for he hath holpen the earl gallantly in 
 this invasion of Wales, both by sea and by land. But 
 Tostig shines only from his brother's light ; and if Gurth 
 were more ambitious, Gurth alone could be Harold's 
 rival." 
 
 The Norman, much satisfied with the information thus 
 gleaned from the abbot, who, despite his ignorance of the 
 Saxon tongue, was, like all his countrymen, acute and 
 curious, now rose to depart. The abbot, detaining him a 
 few moments, and looking at him wistfully, said in a low 
 voice, — 
 
 " What thinkest thou are Count William's chances of 
 England 1 " 
 
 " Good, if he have recourse to stratagem : sure, if he 
 can win Harold." 
 
 " Yet, take my word, the English love not the Nor- 
 mans, and will fight stiffly." 
 
 " That I believe. But if fighting must be, I see that 
 it will be the fight of a single battle, for there is neither 
 fortress nor mountain to admit of long warfare. And 
 look you, my friend, everything here is toorn out / The 
 royal line is extinct with Edward, save in a child, whom 
 I hear no man name as a successor ; the old nobility are 
 gone ; there is no reverence for old names ; the Church is 
 as decrepit in the spirit as thy lath monastery is decayed 
 in its timbers ; the martial spirit of the Saxon is half 
 rotted away in the subjugation to a clergy, not brave and
 
 278 HAROLD. 
 
 learned, but timid and ignorant ; the desire for money 
 eats up all manhood ; the people have been accustomed to 
 foreign monarchs under the Danes; — and William, once 
 victor, would have but to promise to retain the old laws 
 and liberties to establish himself as firmly as Canute. 
 The Anglo-Danes might trouble him somewhat, but rebel- 
 lion would become a weapon in the hands of a schemer 
 like William. He would bristle all the land with castles 
 and forts, and hold it as a camp. My poor friend, we shall 
 live yet to exchange gratulations, — thou prelate of some 
 fair English see, and I baron of broad English lands." 
 
 "I think thou art right," said the tall abbot, cheerily; 
 "and, marry, when the day comes, I will at least fight 
 for the duke. Yea, — thou art right," he continued, 
 looking round the dilapidated walls of the cell ; " all here 
 is worn out, and nought can restore the realm, save the 
 I^orman William, or — " 
 
 " Or who ? " 
 
 " Or the Saxon Harold. But thou goest to see him, — 
 judge for thyself." 
 
 " I will do so, and heedfully," said the Sire de 
 Graville ; and, embracing his friend, he renewed his 
 journey.
 
 HAROLD, 279 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Messire Mallet de Graville possessed in perfection 
 that cunning astuteness which characterized the Normans, 
 as it did all the old pirate races of the Baltic ; and if, O 
 reader, thou, peradventure, shouldst ever in this remote 
 day have dealings with the tall men of Ebor or Yorkshire, 
 there wilt thou yet find the old Dane-father's wit ; it may 
 be to thy cost, — more especially if treating for those ani- 
 mals which the ancestors ate, and which the sons, without 
 eating, still manage to fatten on. 
 
 But though the crafty knight did his best, during liis 
 progress from London into Wales, to extract from Sex- 
 wolf all such particulars respecting Harold and his 
 brethren as he had reasons for wishing to learn, he found 
 the stubborn sagacity or caution of the Saxon more than 
 a match for him. Sexwolf had a dog's instinct in all 
 that related to his master ; and he felt, though he scarce 
 knew why, that the Norman cloaked some design upon 
 Harold in all the cross-questionings so carelessly ventured. 
 And his stiff silence, or bluflf replies, when Harold was 
 mentioned, contrasted much the unreserve of his talk 
 when it turned upon the general topics of the day, or the 
 peculiarities of Saxon manners. 
 
 By degrees, therefore, the kniglit, chafed and foiled, 
 drew into himself ; and seeing no farther use could be 
 made of the Saxon, suffered his own national scorn of 
 villein companionship to replace his artificial urbanity. 
 He therefore rode alone, and a little in advance of the
 
 280 HAROLD. 
 
 rest, noticing with a soldier's eye the characteristics of 
 the country, and marvelling, while he rejoiced, at the 
 insignificance of the defences which, even on the Marches, 
 guarded the English country from the Cymrian ravager. 
 In musings of no very auspicious and friendly nature 
 towards the land he thus visited, the Norman, on the 
 seccMid day from that in which he had conversed with 
 the abbot, found himself amongst the savage defiles of 
 North Wales. 
 
 Pausing there in a narrow pass overhung with Avild 
 and desolate rocks, the knight deliberately summoned his 
 squires, clad himself in his ring mail, and mounted his 
 great destrier. 
 
 " Thou dost wrong, Xorman," said Sexwolf ; " thou 
 fatiguest tliyself in vain, — heavy arms here are needless. 
 I have fought in this country before ; and as for thy 
 steed, thou wilt soon have to forsake it, and march on 
 foot." 
 
 " Know, friend," retorted the knight, " that I come not 
 here to learn the horn-book of war ; and, for the rest, 
 know also that a noble of Normandy parts with his life 
 ere he forsakes his good steed." 
 
 " Ye outlanders and Frenchmen," said Sexwolf, showing 
 the whole of his teeth through his forest of beard, " love 
 boast and big talk ; and, on my troth, thou mayest have 
 thy belly full of them yet ; for we are still in the track 
 of Harold, and Harold never leaves behind him a foe. 
 Thou art as safe here as if singing psalms in a convent." 
 
 " For thy jests, let them pass, courteous sir," said the 
 Norman ; " but I pray thee only not to call me French- 
 man.-^ I impute it to thy ignorance in things comely and 
 
 1 The Normans and French detested each other ; and it was the 
 Norman who taught to the Saxon his own animosities against the 
 Prank. A very eminent antiquary, indeed, De la Rue, considered
 
 HAROLD. 281 
 
 martial, and not to thy design to insult me. Though my 
 own mother was French, learn that a Norman despises a 
 Frank only less than he doth a Jew." 
 
 "Crave your grace," said the Saxon, "but I thought 
 all ye outlanders were the same, rib and rib, sibbe and 
 sibbe." 
 
 " Thou wilt know better one of these days. March on, 
 Master Sexwolf." 
 
 The pass gradually opened on a wide patch of rugged 
 and herbless waste ; and Sexwolf, riding up to the knight, 
 directed his attention to a stone, on which was inscribed 
 the words, ^^ Hie victor fuit Haroldus" — here Harold 
 conquered. 
 
 "In sight of a stone like that, no "Walloon dare come," 
 said the Saxon. 
 
 " A simple and classical trophy," remarked the Nor- 
 man, complacently, " and saith much. I am glad to see 
 thy lord knows the Latin." 
 
 " I say not that he knows Latin," replied the prudent 
 Saxon, fearing that that could be no wholesome informa- 
 tion on his lord's part, which was of a kind to give glad- 
 ness to the Norman, — " Ride on while the road lets ye, 
 in God's name." 
 
 On the confines of Caernarvonshire the troop halted at 
 a small village, round which had been newly dug a deep 
 military trench, bristling with palisades, and within its 
 confines might be seen — some reclined on the grass, 
 
 that the Bayeux tapestry could not be the work of Matilda, or her 
 age, because in it the Normans are called French ; but that is a 
 gross blunder on his part ; for William, in his own charters, calls 
 the Normans " Franci." Wace, in his " Roman de Rou," often styles 
 the Normans " French ; " and William of Poitiers, a contemporary 
 of the Conqueror, gives them also in one passage the same name. 
 Still, it is true that the Normans were generally very tenacious of 
 their distinction from their gallant but hostile neighbors.
 
 282 HAROLD. 
 
 some at dice, some drinking — many men, whose garbs 
 of tanned hide, as well as a pennon waving from a little 
 mound in tlie midst, bearing the tiger heads of Earl 
 Harold's insignia, showed them to be Saxons. 
 
 " Here we shall learn," said Sexwolf, " what the earl 
 is about, — and here, at present, ends my journey." 
 
 " Are these the earl's headquarters then? — no castle, 
 even of wood, — no wall, nought but ditch and i)Lili- 
 sades?" asked Mallet de Graville, in a tone between 
 surprise and contempt. 
 
 " Norman," said Sexwolf, " the castle is there, though you 
 see it not, and so are the walls. The castle is Harold's 
 name, which no Walloon will dare to confront ; and the 
 walls are the heaps of the slain which lie in every 
 valley around." So saying, he wound his horn, which 
 was speedily answered, and led the way over a plank 
 which admitted across the trench. 
 
 " 'Not even a drawbridge ! " groaned the knight. 
 
 Sexwolf exchanged a few words with one who seemed 
 the head of the small garrison, and then regaining the 
 Norman, said, " The earl and his men have advanced 
 into the mountainous regions of Snowdon ; and there, it 
 is said, the blood-lusting Gryffyth is at length driven to 
 bay. Harold hath left orders that, after as brief a refresh- 
 ment as may be, I and my men, taking the guide he 
 hath left for us, join him on foot. There may now be 
 danger ; for though Gryffyth himself may be pinned to 
 his heights, he may have yet some friends in these parts 
 to start up from crag and combe. The way on horse is 
 impassable : wherefore. Master Norman, as our quarrel is 
 not thine, nor thine our lord, I commend thee to halt here 
 in peace and in safety, with the sick and the prisoners." 
 
 " It is a merry companionship, doubtless," said the 
 Norman ; " but one travels to learn, and I would faiu
 
 HAROLD. 283 
 
 see somewhat of thine uncivil skirmishings with these 
 men of the mountains ; wherefore, as I fear my poor 
 mules are light of tlie provender, give me to eat and to 
 drink. And then shalt thou see, should we come in 
 sight of the enemy, if a Norman's big words are the 
 sauce of small deeds." 
 
 "Well spoken, and better than I reckoned on," said 
 Sexwolf, heartily. 
 
 While De Graville, alighting, sauntered about the 
 village, the rest of the troop exchanged greetings with 
 their countrymen. It was, even to the warrior's eye, a 
 mournful scene. Here and there, heaps of ashes and 
 ruin : houses riddled and burned, — the small, humble 
 church, untouched indeed by war, but looking desolate 
 and forlorn, with sheep grazing on large recent mounds 
 thrown over the brave dead, who slept in the ancestral 
 spot they had defended. 
 
 The air was fragrant with the spicy smells of the gale 
 or bog-myrtle ; and the village lay sequestered in a scene 
 wild indeed and savage, but prodigal of a stern beauty to 
 which the Norman, poet by race, and scholar by culture, 
 was not insensible. Seating himself on a rude stone, 
 apart from all the warlike and murmuring groups, he 
 looked forth on the dim and vast mountain-peaks, and 
 the rivulet that rushed below, intersecting the village, 
 and lost amidst copses of mountain-ash. From these 
 more refined contemplations he was roused by Sexwolf, 
 who, with greater courtesy than was habitual to him, 
 accompanied the theowes who brought the knight a repast, 
 consisting of cheese and small pieces of seethed kid, with 
 a large horn of very indifferent mead. 
 
 " The earl puts all his men on Welsh diet," said the 
 captain, apologetically ; " for, indeed, in this lengthy war- 
 fare, nought else is to be had ! "
 
 284 HAROLD. 
 
 The knight curiously inspected the cheese, and bent 
 earnestly over the kid. 
 
 "It sufficeth, good Sexwolf," said he, suppressing a 
 natural sigh : " but instead of this honey-drink, which 
 is more fit for bees than for men, get me a draught of 
 fresh water : water is your only safe drink before fight- 
 ing." 
 
 " Thou hast never drunk ale, then ! " said the Saxon ; 
 " but thy foreign tastes shall be heeded, strange man." 
 
 A little after noon the horns were sounded, and the 
 troop prepared to depart. But the Norman observed that 
 they had left behind all their horses ; and his squire ap- 
 proaching, informed him that Sexwolf had positively for- 
 bidden the knight's steed to be brought forth. 
 
 "Was it ever heard before," cried Sire Mallet de 
 Graville, " that a Norman knight was expected to walk, 
 and to walk against a foe too ! Call hither the villein, 
 — that is, the captain." 
 
 But Sexwolf himself here appeared, and to him De 
 Graville addressed his indignant remonstrance. The 
 Saxon stood firm, and to each argument replied simply, 
 " It is the earl's orders ; " and finally wound up with a 
 bluff, " Go, or let alone ; stay here with thy horse, or 
 march with us on thy feet." 
 
 " My horse is a gentleman," answered the knight, " and, 
 as such, would be my more fitting companion ; but, as it is, 
 I yield to compulsion, — I bid thee solemnly observe, by 
 compulsion ; so that it may never be said of William 
 Mallet de Graville that he Avalked, bon gre, to battle." 
 With that he loosened his sword in the sheath, and, still 
 retaining his ring mail, fitting close as a shirt, strode on 
 with the rest. 
 
 A Welsh guide, subject to one of the under-kings (who 
 was in allegiance to England, and animated, as many of
 
 HAKOLD. 285 
 
 those petty chiefs were, with a vindictive jealousy against 
 the rival tribe of Gryffyth, far more intense than his 
 dislike of the Saxon), led the way. 
 
 The road wound for some time along the course of the 
 river Conway ; Penmaen-mawr loomed before them. Not 
 a human being came in sight, not a goat was seen on the 
 distant ridges, not a sheep on the pastures. The solitude 
 in the glare of the broad August sun was oppressive. Some 
 houses they passed, — if buildings of rough stones, con- 
 taining but a single room, can be called houses, — but they 
 were deserted. Desolation preceded their way, for they 
 were on the track of Harold the A^ictor. At length 
 they passed the old Conovium, now Caer-hen, lying low 
 near the river. There were still (not as we now scarcely 
 discern them, after centuries of havoc) the mighty ruins 
 of the Romans, — vast shattered walls, a tower half 
 demolished, visible remnants of gigantic baths, and, 
 proudly rising near the present ferry of Tal-y-Cafn, the 
 fortress, almost unrautilated of Castell-y-Bryn. On the 
 castle waved the pennon of Harold. Many large flat- 
 bottomed boats were moored to the river-side, and the 
 whole place bristled with spears and javelins. 
 
 Much comforted (for, though he disdained to murmur, 
 and rather than forego his mail would have died therein 
 a martyr, Mallet de Graville was mightily wearied by the 
 weight of his steel), and hoping now to see Harold him- 
 self, the knight sprang forwarti with a spasmodic effort at 
 liveliness, and found himself in the midst of a group, 
 among whom he recognized at a glance his old acquaint- 
 ance, Godrith. Doffing his helm with its long nose-piece, 
 he caught the thegn's hand, and exclaimed, — 
 
 " Well met, ventre de Gxdllaume ! well met, Godree 
 the debonair ! Thou rememberest Mallet de Graville, 
 and in this unseemly guise, on foot, and with villeins,
 
 286 HAROLD. 
 
 sweating under the eyes of jilebeian Phoebus, thou heholdest 
 that much-suffering man ! " 
 
 " Welcome, indeed," returned Godrith, with some 
 embarrassment ; " but how earnest thou hither, and whom 
 seekest thou 1 " 
 
 " Harold thy count, man, — and I trust he is here." 
 
 " Not so, but not far distant, — at a place by the mouth 
 of the river called Caer Gyffin.^ Thou shalt take boat, 
 and be there ere the sunset." 
 
 " Is a battle at hand ? Yon churl disappointed and 
 tricked me ; he promised me danger, and not a soul have 
 we met." 
 
 " Harold's besom sweeps clean," answered Godrith, 
 smiling ; " but thou art like, perhaps, to be in at the 
 death. We have driven this Welsh lion to bay at last, 
 — he is ours, or grim Famine's. Look yonder ; " and 
 Godrith pointed to the heights of Penmaen-mawr. 
 "Even at this distance you may yet descry something 
 gray and dim against the sky." 
 
 " Deemest thou my eye so ill-practised in siege, as not 
 to see towers ? Tall and massive they are, though they 
 seem here as airy as masts, and as dwarfish as landmarks." 
 
 " On that hill-top, and in those towers, is Gryffyth, the 
 Welsh king, with the last of his force. He cannot escape 
 us ; our ships guard all the coasts of the shore ; our troops, 
 as here, surround every pass. Spies, night and day, keep 
 Avatch. The Welsh moels (or beacon-rocks) are manned 
 by our warders ; and were the Welsh king to descend, 
 signals would blaze from post to post, and gird him with 
 fire and sword. From land to land, from hill to hill, from 
 Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford, from 
 Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to yonder fort, 
 built, they say, by the fiends or the giants, — through 
 ^ The present town and castle of Conway.
 
 HAEOLD. 287 
 
 defile and through forest, over rock, tliroiigh morass, we 
 have pressed on his heels. Battle and foray alike have 
 drawn the blood from his heart ; and thou wilt have seen 
 the drops yet red on the way, where the stone tells that 
 Harold was victor." 
 
 " A brave man and true king, then, this Gryffyth," 
 said the Norman, with some admiration ; " but," he added 
 in a colder tone, " I confess, for my own part, that though 
 I pity the valiant man beaten, I honor the brave man who 
 wins ; and though I have seen but little of this rough land 
 as yet, I can well judge from what I have seen, that no 
 captain, not of patience unwearied and skill most consum- 
 mate, could conquer a bold enemy in a country where 
 every rock is a fort." 
 
 " So I fear," answered Godrith, " that thy countryman 
 Rolf found ; for the "Welsh beat him sadly, and the 
 reason was plain. He insisted on using horses where no 
 horses could climb, and attiring men in full armor to fight 
 against men light and nimble as swallows, that skim the 
 earth, then are lost in the clouds. Harold, more wise, 
 turned our Saxons into Welshmen, flying as they flew, 
 climbing where they climbed ; it has been as a war of the 
 birds. And now there rests but the eagle, in his last 
 lonely eyrie." 
 
 " Thy battles have improved thy eloquence much, 
 Messire Godree," said the Norman, condescendingly. 
 "Nevertheless, I cannot but think a few light horse — " 
 
 " Could scale yon mountain brow ] " said Godrith, 
 laughing, and pointing to Penmaen-mawr. 
 
 The Norman looked and was silent, though he thought 
 to himself, "That Sexwolf was no such dolt after all !"
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 THE WELSH KING, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The sun had just cast its last beams over the breadth of 
 water into which Conway, or rather Cyn-wy, " the great 
 river," emerges its winding waves. Not at that time 
 existed the matchless castle, which is now the monument 
 of Edward Plantagenet and the boast of Wales. But 
 besides all the beauty the spot took from nature, it had 
 even some claim from ancient art. A rude fortress rose 
 above the stream of Gyffin, out of the wrecks of some 
 greater Roman hold,-' and vast ruins of a former town lay 
 round it ; wliile opposite the fort, on the huge and 
 ragged promontory of Gogarth, might still be seen, forlorn 
 and gray, the wrecks of the imperial city, destroyed ages 
 before by lightning. 
 
 All these remains of a power and a pomp that Rome 
 in vain had bequeathed to the Briton, were full of 
 pathetic and solemn interest, when blent with the 
 thought, that on yonder steep the brave prince of a race 
 of heroes, whose line transcended by ages all the other 
 royalties of the Nortli, awaited, amidst the ruins of man, 
 and in the stronghold which nature yet gave, the hour 
 of his doom. 
 
 ^ See Camden's Brittannia, " Caernarvonshire." 
 
 VOL. I. — 19
 
 290 HAROLD. 
 
 But these were not the sentiments of the martial and 
 observant Norman, with the fresh blood of a new race of 
 conquerors. 
 
 "In this land," th night he, "far more even than in 
 that of the Saxon, there are the ruins of old ; and when 
 the present can neither maintain nor repair the past, its 
 future is subjection or despair." 
 
 Agreeably to the peculiar usages of Saxon military 
 skill, which seems to have placed all strength in dykes 
 and ditches, as being perhaps the cheapest and readiest 
 outworks, a new trench had been made round tlie fort on 
 two sides, connecting it on the third and fourth with the 
 streams of Gyffin and the Conway. But the boat was 
 rowed up to the very walls, and the Norman, springing 
 to land, was soon ushered into the presence of the earl. 
 
 Harold was seated before a rude table, and bending 
 over a rough map of the great mountain of Penmaen ; 
 a lamp of iron stood beside the map, though the air was 
 yet clear. 
 
 The earl rose, as De Graville, entering with the proud 
 bxit easy grace habitual to his countrymen, said, in his 
 best Saxon, — 
 
 "Hail to Earl Harold! William Mallet de Graville, 
 the Norman, greets him and brings him news from 
 beyond the seas." 
 
 There Avas only one seat in that bare room, — the seat 
 from which the earl had risen. He placed it with simple 
 courtesy before his visitor, and, leaning himself against 
 the table, said, in the Norman tongue, which he spoke 
 fluently, — 
 
 " It is no slight thanks that I owe to the Sire de 
 Graville, that he hath undertaken voyage and journey on 
 my behalf ; but before you impart your news, I pray you 
 to take rest and food."
 
 HAROLD. 291 
 
 " Rest will not be unwelcome ; and food, if unre- 
 stricted to goat's cheese and kid-flesh, — luxuries new 
 to my palate, — will not be untempting ; but neither food 
 nor rest can I take, noble Harold, before I excuse myself, 
 as a foreigner, for thus somewhat infringing your laws by 
 which we are banished, and acknowledging gratefully the 
 courteous behavior I have met from thy countrymen 
 notwithstanding." 
 
 " Fair sir," answered Harold, " pardon us if, jealous of 
 our laws, we have seemed inhospitable to those who would 
 meddle with them. But the Saxon is never more pleased 
 than when the foreigner visits him only as the friend : to 
 the many who settle amongst us for commerce, — Fleming, 
 Lombard, German, and Saracen, — we proffer shelter and 
 welcome ; to the few who, like thee. Sir Norman, venture 
 over the seas but to serve us, we give frank cheer and 
 free hand." 
 
 Agreeably surprised at this gracious reception from the 
 son of Godwin, the Norman pressed the hand extended 
 to him, and then drew forth a small case, and related 
 accurately, and with feeling, the meeting of his cousin 
 with Sweyn, and Sweyn's dying charge. 
 
 The earl listened, with eyes bent on the ground, and 
 face turned from the lamp ; and when Mallet had con- 
 cluded his recital, Harold said, with an emotion he strug- 
 gled in vain to repress, — 
 
 " I thank you cordially, gentle Norman, for kindness 
 kindly rendered ! 1 — I — " The voice faltered. " Sweyn 
 was very dear to me in his sorrows 1 We heard that he 
 had died in Lycia, and grieved much and long. So, after 
 he had thus spoken to your cousin, he — he — Alas ! 
 O Sweyn, my brother ! " 
 
 " He died," said the Norman, soothingly, " but shriven 
 and absolved ; and, my cousin says, calm and hopeful, as 
 they die ever who have knelt at the Saviour's tomb ! "
 
 292 HAROLD. 
 
 Harold bowed his head, and turned the case that held 
 the letter again and again in his hand, but would not ven- 
 ture to open it. The knight himself, touched by a grief 
 so simple and manly, rose with the delicate instinct that 
 belongs to sympathy, and retired to the door, without 
 ■which yet waited the officer who had conducted him. 
 
 Harold did not attempt to detain him, but followed him 
 across the threshold, and briefly commanding the officer 
 to attend to his guest as to himself, said, "With the 
 morning, Sire de Graville, we shall meet again : I see 
 that you are one to whom I need not excuse man's natu- 
 ral emotions." 
 
 " A noble presence ! " muttered the knight, as he de- 
 scended the stairs ; " but he hath Norman, at least IS'orse 
 blood in his veins on the distaff side. — Fair sir ! " — 
 (this aloud to the officer) — " any meat save the kid-flesh, 
 I pray thee ; and any drink save the mead ! " 
 
 " Fear not, guest," said the officer ; " for Tostig the 
 Earl hath two ships in yon bay, and hath sent us sup- 
 plies that would please Bishop "William of London ; for 
 Tostig the Earl is a toothsome man." 
 
 " Commend me, then, to Tostig the Earl," said the 
 knight ; " he is an earl after my own heart."
 
 HAROLD. 293 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 On re-entering the room, Harold drew the large holt 
 across the door, opened the case, and took forth the dis- 
 tained and tattered scroll : — 
 
 " When this comes to thee, Harold, the brother of thy child- 
 ish days will sleep in the flesh, and be lost to men's judgment 
 and earth's woe in the spirit. I have knelt at the Tomb ; but 
 no dove hath come forth from the cloud, — no stream of grace 
 hath re-baptized the child of wrath I They tell me, now — 
 monk and priest tell me — that I have atoned all my sins ; 
 that the dread weregeld is paid ; that I may enter the world 
 of men with a spirit free from the load, and a name redeemed 
 from the stain. Think so, O brother ! — Bid my father (if he 
 still lives : the dear old man !) think so ; — tell Gitlia to 
 think it ; and oh, teach Haco, my son, to hold the belief as a 
 truth ! Harold, again I commend to thee my son ; be to him 
 as a father ! My death surely releases him as a hostage. Let 
 him not grow up in the court of the stranger, in the land of 
 our foes. Let his feet, in his youth, climb the green holts of 
 England ; — let his eyes, ere sin dims them, drink the blue 
 of her skies ! When this shall reach thee, thou, in thy calm, 
 effortless strength, wilt be more great than Godwin our father. 
 Power came to him with travail and through toil, the geld of 
 craft and of force. Power is born to thee as strength to the 
 strong man ; it gathers around thee as thou movest ; it is not 
 thine aim, — it is th}' nature to be great. Shield my child 
 with thy might ; lead him forth from the prison-house by thy 
 serene right hand ! I ask not for lordships and earldoms, as 
 the appanage of his father ; train him not to be rival to thee : 
 — I ask but for freedom and English air ! So counting on 
 thee, O Harold, I turn my face to the wall, and hush my wild 
 heart to peace ! "
 
 294 HAROLD. 
 
 The scroll dropped noiseless from Harold's hand. 
 
 "Thus," said he, mournfully, "hath passed away less a 
 life than a dream ! Yet of Sweyn, in our childhood, was 
 Godwin most proud ; who so lovely in peace, and so terri- 
 ble in wrath 1 My mother taught him tlie songs of the 
 Baltic, and Hilda led his steps through the woodland 
 with tales of hero and scald. Alone of our House, he 
 had the gift of the Dane in the flow of fierce song, and 
 for him things lifeless had being. Stately tree, from 
 which all the birds of heaven sent their carol ; where 
 the falcon took roost, whence the mavis flew forth in its 
 glee, — how art thou blasted and seared, bough and core ! 
 — smit by the lightning and consumed by the worm ! " 
 
 He paused, and, though none were by, he long shaded 
 his brow with his hand. 
 
 "Now," thought he, as he rose and slowly paced the 
 chamber, "now to what lives yet on earth, — his son'. 
 Often hath my mother urged me in behalf of these hos- 
 tages; and often have I sent to reclaim them. Smooth 
 and false pretexts have met my own demand, and even 
 the remonstrance of Edward himself. But surely, now 
 that William hath permitted this Norman to bring over 
 the letter, he will assent to what it hath become a wrong 
 and an insult to refuse ; and Haco will return to his 
 father's land, and Wolnoth to his mother's arms.
 
 HAKOLD. 295 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Mr.ssiRE Mallet de Graville (as becomes a man bred 
 lip to arms, and snatching sleep with quick grasp when- 
 ever that blessing be his to command) no sooner laid his 
 head on the pallet to which he had been consigned, than 
 his eyes closed, and his senses were deaf even to dreams. 
 But at the dead of the midnight he was wakened by 
 sounds that might have roused the Seven Sleepers, — 
 shouts, cries, and yells, the blast of horns, the tramp of 
 feet, and the more distant roar of hurrying multitudes. 
 He leaped from his bed, and the whole chamber was filled 
 with a lurid blood-red air. His first thought was that the 
 fort was on fire. But, springing upon the settle along 
 the wall, and looking through the loophole of the tower, it 
 seemed as if not the fort, but the whole land was one 
 flame, and through the glowing atmosphere he beheld all 
 the ground, near and far, swarming with men. Hundreds 
 were swimming the rivulet, clambering up dyke-mounds, 
 rushing on the levelled spears of the defenders, breaking 
 through line and palisade, pouring into the enclosures : 
 some in half-armor of helm and corselet, others in linen 
 tunics, — many almost naked. Loud, sharp shrieks of 
 "Alleluia!"^ blended with those of "Out! out! Holy 
 
 1 When (a. d. 220) the bishops, Gerinanicus and Lupus, headed 
 tlie Britons against the Picts and Saxons, in Easter week, fresh 
 from their baptism iu the Alyn, Germanicus ordered them ^o 
 attend to his war-cry, and repeat it ; lie gave " Alleluia " The 
 hills so loudly re-echoed the cry, that the enemy caught panic, and 
 fied with great slaughter. Maes Garmou, in Flintshire, was the 
 Bcene of the victory.
 
 296 HAROLD. 
 
 crosse ! " ^ He divined at once tliat the Welsh were 
 storming the Saxon hold. Short time indeed sufficed for 
 tliat active knight to case liimself in his mail ; and, sword 
 in liaud, he burst through the door, cleared the stairs, and 
 gained the hall below, which was tilled with men arming 
 in haste. 
 
 " Where is Harold 1 " he exclaimed. 
 
 " On the trenches already," answered Sexwolf, buckling 
 his corselet of hide. "This Welsh hell hath broke loose." 
 
 " And yon are their beacon-fires 1 Then the whole land 
 is upon us ! " 
 
 " Prate less," quoth Sexwolf; "those are tlie hills now 
 held b}^ the warders of Harold : our spies gave them 
 notice, and the watchfires prepared us ere the fiends came 
 in sight, otherwise we had been lying here limbless or 
 headless. Now, men, draw up, and march forth." 
 
 " Hold ! hold ! " cried the pious knight, crossing him- 
 self, " is there no priest here to bless us 1 first a prayer 
 and a psalm ! " 
 
 " Prayer and psalm ! " cried Sexwolf, astonished, "an 
 thou hadst said ale and mead, I could have understood 
 thee. — Out ! Out ! — Holyrood, Holyrood ! " 
 
 " The godless paynims ! " muttered the Norman, borne 
 away with the crowd. 
 
 Once in the open space, the scene was terrific. Brief 
 as had been the onslauglit, the carnage was already 
 unspeakable. By dint of sheer physical numbers, ani- 
 mated by a valor that seemed as tlie frenzy of madmen 
 
 1 The cry of the English at the onset of battle was " Holy 
 Crosse, God Alniightj^ ; " afterwards, in fight, " Ouct, ouct," out, 
 out. — Hearnes' " Disc. Antiquity of Motts. " 
 
 The, latter cry probably originated in the habit of defending their 
 standard and central posts with barricades and closed shields; and 
 thus, idiomatically and vulgarly, signified "get out"
 
 HAROLD, 297 
 
 or the hunger of wolves, hosts of the Britons had crossed 
 trench aud stream, seizing with their hands the points of 
 the spears opposed to them, bounding over the corpses of 
 their countrymen, and, with yells of wild joy, rushing 
 upon the close serried lines drawn up before the fort. 
 Tiie stream seemed literally to run gore ; pierced by 
 javelins and arrows, corpses floated and vanished, while 
 numbers, undeterred by tlie havoc, leaped into the waves 
 from the opposite banks. Like bears that surround the 
 ship of a sea-king beneath the polar meteors, or the mid- 
 night sun of the north, came the savage warriors through 
 tliat glaring atmosphere. 
 
 Amidst all, two forms were pre-eminent : the one, tall 
 and towering, stood by the trench, and behind a banner, 
 that now drooped round the stave, now streamed wide 
 and broad, stirred by the rush of men, — for the night in 
 itself was breezeless. With a vast Danish axe, wielded 
 by both hands, stood this man coiifronting hundreds, and 
 at each stroke, rapid as the levin, fell a foe. All round 
 him was a wall of his own, — the dead. But in the 
 centre of the space, leading on a fresh troop of shouting 
 Welslimen, who had forced their way from another part, 
 was a form which seemed charmed against arrow and 
 spear. For the defensive arms of this chief were as 
 slight as if worn but for ornament : a small corselet of 
 gold covered only the centre of his breast, a gold collar of 
 twisted wires circled his throat, and a gold bracelet 
 adorned his bare arm, dropping gore, not his own, from 
 the wrist to the elbow. He was small and slight-shaped, 
 — below the common standard of men, — but he seemed as 
 one made a giant by the sublime inspiration of war. He 
 wore no helmet, merely a golden circlet ; and his hair, of 
 deep red (longer than was usual with the Welsh), hung 
 like the mane of a lion over his shoulders, tossing loose
 
 298 HAROLD. 
 
 with each stride. His eyes glared like the tiger's at 
 night, and he leaped on the spears with a bound. Lost a 
 moment amidst hostile ranks, save by the swift glitter of 
 his short sword, he made, amidst all, a path for himself 
 and his followers, and emerged from the heart of the 
 steel unscathed and loud-breathing ; while, round the 
 line he had broken, wheeled and closed his wild men, 
 striking, rushing, slaying, slain. 
 
 " Pardex, this is war worth the sharing," said the 
 knight. " And now, worthy Sexwolf, thou shalt see if 
 the Norman is the vaunter tliuu deemest him. Dieu 
 nous aide! Notre Dame ! — Take the foe in the rear." 
 But turning round, he perceived that Sexwolf liad al- 
 ready led his men towards the standard, which showed 
 them where stood the earl, almost alone in his peril. 
 The knight, thus left to himself, did not hesitate : — a 
 minute more, and he was in the midst of the Welsh force, 
 headed by the chief with the golden panoply. Secure in 
 bis ring mail against the light weapons of the Welsh, the 
 sweep of the ISTorman sword was as the scythe of Death. 
 Right and left he smote through the throng which he 
 took in the flank, and had almost gained the small 
 phalanx of Saxons that lay firm in the midst, when the 
 Cymrian chief's flashing eye was drawn to this new and 
 strange foe by the roar and the groan round the Norman's 
 way ; and with the half-naked breast against the shirt of 
 mail, and the short Roman sword against the long 
 Norman falchion, the Lion King of Wales fronted the 
 knigiit. 
 
 Unequal as seems the encounter, so quick was the 
 spring of the Briton, so pliant his arm, and so rapid 
 bis weapon, that that good knight (who, rather from 
 skill and valor than brute physical strength, ranked 
 amongst theprowest of William's band of martial brothers)
 
 HAROLD. 299 
 
 would willingly have preferred to see before him Fitzos- 
 borne or Montgommeri, all clad in steel and armed with 
 mace and lance, than parried those dazzling strokes, and 
 fronted the angry majesty of that helmless brow. Already 
 the strong rings of his mail had been twice pierced, and 
 his blood trickled fast, while his great sword had but 
 smitten the air in its sweeps at the foe ; when the Saxon 
 phalanx, taking advantage of the breach in the ring that 
 girt them caused by this diversion, and recognizing with 
 fierce ire the gold torque and breastplate of the Welsh 
 king, made their desperate charge. Then for some 
 minutes tlie/y^/<? viele was confused and indistinct : blows 
 blind and at random, death coming no man knew whence 
 or how ; till discipline and steadfast order (which the 
 Saxons kept, as by mechanism, through the discord) 
 obstinately prevailed. The wedge forced its way ; and 
 though reduced in numbers and sore wounded, the Saxon 
 troop cleared the ring, and joined the main force drawn 
 up by the fort, and guarded in the rear by its wall. 
 
 Meanwhile Harold, supported by the band under 
 Sexwolf, had succeeded at length in repelling farther 
 reinforcements of the Welsh at the more accessible part 
 of the trenches ; and, casting now his practised eye over 
 the field, he issued orders for some of tlie meji to re- 
 gain the fort, and open from the battlements and from 
 every loophole the batteries of stone and javelin, whicli 
 then (with the Saxons, unskilled in sieges) formed the 
 main artillery of forts. These orders given, he planted 
 Sexwolf and most of his band to keep watch round the 
 trenches ; and, shading his eye with his hand, and look- 
 ing towards the moon, all waning and dimmed in the 
 watchfires, he said, calmly, '• Now patience fights for us. 
 Ere the moon reaches yon hill-top, the troops at Aber 
 and Caer-hen will be on the slopes of Penmaen, and cut
 
 300 HAROLD. 
 
 ofi' the retreat of tlie Walloons. Advance my flag to tlie 
 thick of you strife." 
 
 But as tiie earl, with his axe swung over his shoulder, 
 and followed but by some half-score or more with his 
 banner, strode on where the wild war was now mainly 
 concentred, just midway between trench and fort, Gryffyth 
 caught sight both of the banner and the earl, and left the 
 ])r(!ss at the very moment when he hatl gained the greatest 
 advantage; and when, indeed, but for the Norman, wlio, 
 wounded as he was, and unused to fight on foot, stood 
 resolute in the van, the Saxons, wearied out by numbers, 
 and falling fast beneath the javelins, would have fled into 
 their walls, and so sealed their fate, — for the Welsh 
 would have entered at their heels. 
 
 But it was the misfortune of tiie Welsh heroes never to 
 learn that war is a science ; and instead of now centring 
 all force on the point most weakened, the whole field 
 vanished from the fierce eye of the Welsh king when he 
 saw the banner and form of Harold. 
 
 The earl beheld the coming foe, wheeling round, as 
 the hawk on the heron ; halted, drew up his few men in 
 a semicircle, with their large shields as a rampart, and 
 their levelled spears as a palisade ; and before them all, 
 as a tower, stood Harold with his axe. In a minute more 
 he was surrounded ; and through the rain of javelins that 
 poured upon him, hissed and glittered the sword of 
 Gryffyth. But Harold, more practised than the Sire de 
 Graville in the sword-play of the Welsh, and i;nencum- 
 bered by otlier defensive armor (save only the helm, 
 wliich was shaped like the Norman's) than his light coat 
 of hide, opposed quickness to quickness, and, suddenly 
 dropping his axe, sprang upon his foe, and clasping him 
 round with the left arm, with the right hand griped at 
 his throat, —
 
 HAROLD. 301 
 
 " Yield, and quarter ! — yield, for thy life, son of 
 Llewellyn ! " 
 
 Strong was that embrace, and deathlike that gripe, yet, 
 as the snake from the hand of the dervise, as a ghost from 
 the grasp of the dreamer, the lithe Cymrian glided away, 
 and the broken torque was all that remained in the clutch 
 of Harold. 
 
 At this moment a mighty yell of despair broke from 
 the Welsh near the fort : stones and javelins rained upon 
 them from the walls, and the fierce Norman was in the 
 midst, with his sword drinking blood ; but not for jave- 
 lin, stone, and sword, shrank and shouted the Welshman. 
 On the other side of the trenches were marching against 
 tliem their own countrymen, the rival tribes that helped 
 the stranger to rend the land ; and far to the right were 
 seen the spears of the Saxon from Aber, and to the left 
 was heard the shout of the forces under Godrith from 
 Caer-hen ; and they who had sought the leopard in his 
 lair were now themselves the prey caught in the toils. 
 With new heart, as they beheld these reinforcements, the 
 Saxons pressed on ; tumult, and flight, and indiscriminate 
 slaughter, wrapped the field. The Welsh rushed to the 
 stream and the trenches ; and in the bustle and hurlaba- 
 loo, Gryffyth was swept along, as a bull by a torrent ; 
 still facing the foe, now chiding, now smiting his own 
 men, now rushing alone on the pursuers, and halting their 
 onslaught, he gained, still unwounded, the stream, paused 
 a moment, laughed loud, and sprang into the wave. A 
 hundred javelins hissed into the sullen and bloody waters. 
 " Hold ! " cried Harold the Earl, lifting his hand on high, 
 " no dastard dart at the brave ! "
 
 o 
 
 02 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The fugitive Britons, scarce one-tenth of the number that 
 had first rushed to the attack, performed their flight with 
 the same Parthian rapidity that cliaracterized the assault ; 
 and, escaping both Welsh foe and Saxon, though the 
 former broke ground to pursue them, they regained the 
 steeps of Penmaen. 
 
 There was no further thought of slumber that night 
 ■within the walls. While the wounded were tended, and 
 the dead were cleared from the soil, Harold, with three of 
 his chiefs, and Mallet de Graville, whose feats rendered it 
 more than ungracious to refuse his request that he might 
 assist in the council, conferred upon the means of termi- 
 nating the war with the next day. Two of the thegns, 
 their blood hot with strife and revenge, proposed to scale 
 the mountain with the Avhole force the reinforcements 
 had brought them, and put all they found to the sword. 
 
 The third, old and prudent, and inured to Welsh war- 
 fare, thought otherwise. 
 
 " None of us," said he, " know what is the true strength 
 of the place which ye propose to storm. Not even one 
 Welshman have we found who hath ever himself gained 
 the summit, or examined the castle which is said to exist 
 there." ^ 
 
 " Said ! " echoed De Graville, who, relieved of his mail, 
 and with his wounds bandaged, reclined on his furs on 
 
 1 Certain high places in Wales, of which this might well he one, 
 were held so sacred that even the dwellers in the immediate neigh- 
 borhood never presumed to approach them.
 
 HAROLD. 303 
 
 the floor. " Said, noble sir ! Cannot our eyes perceive 
 the towers 1 " 
 
 The old thegu shook his head. " At a distance, and 
 through mists, stones loom large, and crags themselves 
 take strange shapes. It may be castle, may be rock, may 
 be old roofless temples of heathenesse that we see. But 
 to repeat (and, as I am slow, I pray not again to be put 
 out in my speech), — none of us know what, there, exists 
 of defence, man-made or Nature-built. Not even thy 
 Welsh spies, son of Godwin, have gained to the heights. 
 In the midst lie the scouts of the Welsh king, and those 
 on the top can see the bird fly, the goat climb. Few of 
 thy spies, indeed, have ever returned with life ; their 
 heads have been left at the foot of the hill, with the scroll 
 in their lips, * Die ad inferos, — quid in superis novisti.'' 
 Tell to the shades below what thou hast seen in the 
 heiglits above." 
 
 " And the Walloons know Latin ! " muttered the 
 knight ; " I respect them ! " 
 
 The slow thegn frowned, stammered, and renewed, — 
 
 " One thing at least is clear ; that the rock is wellnigh 
 insurmountable to those who know not the passes ; that 
 strict watch, baffling even Welsh spies, is kept night and 
 day ; that the men on the summit are desperate and 
 fierce ; that our own troops are awed and terrified by the 
 belief of the Welsh, that the spot is haunted and the 
 towers fiend-founded. One single defeat may lose us two 
 years of victory. Gryflfyth may break from the eyrie, 
 regain what be hath lost, win back our Welsh allies, ever 
 faithless and hollow. Wherefore I say. Go on as we have 
 begun. Beset all the country round ; cut off all supplies, 
 and let the foe rot by famine — or waste, as he hatli done 
 this night, his strength by vain (onslaught and sally." 
 
 " Thy counsel is good," said Harold, " but there is yet
 
 304 HAEOLD. 
 
 something to add to it, which may shorten the strife, and 
 gain the end with less sacrifice of life. The defeat of 
 to-night will have humbled the spirits of the Welsh ; take 
 them yet in the hour of despair and disaster. I wish, 
 therefore, to send to their outposts a nuncius, with these 
 terms — * Life and pardon to all who lay down arms and 
 surrender.' " 
 
 " What ! after such havoc and gore 1 " cried one of the 
 thegns. 
 
 " They defend their own soil," replied the earl, simply : 
 " had not we done the same 1 " 
 
 "But the rebel Gryffyth 1" asked the old thegn, 
 " thou canst not accept him again as crowned sub-king of 
 Edward 1 " 
 
 " No," said the earl, " I propose to exempt Gryfifyth 
 alone from the pardon, with promise, nathless, of life, if 
 he give himself up as prisoner ; and count, without fur- 
 ther condition, on the king's mercy." Tliere was a pro- 
 longed silence. None spoke against the earl's proposal, 
 though the two younger thegns misliked it much. 
 
 At last said the elder, " But hast thou tliought wlio 
 will carry this message 1 Fierce and wild are yon blood- 
 dogs ; and man must needs shrive soul and make will if 
 he go to their kennel." 
 
 " I feel sure that my bode will be safe," answered. 
 Harold ; " for Gryffyth has all the pride of a king, and, 
 sparing neither man nor child in the onslaught, will re- 
 spect what the Roman taught his sires to respect, — envoy 
 from chief to chief, — as a head scathless and sacred." 
 
 " Choose whom thou wilt, Haiold," said one of the 
 young thegns, laughing, " but spare thy friends ; and 
 whomsoever thou choosest, pay his widow the weregeld." 
 
 " Fair sirs," then said De Graville, " if ye think that 
 I, though a stranger, could serve you as nuncius, it would
 
 HAKOLD. 305 
 
 be a pleasure to me to undertake tliis mission. First. 
 because, being curious as concerns forts and castles, I 
 would fain see if mine eyes have deceived me in taking 
 yon towers for a hold of great might. Secondly, because 
 that same wild-cat of a king must have a court rare to 
 visit. And the only reflection tliat withholds my press- 
 ing the offer as a personal suit is, that, though I have 
 some words of the Breton jargon at my tongue's need, I 
 cannot pretend to be a Tully in Welsh ; howbeit, since it 
 seems that one, at least, among them knows something of 
 Latin, I doubt not but what I shall get out my meaning !" 
 
 " Nay, as to that, Sire de Graville," said Harold, who 
 seemed well pleased with the knight's offer, " there shall 
 be no hindrance or let, as I will make clear to you ; and 
 in spite of what you have just heard, Gryffyth shall harm 
 you not in limb or in life. But, kindly and courteous 
 sir, will your wounds permit the journey, not long, but 
 steep and laborious, and only to be made on foot 1 " 
 
 " On foot ! " said the knight, a little staggered. " Par- 
 dex ! well and truly, I did not count upon that ! " 
 
 " Enough," said Harold, turning away in evident disap- 
 pointment ; " think of it no more." 
 
 " Nay, by your leave, what I have once said I stand 
 to," returned the knight ; " albeit, you may as well cleave 
 in two one of those respectable centaurs of which we have 
 read in our youth, as part Norman and horse. I will 
 forthwith go to my chamber, and apparel myself becom- 
 ingly, — not forgetting, in case of the worst, to wear my 
 mail under my robe. Vouchsafe me but an armorer, just 
 to rivet up the rings through which scratched so felinely 
 the paw of that well-appelled Griffin^ 
 
 " I accept your offer frankly," said Harold, " and all 
 shall be prepared for you, as soon as you yourself will 
 reseek me here." 
 
 VOL. I. — 20
 
 306 HAROLD. 
 
 The knight rose, and though somewhat stiff, and smart- 
 ing with his wounds, left the room lightly, summoned his 
 armorer and squire, and, having dressed with all the care 
 and pomp habitual to a Norman, liis gold chain round his 
 neck, and his vest stiff with broidery, he re-entered the 
 apartment of Harold. The earl received him alone, and 
 came up to him with a cordial face. '' I thank thee more, 
 brave Norman, than I ventured to say before my thegns, 
 for I tell thee frankly that my intent and aim are to save 
 the life of this brave king ; and thou canst well under- 
 stand that every Saxon amongst us must have his blood 
 warmed by contest, and his eyes blind with national hate. 
 You alone, as a stranger, see the valiant warrior and 
 hunted prince, and as such you can feel for him the noble 
 pity of manly foes." 
 
 " That is true," said De Graville, a little surprised, 
 "though we Normans are at least as fierce as you Saxons, 
 when we have once tasted blood ; and I own nothing 
 would please me better than to dress that catamaran in 
 mail, put a spear in its claws, and a horse under its legs, 
 and thus fight out my disgrace at being so clawed and 
 mauled by its griffes. And. though I respect a brave 
 knight in distress, I can scarce extend my compassion to 
 a thing that fights against all rule, martial and kingly." 
 
 The earl smiled gravely. " It is the mode in which 
 his ancestors rushed on the spears of Cfesar. Pardon him." 
 
 " I pardon him at j'-our gracious request," quoth the 
 knight, with a grand air, and waving his hands ; " say on." 
 
 " You will proceed with a Welsh monk — whom, though 
 not of the faction of Gryffyth, all Welshmen respect — to 
 the mouth of a frightful pass, skirting the river ; the 
 monk will bear aloft the holy rood in signal of peace. 
 Arrived at that pass, you will doubtless be stopped. The 
 monk here will be spokesman, and ask safe-conduct to
 
 HAROLD. 307 
 
 Gryffyth to deliver my message ; he will also bear certain 
 tokens, which will no doubt win the way for you. 
 
 "Arrived before Grytfyth, the monk will accost him; 
 mark and iieed well his gestures, since thou wilt know not 
 the Welsh tongue he employs. And when he raises the 
 rood, thou — in the mean while having artfully approached 
 close to Gryffyth — wilt whisper in Saxon, which he well 
 understands, and pressing the ring I now give thee into 
 his hand, ' Obey by this pledge ; thou knowest Harold is 
 true, and thy head is sold by thine own people.' If he 
 asks more, thou knowest nought." 
 
 " So far, this is as should be from chief to chief," said 
 the Norman, touched, " and thus had Fitzosborne done 
 to his foe. I thank thee for this mission, and the more 
 that thou hast not asked me to note the strength of the 
 bulwark, and number the men that may keep it." 
 
 Again Harold smiled. " Praise me not for this, noble 
 Norman, — we plain Saxons have not your refinements. 
 If ye are led to the summit, which I think ye will not be, 
 the monk at least will have eyes to see and tongue to 
 relate. But to thee I confide this much ; — I know, al- 
 ready, that Grytfyth's strongholds are not his walls and 
 his towers, but the superstition of our men and the despair 
 of his own. I could win those heights, as I have won 
 heights as cloudcapt, but with fearful loss of my own 
 troops, and the massacre of every foe. Both I would 
 spare, if I may." 
 
 " Yet thou hast not shown such value for life in the 
 solitudes I passed," said the knight, bluntly. 
 
 Harold turned pale, but said firmly, " Sire de Gravilie, 
 a stern thing is duty, and resistless is its voice. These 
 Welshmen, unless curbed to their mountains, eat into the 
 strength of England, as the tide gnaws into a shore. Mer- 
 ciless were they in their ravages on our borders, and
 
 308 HAIIOLD. 
 
 ghastly and torturing their fell revenge. But it is one 
 thing to grapple with a foe fierce and strong, and another 
 to smite when his power is gone, fang and talon. And 
 when I see before me the fated king of a great race, and 
 the last band of doomed heroes, too few and too feeble to 
 make head against my arms, — when the laud is already 
 my own, and tlie sword is that of the deathsman, not of 
 the warrior, — verily, Sir Norman, duty releases its iron 
 tool, and man becomes man again." 
 
 " I go," said the Norman, inclining his head low as to 
 his own great duke, and turning to the door ; yet there he 
 paused, and looki]ig at the ring which he had placed on 
 his finger, he said, "but one word more, if not indiscreet, 
 — your answer may help argument, if argument be 
 needed. What tale lies hid in this token ] " 
 
 Harold colored and paused a moment, then answered, — 
 
 " Simply this : Gryffyth's wife, the lady Aldyth, a 
 Saxon by birth, fell into my hands. We were storming 
 Ehadlan, at the farther end of the isle; she was there. 
 We war not against women ; I feared the license of my 
 own soldiers, and I sent the lady to Gryffyth. Aldyth 
 gave me this ring on parting ; and I bade her tell Gryffyth 
 that whenever, at the hour of his last peril and sorest 
 need, I sent that ring back to him, he might hold it the 
 pledge of his life." 
 
 " Is this lady, think you, in the stronghold with her 
 lord 1 " 
 
 " I am not sure, but I fear yes," answered Harold. 
 
 " Yet one word : And if Gryffyth refuse, despite all 
 warning 1 " 
 
 Harold's eyes drooped. 
 
 "If so, he dies; but not by the Saxon sword. God 
 and our lady speed you ! "
 
 HAROLD. 309 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 On the height called Pen-y-Dinas (or " Head of the 
 City "), forming one of the summits of Benmaen-mawr, 
 and in the heart of that supposed fortress which no 
 eye in the Saxon camp had surveyed, reclined GryfFyth, 
 the hunted king. Nor is it marvellous that at that 
 day there should be disputes as to the nature and 
 strength of the supposed bulwark, since, in times the 
 most recent, and among antiquaries the most learned, 
 the greatest discrepancies exist, not only as to theoreti- 
 cal opinion, but plain matter of observation and simple 
 measurement. The place, however, I need scarcely say, 
 was not as we see it now, with its foundations of gigantic 
 ruin, affording ample space for conjecture ; yet, even then 
 a wreck as of Titans, its date and purpose were lost in 
 remote antiquity. 
 
 The central area (in which the Welsh king now re- 
 clined) formed an oval barrow of loose stones ; whether 
 so left from the origin, or the relics of some vanished 
 building, was unknown even to bard or diviner. Round 
 this space were four strong circumvallations of loose 
 stones, with a space about eighty yards between each ; 
 the walls themselves generally about eight feet wide, 
 but of various height, as the stones had fallen by time 
 and blast. Along these walls rose numerous and almost 
 countless circular buildings, which might pass for towers, 
 though only a few had been recently and rudely 
 roofed in. To the whole of this quadruple enclosure
 
 310 HAROLD. 
 
 there was but one narrow entrance, now left open as if 
 in scorn of assault ; and a winding, narrow pass down 
 the mountain, with innumerable curves, alone led to 
 the single threshold. Far down the hill, walls again 
 were visible •, and the whole surface of the steep soil, 
 more than half-way in the descent, was heaped with 
 vast, loose stones, as if the bones of a dead city. But 
 beyond the innermost enclosure of the fort (if fort, or 
 sacred enclosure, be the corrector name) rose, thick 
 and frequent, other mementos of the Briton : many 
 cromlechs, already shattered and shapeless ; the ruins 
 of stone houses ; and high over all, those upraised, 
 mighty amber piles, as at Stonehenge, once reared, if 
 our dim learning be true, in honor to Bel, or Bal-Huan, 
 the idol of the sun. All, in short, showed that the 
 name of the place, "the Head of the City," told its 
 tale ; all announced that there once the Celt had his 
 home, and the gods of the Druid their worship. And 
 musing amidst these skeletons of the past, lay the doomed 
 son of Pen Dragon. 
 
 Beside him a kind of throne had been raised with 
 stones, and over it was spread a tattered and faded 
 velvet pall. On this throne sat Aldyth the queen ; 
 and about the royal pair was still that mockery of a 
 court which the jealous pride of the Celt king retained 
 amidst all the horrors of carnage and famine. Most of 
 the officers, indeed (originally in number twenty-four), 
 whose duties attached them to the king and queen of 
 the Cymry, were already feeding the crow or the worm. 
 But still, with gaunt hawk on his wrist, the penhebo- 
 gydd (grand falconer) stood at a distance : still, with 
 beard sweeping his breast and rod in hand, leaned 
 against a projecting shaft of the wall the noiseless gos- 
 degwr, whose duty it was to command silence in the
 
 HAROLD. 311 
 
 ting's liall ; and still the penbard bent over his bruised 
 harp, which ouce had thrilled, througli the fair vaults 
 of Caerleon and lihadlan, in high praise of Gotl, and 
 the king, and the Hero Dead. In the pomp of gold 
 dish and vessel ■"■ the board was spread on the stones 
 for the king and queen ; and on the dish was the last 
 fragment of black bread, and in the vessel, full and clear, 
 the water from tlie spring that bubbled up everlastingly 
 through the bones of the dead city. 
 
 Beyond this innermost space, round a basin of rock, 
 through which the stream overflowed as from an arti- 
 ficial conduit, lay the wounded and exhausted, crawling, 
 turn by turn, to the lips of the basin, and happy that 
 the thirst of fever saved them from the gnawing desire 
 of food. A wan and spectral figure glided listlessly to 
 and fro amidst those mangled, and parched, and dying 
 groups. This personage, in happier times, filled the 
 office of physician to tlie court, and was placed twelfth 
 in rank amidst the chiefs of the household. And for 
 cure of the " three deadly wounds," the cloven skull, 
 or the gaping viscera, or the broken limb (all three 
 classed alike), large should have been his fee.^ But 
 
 1 The Welsh seem to have had a profusion of the precious 
 metals, very disprDportioned to tlie scarcity of their coined money. 
 To say notliiug of the torques, bracelets, and even breastplates of 
 gold, common with their numerous chiefs, their laws affix to of- 
 fences penalties which attest the prevalent waste both of gold and 
 silver. Thus, an insult to a sub-king of Aberfraw is atoned by a 
 silver rod as thick as the king's little finger, which is in length to 
 reach from the ground to his month when sitting ; and a gold cup, 
 with a cover as broad as the king's face, and the thickness of a 
 ploughman's nail, or the shell of a goose's egg. I suspect that it 
 was precisely because the Welsh coined little or no money, that 
 the metals they possessed became thus common in domestic use. 
 Gold would have been more rarely seen, even amongst the Peruvi- 
 ans, had they coined it into money. 
 
 2 Leges Wailicte.
 
 312 HAEOLD. 
 
 feeless went he now from man to man, with his red 
 ointment and his muttered charm ; and those over 
 whom lie shook his lean face and matted locks, smiled 
 ghastly at that sign that release and death were near. 
 Within the enclosures, either lay supine or stalked restless 
 the withered remains of the wild army. A sheep and a 
 horse and a dog were yet left them all to share for the 
 day's meal. And the fire of flickering and crackling 
 trushwood burned bright from a hollow amidst the loose 
 stones ; but the animals were yet unslain, and the dog 
 crept by the fire, winking at it with dim eyes. 
 
 But over the lower part of the wall nearest to the 
 barrow leaned three men. The wall there was so broken 
 that they could gaze over it on that grotesque yet dis- 
 mal court ; and tlie eyes of the three men, with a fierce and 
 wolfish glare, were bent on Gryffyth. 
 
 Three princes were they of the great old line ; far as 
 Gryffyth they traced the fabulous honors of tlieir race 
 to Hu-Gadarn and Prydain, and each thought it shame 
 that Gryffyth should be lord over him ! Each had 
 liad throne and court of his own ; each his " white 
 palace " of peeled willow wands, — poor substitutes, 
 kings, for the palaces and towers that the arts of Rome 
 liad bequeathed your fathers ! And each had been 
 subjugated by the son of Llewellyn, when, in his day 
 of might, he reunited under his sole sway all the multi- 
 form principalities of AVales, and regained, for a moment's 
 splendor, the throne of Roderic the Great. 
 
 " Is it," said Owain, in a hollow whisper, " for yon 
 man, whom Heaven hath deserted, who could not keep 
 his very torque from the gripe of the Saxon, that Ave 
 are to die on these hills, gnawing the flesh from our 
 bones 1 Think ye not the hour is come 1 " 
 
 " The hour will come, when tlie sheep and the horse
 
 HAROLD. 313 
 
 and the dog are devoured," replied Modred, " and wlien 
 the whole force, as one man, will cry to Gryffyth, * Thou 
 a king ! — give us bread ! ' " 
 
 " It is well," said the third, an old man, leaning on 
 a wand of solid silver, while the mountain wind, sweep- 
 ing between the walls, played with the rags of his robe, 
 — "it is well that the night's sally, less of war than of 
 hunger, was foiled even of forage and food. Had the 
 saints been with Gryffyth, who had dared to keep faith 
 with Tostig the Saxon 1 " 
 
 Owain langlied, a laugh hollow and felse. 
 
 " Art thoLi Cymrian, and talkest of foith with a Saxon ? 
 Faith with the spoiler, the ravisher, and butcher ] But a 
 Cymrian keeps faitli with revenge ; and Gryftyth's trunk 
 should be still crownless and headless, though Tostig had 
 never proffered the barter of safety and food. Hist ! 
 Gryffyth wakes from the black dream, and his eyes glow 
 from under his hair." 
 
 And indeed at this moment the king raised himself on 
 his elbow, and looked round with a haggard and fierce 
 despair in his glittering eyes. 
 
 " Play to us, harper ; sing some song of the deeds 
 of old ! " 
 
 The bard mournfully strove to sweep the harp, but the 
 chords were broken, and the note came discordant and 
 shrill as the sigh of a wailing fiend. 
 
 "0 king !" said the bard, "the music hath left the 
 harp." 
 
 " Ha ! " murmured Gryffyth, " and hope the earth ! 
 Bard, answer the son of Llewellyn. Oft in my halls 
 hast thou sung the praise of the men that have been. 
 In the halls of the race to come, will bards yet unborn 
 sweep their harps to the deeds of thy king 1 Shall 
 they tell of the day of Torques, by Llyn-Afange, when
 
 314 HAROLD. 
 
 the princes of Powvs fled from his sword as the clouds 
 from the blast of the wind 1 Shall they sing, as the 
 Hirlas goes round, of his steeds of the sea, wlien no 
 flag came in sight of his prows between the dark isle 
 of the Druid ^ and the green pastures of Huerdanl^ 
 Or the towns that he fired, on the lands of the Saxon, 
 when Eolf and the JSTorthmen ran fast from his javelin 
 and spear 1 Or say, Child of Truth, if all that is told 
 of Gryffyth thy king shall be his woe and his shame '?" 
 
 The bard s'wept his hand over his eyes and answered, — 
 
 " Bards unborn shall sing of Gryffyth the son of 
 Llewellyn. But the song shall not dwell on the pomp of 
 his power, when twenty sub-kings knelt at his throne, and 
 his beacon was lighted in the holds of the Norman and 
 Saxon. Bards shall sing of the hero, who fought every 
 inch of crag and morass in the front of his men, — and 
 on the heights of Penmaeu-mawr, Fame recovers thy 
 crown ! " 
 
 " Then I have lived as my fathers in life, and shall 
 live with their glory in death ! " said Gryffyth ; " and 
 so the shadow hath passed from my soul." Then turning 
 round, still propped upon his elbow, he fixed his proud 
 eye upon Aldyth, and said, gravely, " Wife pale is thy 
 face, and gloomy thy brow ; mournest thou the throne or 
 the manr' 
 
 Aldyth cast on her wild lord a look of more terror 
 than compassion, a look without the grief that is gentle, or 
 the love that reveres ; and answered, — 
 
 " What matter to thee my thoughts or my sufferings 1 
 The sword or the famine is the doom thou hast chosen. 
 Listening to vain dreams from thy bard, or thine own 
 pride as idle, thou disdainest life for us both : be it so ; let 
 us die ! " 
 
 ^ Mona, or Anglesea. 2 Ireland.
 
 HAROLD. 315 
 
 A strange blending of fondness and wrath troubled 
 the pride on Gryffyth's features, uncouth and half-savage 
 as they were, but still noble and kingly. 
 
 " And what terror has death, if thou lovest me 1 " said 
 he. 
 
 Aldyth shivered and turned aside. The unhappy king 
 gazed hard on that face, which, despite sore trial and 
 recent exposure to rough wind and weather, still retained 
 the proverbial beauty of the Saxon women, — but beauty 
 without the glow of the heart, as a landscape from wliich 
 sunlight has vanished ; and as he gazed, the color went 
 and came fitfully over his swarthy cheeks, whose hue 
 contrasted the blue of his eye, and the red, tawny gold 
 of his shaggy hair. 
 
 "Thou wouldst have me," he said at length, "send to 
 Harold thy countryman ; thou wouldst have me, me — 
 rightful lord of all Britain — beg for mercy, and sue for 
 life. Ah, traitress, and cliikl of robber-sires, fair as 
 Rowena art thou, but no Vortimer am I ! Thou turuest 
 in loathing from the lord whose marriage-gift was a 
 crown ; and the sleek form of thy Saxon Harold, rises up 
 through the clouds of the carnage." 
 
 All the fierce and dangerous jealousy of man's most 
 human passion — when man loves and hates in a breath 
 — trembled in the Cymrian's voice, and fired his troubled, 
 eye ; fur Aldyth's pale cheek blushed like the rose, but 
 she folded her arms haughtily on her breast, and made 
 no reply. 
 
 " No," said GryfFyth, grinding teeth, white ^ and strong 
 as those of a young hound, — " no, Harold in vain sent 
 me the casket ; the jewel was gone. In vain thy form 
 
 1 The Welsh were tlien, and still are, remarkable for the beauty 
 of tlieir teetli. Giraldus Cambrensis observes, as somethiug very 
 extraordinary, that they cleaned them.
 
 316 HAROLD. 
 
 returned to my side ; thy Jieart was away with thy cap- 
 tor : and not to save my life (were I so base as to seek it), 
 but to see once more the face of him to whom this cold 
 hand, in wliose veins no pulse answers my own, had been 
 given, if thy House had consulted its daughter, wouldst 
 thou have me crouch like a lashed dog at the feet of my 
 foe 1 Oh, shame ! shame ! shame ! Oh, worst perfidy of 
 all! Oh, sharp — sharper than Saxon sword or serpent's 
 tooth, is — is — " 
 
 Tears gushed to those fierce eyes, and the proud king 
 dared not trust to his voice. 
 
 Aldyth rose coldly. " Slay me if thou wilt, — not 
 insult me. I have said, ' Let us die ! ' " 
 
 With these words, and vouchsafing no look on her 
 lord, she moved away towards the largest tower or cell, in 
 which the single and rude chamber it cojitained had been 
 set apart for her. 
 
 Gryffyth's eye followed her, softening gradually as her 
 form receded, till lost to his sight. And tlien that pecu- 
 liar household love, which in luicultivated breasts often 
 survives trust and esteem, rushed back on his rough 
 heart, and weakened it, as woman only can weaken the 
 strong to whom Death is a thought of scorn. 
 
 He signed to his bard, who, during the conference 
 between wife and lord, had retired to a distance, and 
 said, with a writhing attempt to smile, — 
 
 " Was there truth, thinkest thou, in the legend, that 
 Guenever was false to King Arthur 1 " 
 
 *' No," answered the bard, divining his lord's thought ; 
 " for Guenever survived not the king, and they were 
 buried side by side in the vale of Avallon." 
 
 '* Thou art wise in the lore of the heart, and love hath 
 been thy study from youth to gray hairs. Is it love, is it 
 hate, that prefers death for the loved one to the thought 
 of her life as another's V
 
 HAROLD. 317 
 
 A look of the tenderest compassion passed over the 
 bard's wan face, but vanished in reverence as be bowed 
 his head and answered, — 
 
 " king, who shall say what note the wind calls from 
 the harp, or what impulse love wakes in the soul, — now 
 soft and now stern 1 But," be added, raising his form, 
 and with a dread calm on bis brow, — " but the love of a 
 king brooks no thought of dishonor, and slie who hath 
 laid her head on his breast should sleep in his grave." 
 
 " Thou wilt outlive me," said Gryffyth, abruptly. 
 " This earn be my tomb ! " 
 
 "And if so," said the bard, "thou shalt sleep not 
 alone. In this earn what thou lovest best shall be buried 
 by thy side ; the bard shall raise his song over thy grave, 
 and the bosses of shields shall be placed at intervals, as 
 rises and falls the sound of song. Over the grave of tioo 
 shall a new mound arise, and we will bid the mound 
 speak to others in the far days to come. But distant yet 
 be the hour when the mighty shall be laid low ! and tlie 
 tongue of thy bard may yet chant the rusli of the lion 
 from the toils and the spears. Hope still ! " 
 
 Gryffyth, for answer, leaned on the harper's shoulder, 
 and pointed silently to tlie sea, that lay lake-like at 
 the distance, dark, — studded with the Saxon fleet. 
 Then turning, his hand stretched over the forms that, 
 hollow-eyed and ghost-like, flitted betw^een the walls, 
 or lay dying, but mute, around the water-spring. His 
 hand then dropped, and rested on the hilt of his sword. 
 
 At this moment there was a sudden commotion at 
 the outer entrance of the wall ; the crowd gathered to 
 one spot, and there was a loud hum of voices. In a few 
 moments one of the Welsh scouts came into the enclosure, 
 and the chiefs of the royal tribes followed him to the earn 
 on which the king stood.
 
 318 HAKOLD. 
 
 ''Of what tellest thoul" said GryfFyth, resuming on 
 the instant all the royalty of his bearing. 
 
 " At the mouth of the pass," said the scout, kneeling, 
 " there are a monk bearing the holy rood, and a chief, 
 unarmed. And the monk is Evan, the Cymrian, of 
 Gwentland ; and the chief, by his voice, seemeth not 
 to be Saxon. The monk bade me give thee these 
 tokens " (and the scout displayed the broken torque 
 which the king had left in the grasp of Harold, to- 
 gether with a live falcon belled and blinded), " and 
 bade me say thus to the king : — ' Harold the Earl 
 greets GryfFyth, son of Llewellyn, and sends him, in 
 proof of good- will, the richest prize he hath ever won 
 from a foe ; and a hawk, from Llandudno, — that bird 
 •which chief and equal give to equal and chief. And 
 he prays GryfFyth, son of Llewellyn, for the sake of 
 his realm and liis people, to grant hearing to his 
 nuncius.' " 
 
 A murmur broke from the chiefs, — a mui'mur of joy 
 and surprise from all, save the three conspirators, who 
 interchanged anxious and fiery glances. GryfFyth's hand 
 had already closed, while he uttered a cry that seemed of 
 rapture, on the color of gold ; for the loss of that collar 
 had stung him, perhaps, more than the loss of the crown 
 of all Wales. And his heart, so generous and large, 
 amidst all its rude passions, was touched by the speech 
 and the tokens that honored the fallen outlaw, both as 
 foe and as king. Yet in his face there was still seen a 
 moody and proud struggle ; he paused before lie turned 
 to the chiefs. 
 
 " What counsel ye, — ye strong in battle, and wise in 
 debate 1" said he. 
 
 With one voice all, save the Fatal Three, exclaimed, — 
 
 " Hear the monk, king ! "
 
 HAROLD. 319 
 
 " Shall we dissuade 1 " whispered Modred to the old 
 chief, his accomplice. 
 
 " No ; for so doing, we shall offend all : — and we must 
 win all." 
 
 Then the bard stepped into the ring. And the ring 
 was hushed, for wise is ever the counsel of him whose 
 book is the human heart. 
 
 " Hear the Saxons," said he, briefly, and with an air 
 of command when addressing others, which contrasted 
 strongly his tender respect to the king ; " hear the 
 Saxons, but not in these walla. Let no man from the 
 foe see our strength or our weakness. We are still 
 mighty and impregnable, while our dwelling is in the 
 reahu of the Unknown. Let the king, and his olficers 
 of state, and his chieftains of battle, descend to the pass. 
 And behind, at tlie distance, let the spearmen range 
 from cliff to cliff, as a ladder of steel ; so will their numbers 
 seem the greater." 
 
 " Tliou speakest well," said the king. 
 
 Meanwhile, the knight and the monk waited below 
 at that terrible pass,^ which then lay between moun- 
 tain and river, and over which the precipices frowned, 
 with a sense of horror and weight. Looking up, the 
 knight murmured, — 
 
 " With those stones and crags to roll down on a 
 marching army, the place well defies storm and assault ; 
 and a hundred on the height would overmatch thousands 
 below." 
 
 He then turned to address a few words, with all 
 the far-famed courtesy of Norman and Frank, to the 
 W^elsh guards at the outpost. They were picked men ; 
 the strongest and best armed and best fed of the group. 
 
 ^ I believe it was not till the last century that a good road took 
 the place of this pass.
 
 320 HAROLD. 
 
 But they shook their heads and answered not, gazing 
 ut liim fiercely and showing their white teeth, as dogs at 
 a bear before they are loosened from the band. 
 
 " They understand me not, poor languageless sav- 
 ages ! " said Mallet de Graville, turning to the monk, 
 Avho stood by with the lifted rood ; " speak to them iji 
 their own jargon." 
 
 "Nay," said the Welsh monk, who, though of a rival 
 tribe from South Wales, and at tlie service of Harold, 
 was esteemed throughout the land for piety and learning; 
 " they will not open mouth till the king's orders come to 
 receive, or dismiss us unheard." 
 
 " Dismiss us unheard ! " repeated the punctilious 
 Norman ; " even this poor, barbarous king can scarcely 
 be so strange to all comely and gentle usage as to put 
 such insult on Guillaume Mallet de Graville. But," 
 added the knight, coloring, " I forgot that he is not 
 advised of my name and land ; and, indeed, sitli thou 
 art to be spokesman, I marvel wliy Harold should have 
 prayed my service at all, at the risk of subjecting a Nor- 
 man knight to affronts contumelious." 
 
 " Peradventure," replied Evan, — " peradventure thou 
 hast something to whisper apart to the king, which, as 
 stranger and warrior, none will venture to question ; but 
 which from me, as countryman and priest, would excite 
 the jealous suspicions of those around him." 
 
 " I conceive thee," said De Graville. " And see, 
 spears are gleaming down the path ; and, per pedes 
 Domini, yon chief with the mantle, and circlet of gold on 
 his head, is the cat-king that so spitted and scratched in 
 the melee last night." 
 
 " Heed well thy tongue," said Evan, alarmed ; " no jests 
 with the leader of men." 
 
 " Kuowest thou, good monk, that a facete and
 
 HAROLD. 321 
 
 most gentil Roman (if the saintly writer from whom 
 I take the citation reports aright, — for, alas! I know 
 not where myself to purchase, or to steal, one copy of 
 Horatius Flaccus) hath said, * Didce est desipere in loco ' / 
 It is sweet to jest, but not within reach of claws, whether 
 of kaisars or cats." 
 
 Therewith the knight drew up his spare but stately 
 figure ; and, arranging his robe with grace and dignity, 
 awaited the coming chief. 
 
 Down the pass, one by one, came first the chiefs, 
 privileged by birth to attend the king ; and each, as 
 he reached the mouth of the pass, drew on the upper 
 side, among the stones of the rough ground. Then 
 a banner, tattered and torn, with the lion ensign that the 
 Welsh princes had substituted for the old national 
 dragon, which the Saxons of Wessex had appropriated to 
 themselves,* preceded the steps of the king. Behind him 
 came his falconer and bard, and the rest of his scanty 
 household. The king halted in tlie pass a few steps from 
 the Norman knight ; and Mallet de Graville, though 
 
 1 The Saxons of Wessex seem to have adopted the dragon for 
 their ensij^n from an early period. It was probably for this reason 
 that it was assumed by Edward Ironsides, as the hero of the 
 Saxons ; the principality of Wessex forming the most important 
 portion of the pure Saxon race, while its founder was the ancestor 
 of the imperial House of Basileus of Eritain. The dragon seems 
 also to have been a Norman ensign. The lions or leopards, popu- 
 larly assigned to the Conqueror, are certainly a later invention. 
 There is no appearance of them on the banners and shields of tlie 
 Norman army in the Bayeux tapestry. Armorial bearings were 
 iu use amongst the Welsh, and even the Saxons, long before her- 
 aldry was reduced to a science by the Franks and Normans ; and 
 the dragon, which is supposed by many critics to be borrowed 
 from the East, through the Saracens, certainly existed as an armo- 
 rial ensign with the Cymrians before they could have had any 
 obligation to the songs and legends of that people. 
 
 VOL. I. — 21
 
 322 HAROLD. 
 
 accustomed to the majestic mien of Duke William, and the 
 practised state of the princes of France and Flanders, felt 
 an involuntary thrill of admiration at the hearing of the 
 great child of Nature with his foot on his father's soiL 
 
 Small and slight as was his stature, worn and ragged 
 his mantle of state, there was that in the erect mien 
 and steady eye of the Cymrian hero which showed one 
 conscious of authority, and potent in will ; and the 
 wave of his hand to the knight was the gesture of a 
 prince on his throne. Nor, indeed, was that brave and 
 ill-fated chief without some irregular gleams of mental 
 cultivation, which, under happier auspices, might have 
 centred into steadfast light. Though the learning 
 which had once existed in Wales (the last legacy of 
 Rome) had long since expired in broil and blood, and 
 youths no longer flocked to the colleges of Caerleon, 
 and priests no longer adorned the casuistical theology 
 of the age, GryfFyth himself, the son of a wise and 
 famous father,^ had received an education beyond the 
 average of Saxon kings. But, intensely national, his 
 mind had turned from all other literature to the le- 
 gends and songs and chronicles of his land ; and if 
 he is the best scholar who best understands his own 
 tongue and its treasures, Gryffyth was the most erudite 
 prince of his age. His natural talents, for war espe- 
 cially, were considerable ; and judged fairly, — not as 
 mated with an empty treasury, without other army 
 than the capricious will of his subjects afforded, and, 
 amidst his bitterest foes in the jealous chiefs of his own 
 country, against the disciplined force and comparative 
 civilization of the Saxon, but as compared with all 
 
 ^ " In whose time the earth brought forth double, and there was 
 neither beggar nor poor man from the North to the South Sea." — • 
 PoweU's " Hist, of Wales," p. 83.
 
 HAROLD. 323 
 
 the other princes of Wales in warfare, to which he 
 was habituated, and in which chances were even, — the 
 fallen sou of Llewellyn had been the most renowned 
 leader that Cymry had known since the death of the great 
 Eoderic. 
 
 So there he stood, his attendants, ghastly with famine, 
 drawn up on the unequal ground ; above, on the heights, 
 and rising from the stone crags, long lines of spears art- 
 fully placed ; and, watching him with deathi'ul eyes, 
 somewhat in his rear, tlie Traitor Three. 
 
 " Speak, father or chief," said the Welsh king in 
 his native tongue ; " what would Harold the Earl of 
 Gryffyth the King 1' ' 
 
 Then the monk took up the word and spoke. 
 
 " Health to GryfFyth-ap-Llewellyn, his chiefs and his 
 people ! Thus saith Harold, King Edward's thegn : 
 — ' By land all the passes are watched ; by sea all the 
 waves are our own. Our swords rest in our sheaths ; 
 but Famine marches each hour to gride and to slay. 
 Instead of sure death from the hunger, take sure life 
 from the foe. Free pardon to all, chiefs and people, 
 and safe return to their homes, — save GryfFyth alone. 
 Let him come forth, not as victim and outlaw, not with 
 bent form and clasped hands, but as chief meeting 
 cliief, with his household of state. Harold will meet 
 him, in honor, at the gates of the fort. Let Gryffyth 
 submit to King Edward, and ride with Harold to the 
 Court of the Basileus. Harold promises him life, and 
 will plead for his pardon. And though the peace of 
 this realm, and the fortune of war, forbid Harold to 
 say, "Thou shalt yet be a king;" yet thy crown, son. 
 of Llewellyn, shall at least be assured in the line of 
 thy fathers, and the race of Cadwallader shall still reigu 
 in Cymry.' "
 
 324 HAROLD. 
 
 The monk paused, and hope and joy were in the faces 
 of the famished chiefs ; while two of the Traitor Three 
 suddenly left their post and sped to tell the message 
 to the spearmen and multitudes above. Modred, the 
 third conspirator, laid his hand on his hilt, and stole 
 near to see the face of the king : the face of the king was 
 dark and angry, as a midnight of storm. 
 
 Then raising the cross on high, Evan resumed : — 
 
 " And I, though of the people of Gwentland, which the 
 arms of Gryffyth have wasted, and whose prince fell 
 beneath Grylfyth's sword on the hearth of his hall, — I, 
 as God's servant, the brother of all I behold, and, as 
 son of the soil, mourning over the slaughter of its latest 
 defenders, — I by this symbol of love and command, 
 which I raise to the heaven, adjure thee, king, to 
 give ear to the mission of peace, to cast down the 
 grim pride of earth ; and, instead of the crown of a 
 day, fix thy hopes on the crown everlasting. For much 
 shall be pardoned to thee in thine hour of pomp and 
 of conquest, if now thou savest from doom and from death 
 the last lives over which thou art lord." 
 
 It was during this solemn appeal that the knight, 
 marking the sign announced to him, and, drawing close 
 to Giyffyth, pressed the ring into the king's hand, and 
 whispered, — 
 
 " Obey by this pledge. Thou knowest Harold is true, 
 and thy head is sold by thine own people." 
 
 The king cast a haggard eye at the speaker, and then 
 at the ring, over which his hand closed with a con- 
 vulsive spasm. And at that dread instant the man 
 prevailed over the king ; and far away from people and 
 monk, from adjuration and duty, fled his heart on the 
 wings of the storm, — fled to the cold wife he distrusted ; 
 and the pledge that should assure him of life seemed
 
 HAROLD. 325 
 
 as a love-token insulting his fixll : — amidst all the roar 
 of roused passions, loudest of all was the hiss of the 
 jealous fiend. 
 
 As the monk ceased, the thrill of the audience was 
 perceptible, and a deep silence was followed by a general 
 murmur, as if to constrain the king. 
 
 Then the pride of the despot chief rose up to second 
 
 the wrath of the suspecting man. The red spot flushed 
 
 the dark cheek, and he tossed the neglected hair from his 
 
 brow. 
 
 He made one stride towards the monk, and said, in 
 
 a voice loud and deep and slow, rolling far up the hill, — 
 " Monk, thou hast said ; and now hear the reply of 
 the son of Llewellyn, the true heir of Eoderic the 
 Great, who from the heights of Eryri saw all the lands 
 of the Cymrian sleeping under the dragon of Uther. 
 King was I born, and king will I die. I will not ride 
 by the side of the Saxon to the feet of Edward, the son 
 of the spoiler. I will not, to purchase base life, sur- 
 render the claim, vain before men and the hour, but 
 solemn before God and posterity, — the claim of my line 
 and my people. All Britain is ours, — all the Island of 
 Pines. And the children of Hengist are traitors and 
 rebels, — not the heirs of Ambrosius and Uther. Say 
 to Harold the Saxon, ' Ye have left us but the tomb of 
 the Druid and the hills of the eagle ; but freedom and 
 royalty are ours in life and in death, — not for you to 
 demand them, not for us to betray.' I^or fear ye, 
 my chiefs, few, but unmatched in glory and truth, — fear 
 not ye to perish by the hunger thus denounced as our 
 doom, on these heights that command the fruits of our 
 own fields ! No, die we may, but not mute and revenge- 
 less. Go back, whispering warrior ; go back, false son of 
 Cymry, — and tell Harold to look well to his walls and
 
 526 HAROLD. 
 
 his trenches. We will vouchsafe him grace for his grace, 
 — we will not take him hy surprise, nor under cloud of 
 the night. With the gleam of our spears and the clash of 
 our shields we will come from the hill ; and, famine-worn 
 as he deems us, hold a feast in his walls which the eagles 
 of Snowdon spread their pinions to share ! " 
 
 " Rasli man and unhappy ! " cried the monk ; " what 
 curse drawest thou down on thy head ! Wilt thou he 
 the murderer of thy men, in strife unavailing and vain 1 
 Heaven holds thee guilty of all the blood thou shalt cause 
 to be shed." 
 
 "Be dumb! — hush thy screech, lying raven!" ex- 
 claimed Gryffytb, his eyes darting fire, and his slight 
 form dilating. " Once, priest and monk Avent before 
 us to inspire, not to daunt ; and our cry, Alleluia ! was 
 taught us by the saints of the Church, on the day when 
 Saxons, fierce and many as Harold's, fell on the field of 
 Maes-Garmon. No, tlie curse is on the head of the 
 invader, not on those who defend hearth and altar. 
 Yea, as the song to the bard, the curse leaps through 
 my veins, and rushes forth from my lips. By the land 
 they have ravaged ; by the gore they have spilt ; on 
 these crags, our last refuge ; below the earn on yon 
 heights, where the Dead stir to hear me, — I launch the 
 curse of the wronged and the doomed on the children 
 of Hengist! They in turn shall know the steel of the 
 stranger, — their crown shall be shivered as glass, and 
 their nobles be as slaves in the land. And the line 
 of Hengist and Cerdic shall be rased from the roll of 
 empire. And the ghost of our fathers shall glide, 
 appeased, over the grave of their nation. But we — we, 
 though weak in the body, in the soul shall be strong to 
 the last ! The ploughshare may pass over our cities, 
 but the soil shall be trod by our steps, and our deeds
 
 HAROLD, 327 
 
 keep our language alive in the songs of our bards. Kor 
 in the great Judgment Day sliall auy race but the race of 
 Cymry rise from their graves in this corner of earth to 
 answer for the sins of the brave ! " '■ 
 
 So impressive the voice, so grand the brow, and sub- 
 lime the wild gesture of the king, as he thus spoke, 
 that not only the monk himself was awed, — not only, 
 though he understood not the words, did the IS^'ormau 
 knight bow his head, as a child when the lightning he 
 fears as by instinct flashes out from the cloud, but even 
 the sullen and wide-spreading discontent at work among 
 most of the chiefs was arrested for a moment. But the 
 spearmen and multitude above, excited by the tidings 
 of safety to life, and worn out by repeated defeat, and 
 the dread fear of famine, too remote to hear the king, 
 were listening eagerly to the insidious addresses of the 
 two stealthy conspirators, creeping from rank to rank ; 
 and already they began to sway and move, and sweep 
 slowly down towards the king. 
 
 Recovering his surprise, the N^orman again neared 
 Gryffyth, and began to reurge his mission of peace. But 
 the chief waved him back sternly, and said aloud, though 
 in Saxon : — 
 
 1 " During the military expeditions made in our days against 
 South Wales, an old Welshman at Pencadair, who had faithfully 
 adhered to him (Henry II.), being desired to give his opinion 
 about the royal army, and whether he thought that of the rebels 
 would make resistance, and what he thought would be the final 
 event of this war, replied : ' This nation, king, may now, as in 
 former times, be harassed, and, in a great measure, be weakened 
 and destroyed, by you and other powers, and it will often prevail 
 by its laudable exertions; but it can never be totally subdued by 
 the wrath of man, unless the wrath of God shall concur. Nor do I 
 think that an// otiier nation than this of Wales, or am/ other lanrptaqe 
 (whatever mai/ hereafter come to pass), shall in the day of severe ex- 
 amination before the Supreme Jndfje answer for this corner of the 
 earth ! '" — Hoare's " Giraldus Cambrensis," vol. i. p. 361.
 
 328 HAROLD. 
 
 " No secrets can pass between Harold and me. This 
 much alone take thou back as answer : — 1 tliauk the 
 earl, for myself, my queen, and my jjeoj^le. Noble have 
 been his courtesies, as foe ; as foe I thank him, — as 
 king, defy. The torque he hath returned to my hand, 
 he shall see again ere the sun set. Messengers, ye are 
 answered. Withdraw and speed fast, that we may pass 
 not your steps on the road." 
 
 Tlie monk sighed, and cast a look of holy compassion 
 over the circle ; and a pleased man was he to see in the 
 faces of most there that the king was alone in his 
 fierce defiance. Then lifting again the rood, he turned 
 away, and with him went tlie Norman. 
 
 The retirement of the messengers was the signal for 
 one burst of remonstrance from the chiefs, — the signal 
 for the voice and the deeds of the Fatal Three. Down 
 from the heights sprang and rushed the angry and turbu- 
 lent multitudes ; round the king came the bard and the 
 falconer, and some faitliful few. 
 
 The great uproar of many voices caused the monk 
 and the knight to pause abruptly in their descent, and 
 turn to look behind. They could see the crowd rush- 
 ing down from the higher steeps ; but on the spot 
 itself which they had so lately left, the nature of the 
 ground only permitted a confused view of spear-points, 
 lifted swords, and heads crowned with shaggy locks sway- 
 ing to and fro. 
 
 " What means all this commotion 1 " asked the kniuht, 
 Avith his hand on his sword. 
 
 " Hist ! " said the monk, pale as ashes, and leaning for 
 support upon tlie cross. 
 
 Suddenly, above the hubbub, was heard the voice of 
 the king, in accents of menace and wrath, singularly 
 distinct and clear ; it was followed by a moment's
 
 HAROLD. 329 
 
 silence, — a moment's silence followed by the clatter of 
 arms, a yell, and a howl, and the indescribable shock of 
 men. 
 
 And suddenly again was heard a voice that seemed 
 that of the king, but no longer distinct and clear ! — was 
 it laugh 1 — was it groan 1 
 
 xlll was hushed ; the monk was on his knees in 
 prayer ; the knight's sword was bare in his hand. All 
 was hushed, — and the spears stood still in the air; when 
 there was again a cry, as multitudinous but less savage 
 than before. And the Welsh came down the pass, and 
 down the crags. 
 
 The knight placed his back to a rock. "They have 
 orders to murder us," he murmured ; " but woe to the first 
 who comes within reach of my sword ! " 
 
 Down swarmed the Welshmen, nearer and nearer, 
 and in the midst of them three chiefs, — the Fatal 
 Three. And the old chief bore in his hand a pole or 
 spear, and on the top of that spear, trickling gore step by 
 step, was the trunkless head of Gryffyth the king. 
 
 " This," said the old chief, as he drew near, " this is our 
 answer to Harold the Earl. We will go with ye." 
 
 " Food ! food ! " cried the multitude. 
 
 And the three chiefs (one on either side the trunkless 
 head that the third bore aloft) whispered, " We are 
 avenged 1 "
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 14. 
 
 There are various accounts in the Chroniclers as to the stature of 
 William the First ; some represent liim as a giant, others as of just 
 or middle height. Considering the A'ulgar inclination to attribute 
 to a hero's stature the qualities of the mind (and putting out of all 
 question the arguments that rest on the pretended size of the dis- 
 buried bones — for which the authorities are really less respecta- 
 ble than those on which we are called upon to believe that the 
 skeleton of the mythical Gawaine measured eight feet), we prefer 
 that supposition, as to the physical proportions, which is most iu 
 harmony with the usual laws of Nature. It is rare, indeed, that a 
 great intellect is found in the form of a giant. 
 
 Page 29. Game Laws before the Coxquest. 
 
 Under the Saxon kings a man might, it is true, hunt in his own 
 grounds, but that was a privilege that could benefit few but thegns ; 
 and over cultivated ground or shire-land there was not the same 
 sport to be found as iu the vast wastes called forest-land, and which 
 mainly belonged to the kings. 
 
 Edward declares, in a law recorded in a volume of the Excheq- 
 uer, " I will that all men do abstain from hunting in my woods, 
 and that my will shall be obeyed under penalty of life." ^ 
 
 Edgar, the darling monarch of the monks, and, indeed, one of 
 the most popular of the Auglo-Saxon kings, was so rigorous in his 
 forest-laws, that the thegns murmured as well as the lower hus- 
 bandmen, who had been accu.stomed to use the woods for pasturage 
 and boscage. Canute's forest-laws were meant as a liberal conces- 
 sion to public feeling on the subject ; they are more definite than 
 Edgar's, but terribly stringent ; if a freeman killed one of the 
 king's deer, or struck his forester, he lost his freedom and became 
 a penal serf (white theowe) — that is, he ranked with felons. Never- 
 * Thomson's " Essay on Slagna Charta."
 
 332 NOTES. 
 
 theleas, Canute allowed bishops, abbots, and thegns to hunt in his 
 woods — a privilege restored by Henry III. The nobility, after 
 the Conquest, being excluded from the royal chases, petitioned to 
 enclose parks, as early even as the reign of William I. ; and by tlie 
 time of his sou, Henry I., parks became so common as to be at once 
 a ridicule and a grievance. 
 
 Page 37. Belin's Gate. 
 
 Verstegan combats the Welsh antiquaries who would appropri- 
 ate this gate to the British deity, Bal, or Beli ; and says, if so, it 
 would not have been called by a name half Saxon, half British, 
 gate (geat) being Saxon ; but rather Beliusport, than Belinsgate. 
 This is no very strong argument ; for, in the Norman time, many 
 compound words were half Norman, half Saxon. But, in truth, 
 Eeliu was a Teuton deity, whose worship pervaded all Gaul ; and 
 the Saxon might eitlier have continued, therefore, the name they 
 found, or given it themselves, from their own god. I am not 
 inclined, however, to contend that any deity, Saxon or British, 
 gave the name, or that Billing is not, after all, the right orthogra- 
 phy. Billing, like all words ending in ing, has something very 
 Danish in its sound ; and the name is quite as likely to have been 
 given by the Danes as by the Saxons. 
 
 Page 40. Vineyards in England. 
 
 The question whether or not real vineyards Avere grown, or real 
 wine made from them in England, has been a very vexed question 
 amiing the anti(|uaries. But it is scarcely possible to read Pegge's 
 dispute with Daines Barrington in the " Archteologia " without de- 
 ciding both questions in the affirmative. — See " Archieol." vol. iii. 
 p. 5.3. An engraving of tlie Saxon wine-press is given in Strutt's 
 " Horda." Vineyards fell into disuse, either by treaty with France, 
 or Gascony falling into the hands of the English. But vineyards 
 were cultivated by private gentlemen as late as 1621. Our first 
 wines from Bordeaux — the true country of Bacclius — appear to 
 have been imported about 1154, by the marriage of Henry II. 
 with Eleanor of Aquitaine. 
 
 Page 85. Lanfranc, the first Anglo-Norman Archbishop 
 OF Canterbury. 
 
 Lanfranc was, in all respects, one of the most remarkable men 
 of the eleventh century. He was born in Pavia, about 1005. His 
 family was noble — his father ranked amongst the magistrature of
 
 NOTES. 333 
 
 Pavia, the Lombard capital. From his earliest youth he gave him- 
 self up, with all a scholar's zeal, to the liberal arts, and the special 
 knowledge of law, civil and ecclesiastical. He studied at Cologne, 
 and afterwards taught and practised law in his own country. 
 " Wliile yet extremely young," says one of the lively chroniclers, 
 " he triumplied over the ablest advocates, and the torrents of his 
 eloquence confounded the subtlest rhetorician." His decisions 
 were received as authorities by the Italian jurisconsults and tri- 
 bunals. His mind, to judge both by his history and his peculiar 
 reputation (for probably few, if any, students of our day can pre- 
 tend to more than a partial or superficial acquaintance with his 
 writings), was one that delighted in subtleties and casuistical refine- 
 ments ; but a sense too large and commanding for those studies 
 which amuse but never satisfy the higlier intellect, became dis- 
 gusted betimes witli mere legal dialectics. Those grand and 
 absorbing mysteries connected with the Christian faith and the 
 Roman Church (grand and al)sorbing in jiroportiou as their prem- 
 ises are taken by religious belief as mathematical axioms already 
 proven) seized hold of his imagination, and tasked, to the depth, 
 his inquisitive reason. The Chronicle of Knyghton cites an inter- 
 esting anecdote of his life at this its important crisis. He had 
 retired to a solitary spot, beside tlic Seine, to meditate on the 
 mysterious essence of the Trinity, wlien he saw a boy ladling out 
 the waters of the river that ran before him into a little well. His 
 curiosity arrested, he asked wliat tlie boy proposed to do. The 
 boy replied, " to empty yon deep into this well." " That canst 
 thou never do," said the scholar. " Nor canst thou," answered 
 the boy, "exhaust the deep on which tliou dost meditate into the 
 ■well of thy reason." Therewith the speaker vanished, and Lan- 
 franc, resigning the hope to achieve the mighty m3^stery, threw 
 himself at once into the arms of faith, and took his refuge in the 
 monastery of Bee. 
 
 The tale may be a legend, but not an idle one. Perhaps h« 
 related it himself as a parable, and by the fiction explained the 
 process of thought that decided his career. In the prime of his 
 manhood, about 1042, when he was thirty -seven years old, and in 
 the zenith of liis scholarly fame, he professed. The Convent of Bee 
 had been lately founded, under Herluin, the first abbot; tliere 
 Lanfranc opened a school, which became one of the most famous 
 throughout the west of Europe. Indeed, under the Lombard's 
 influence, the then obscure Convent of Bee, to which the solitude
 
 334 NOTES. 
 
 of the site, and the poverty of the endowment, allured his choice, 
 grew the Academe of the age. " It was," says Orderic, in his 
 charming chronicle, " it was under such a master that the Nor- 
 mans received tlieir first notions of literature ; from that school 
 emerged the multitude of eloquent philosophers who adorned alike 
 divinity and science. From France, Gascony, Bretagne, Flanders, 
 scholars thronged to receive his lessons." ^ 
 
 At first, as superficially stated in the tale, Lanfranc had t.aken 
 part against the marriage of William with Matilda of Flanders — 
 a marriage clearly contrary to the formal canons of the Koman 
 Church, and was banished by the fiery Duke ; though William's 
 displeasure gave way at " the decent joke " (Jocus decens), recorded 
 in the text. At Rome, however, his influence, arguments, and 
 eloquence, were all enlisted on the side of William : and it was to 
 the scholar of Pavia that the great Norman owed the ultimate 
 sanction of his marriage, and the repeal of the interdict that ex- 
 communicated his realm. 2 
 
 At Rome he assisted in the council held 10.59 (the year wherein 
 the ban of the Church was finally and formally taken from Nor- 
 mandy, at which the famous Berenger, Archdeacon of Angers 
 (against whom he had waged a polemical controversy that did more 
 than all else to secure his repute at the Pontifical Court), al)jured 
 " his here.sies " as to the Real Presence in the sacrament of the 
 Eucharist. 
 
 In 1062, or 1063, Duke William, against the Lomt^ard's own will 
 (for Lanfranc genuinely loved the liberty of letters more than 
 vulgar power), raised him to the abbacy of St. Stephen of Caen. 
 From that time, his ascendancy over his haughty lord was abso- 
 lute. The contemporary historian ( William of Poitiers) says that 
 " William respected him as a father, venerated him as a preceptor, 
 and cherished him as a brother or son." He confided to him his 
 own designs ; and committed to him the entire superintendence of 
 the ecclesiastical orders throughout Normandy. Eminent no less 
 for his practical genius in affairs, than for his rare piety and tlieo- 
 logical learning, Lanfranc attained indeed to the true ideal of the 
 
 1 Orderic Vital, lib. 4. 
 
 2 The date ot William's marriage has been variously stated in English and 
 Norman history, but is usu:illy fixed in 1051-2. M. Pkiquet, however, in a note 
 to his edition of the " Roman de Rou," says that the only authority for tlie 
 date of that marriage is in the (^hronicle of Tours, and it is there referred to 
 1053. It would seem that the Papal excommunication was not actually taken 
 off till 1059 ; nor the formal dispensation for the marriage granted till 1063.
 
 NOTES. 335 
 
 Scholar ; to whom, of all men, nothing that is human should be 
 foreign ; whose closet is but a hermit's cell, unless it is the micro- 
 cosm that embraces the mart and the forum ; who, by the reflec- 
 tive part of his nature, seizes the higiier region of philosophy — 
 by tJie energetic, is attracted to the central focus of action. For 
 scholarship is but the parent of ideas ; and ideas are tlie parents of 
 action. 
 
 After the Conquest, as prelate of Canterbury, Lanfranc became 
 the second man in tiie kmgdom — happy, perhaps, for England 
 had he been the first ; for all the anecdotes recorded of him show 
 a deep and geuuiue sympathy with the oppressed population. But 
 William the King of the English escaped from the control which 
 Lanfranc had imposed on the Duke of the Normans. The scholar 
 had strengthened the aspirer ; he could only imperfectly influence 
 the Conqueror. 
 
 Lanfranc was not, it is true, a faultless character. He was a 
 priest, a lawyer, and a man of the world — three characters hard 
 to amalgamate into perfection', es])ecia]ly in the eleventh century. 
 But he stands in gigantic and brilliant contrast to the rest of our 
 priesthood in his own day, both in the superiority of his virtues, 
 and in liis exemption from the ordinary vices. He regarded the 
 cruelties of (Jdo of Bayeux with detestation, opposed hivn with 
 firmness, and ultimately, to the joy of all England, ruined his 
 power. He gave a great impetus to learning; he set a high 
 example to his monks, in his freedom from the mercenary 
 sins of their order ; he laid tlie foundations of a powerful and 
 splendid church, which, only because it failed in future Lanfraucs, 
 failed in effecting the civilization of which he designed it to be 
 the instrument. He refused to crown William Rufus, until that 
 king had sworn to govern according to law and to right ; and 
 died, though a Norman usurper, honored and beloved by the Saxon 
 people. 
 
 Scholar, and morning star of light in the dark age of force and 
 fraud, it is easier to praise thy life than to track, through *^he 
 length of centuries, all the measureless and invisible benefits which 
 the life of one scholar bequeaths to the world — in the souls it 
 awakens — in the thoughts it suggests ! ^ 
 
 ^ For authorities for the above sketch, aud for m.any intere'tinsr details of 
 Lanfranc's character, see Orderie. Vital. Hen. de Kuyghton, Ub. ii. Qervasius ; 
 and the life of Lanfranc, to be found lu the collection of his Works, &c.
 
 oo 
 
 36 NOTES. 
 
 Page 88. Edward the Confessor's reply to Magnus op 
 Denmark, who claimed his Crown. 
 
 Ou rare occasions Edward was not without touches of a brave 
 kingly nature. 
 
 Suorro Sturleson gives us a noble and spirited reply of the Con- 
 fessor to Magnus, who, as heir of Canute, claimed the Engli.<h 
 crown; it concludes thus — "Now, he (Hardicanute) died, and 
 then it was the resolution of all the people of the country to take 
 me for the king here in England. So long as I had no knigly tide 
 I served my superiors in all respects, like those who had no claims 
 by birth to land or kingdom. Now, however, I have received the 
 kingly title, and I am consecrated king; I have established my 
 royal dignity and authority, as my father before me ; and while I 
 live, 1 will not renounce my title. If King Magnus comes here 
 with an army, I will gather no army against him ; but lie shall 
 only get the opportunity of taking England when he has taken my 
 life. Tell him these words of mine." If we may consider this 
 reply to be atitlientic, it is significant, as proof that Edward rests 
 his title on tlie resolution of the people to take him for king ; and 
 counts as nothing, in comparison, his hereditary claims. Tliis, to- 
 getlicr with the general tone of the reply, particularly the passage 
 in wliich he implies that he trusts his defence not to his arm}' but 
 his people — makes it probable that Godwin dictated the answer; 
 and, indeed, Edward himself could not have couched it, either in 
 Saxon or Danish. But the king is equally entitled to the credit of 
 it, whether he composed it, or whether he merely approved and 
 sanctioned its gallant tone and its princely sentiment. 
 
 Page 91. Heralds. 
 
 So much of the " pride, pomp, and circumstance " which invest 
 the Age of Chivalry is borrowed from these companions of princes, 
 and blazoners of noble deeds, that it may interest the reader, if I 
 set briefl}' before him what our best antiquaries have said as to 
 their first appearance in our own history. 
 
 Camden (somewhat, I fear, too rashly) says, that " their reputa- 
 tion, honor, and name began in the time of Charlemagne." The 
 first mention of heralds in England occurs in the reign of Edward 
 III., a reign in which chivalry was at its dazzling zenith. Whit- 
 lock says, ■■ that some derive the name of Herald from Hereauld." 
 a Saxon word (old soldier, or old master), " because anciently they
 
 NOTES. 337 
 
 were chosen from veteran soldiers." Joseph Holland says, "I 
 find that Malcolm, King of Scots, sent a herald unto William the 
 Conqueror, to treat of a peace, when both armies were in order of 
 battle." Agard affirms, that " at the Conquest there was no prac- 
 tice of heraldry ; " and observes, truly, " that ihe Conqueror used 
 a monk for his messenger to King Harold." 
 
 To this I may add, that monks or priests also fulfil the office of 
 heralds in the old French and Xorman Chronicles. Thus Charles 
 the Simple sends an archbishop to treat with Rolfganger; Louis 
 the Debonair sends to Mormon, chief of the Bretons, " a sage and 
 prudent abliot." But in the Saxon times, the nuncius (a word 
 still used in heraldic Latin) was in the regular service both of the 
 king and the great earls. The Saxon name for such a messenger 
 was bode, and when employed in hostile negotiations, he was styled 
 war-bode. The messengers between Godwin and the king would 
 seem, by the general sense of the chronicles, to have been certain 
 thegus acting as mediators. 
 
 Page 1 26. The Fylgia, or Tutelary Spirit. 
 
 This lovely superstition in the Scandinavian belief is the more 
 remarkable, because it does not appear in the creed of the Ger- 
 manic Teutons, and is closely allied with the good angel, or guar- 
 dian genius, of the Persians. It forms, therefore, one of the 
 arguments that favor the Asiatic origin of the Norsemen. 
 
 The Fylgia {^following or attendant spirit) was always represented 
 as a female. Her influence was not uniformly favorable, though 
 such was its general characteristic. She was capable of revenge 
 if neglected, but had the devotion of her sex when properly 
 treated. Mr. Grenville Pigott, in his popular work, entitled " A 
 ISIanual of Scandinavian ^Mythology, "relates an interesting legend 
 with respect to one of these supernatural ladies ; — 
 
 A Scandinavian warrior, Halfred Vandn^dakald, having em- 
 braced Christianity, and being attacked by a disease which he 
 thought mortal, was naturally anxious that a spirit who had ac- 
 companied him through his pagan career should not attend him 
 into that other world, where her society might involve him in dis- 
 agreeable consequences. The persevering Fylgia, however, in the 
 shape of a fair maiden, walked on the waves of the sea after her 
 viking's ship. She came thus in sight of all the crew ; and Hal- 
 fred, recognizing his Fylgia, told her point blank that their con- 
 nection was at an end forever. The forsaken Fylgia had a high 
 
 VOL. 1. — 22
 
 338 NOTES. 
 
 spirit of her own, and she then asked Thorold " if he would take 
 her." Thorold nngallautly refused ; but Halfred the younger 
 said, " Maiden, I will take thee." ^ 
 
 111 the various Norse Saga there are many anecdotes of these 
 spirits, who are always charming, because, with their less earthly 
 attributes, they always bleud something of the woman. The poetry 
 embodied in their existence is of a softer and more humane char- 
 acter than that common with the stern and vast demons of the 
 Scandinavian mythology. 
 
 Page 138. The Origin of Earl Godwin. 
 
 Sharon Turner quotes from the Knytlinga Saga what he calls 
 " an explanation of ( jodwin's career or parentage, which no other 
 document affords " — namely, " that Ulf , a Danish chief, after the 
 battle of Skorstein, between Canute and Edmund Ironsides, pur- 
 sued the English fugitives into a wood, lost his way, met on the 
 morning a Saxon youth driving cattle to their pasture, asked him 
 to direct him in safety to Canute's ships, and offered him the 
 bribe of a gold ring for his guidance. The young herdsman re- 
 fused the bribe, but sheltered the Dane in the cottage of his 
 father (who is represented as a mere jjeasant), and conducted him 
 the next morning to the Danish camp ; previously to which, the 
 youth's father represented to Ulf, that his son, Godwin, could 
 never, after aiding a Dane to escape, rest in safety with his coun- 
 trymen, and besought him to liefriend his son's fortunes with 
 Canute." The Dane promised, and kept his word : hence God- 
 win's rise. Thierry, in his " History of the Norman Conquest," tells 
 the same story, on the authority of Torfreus, " Hist. Rer. Norweg." 
 Now. I need not say to any scholar in our early history, that the 
 Norse Chronicles, abounding with romance and legend, are never 
 to be received as authorities counter to our own records, though 
 occasionally valuable to supply omissions in the latter , and, un- 
 fortunately for this pretty story, we have against it the direct 
 statements of the very best authorities we possess, — namely, the 
 Saxon Chronicle and Florence of Worcester. The Saxon Chron- 
 icle expressly tells us that Godwin's father was Childe of Sussex 
 (Florence calls him minister or thegn of Sussex),- and that Wul- 
 noth was nephew to Edric, the all-powerful Earl or Duke of 
 
 ' Pigott's '• Scancl. Mythol." p. 360. Half. Vand. Saga. 
 * " Suthsaxouum Ministrum Wolfnothem." Flor. \VJg.
 
 NOTES. 339 
 
 Mercia. Florence confirms this statement, and gives the pedigree, 
 which may be deduced as follows : — 
 
 Edric married Edgith, Egelric, 
 
 daughter of King Ethelred II. surnained Leofwine. 
 
 Egelmar. 
 
 Wolnoth. 
 
 I 
 Godwin. 
 
 Thus this " old peasant," as the North Chronicles call Wolnoth, 
 was, according to our most unquestionable authorities, a tliegn of 
 one of the most important divisions in England, and a member of 
 the most powerful family in the kingdom ! Now, if our Saxon 
 authorities needed any aid from probabilities, it is scarcely worth 
 asking which is the more probable, that the sou of a Saxon herds- 
 man should in a few years rise to such power as to marry the sister 
 of the royal Danish Conqueror — or that that honor should be 
 conferred on the most able member of a house already allied to 
 Saxon royalty, and which evidently retained its power after the 
 fall of its head, the treacherous Edric Streoue ! Even after the 
 Conquest, one of Streone's nephews, Edricus Sylvaticus, is men- 
 tioned (Simon. Dunelm.) as "a very powerful thegn." Upon the 
 whole, the account given of Godwin's rise in the text of the work 
 appears the most correct that conjectures, based on our scanty his- 
 torical information, will allow. 
 
 In 1009 A. D., Wolnoth, the Childe or Thegn of Sussex, defeats 
 the fleets of Ethelred, under his uncle Brightric, and goes therefore 
 into rebellion. Thus when, in 1014 (five years afterwards), Ca- 
 nute is chosen king by all the fleet, it is probable that Wolnoth, and 
 Godwin his son, espoused his cause ; and that Godwin, subsequently 
 presented to Canute as a young noble of great promise, was fav- 
 ored by that sagacious king, and ultimately honored with the 
 hand, first of his sister, secondly of his niece, as a mode of concili- 
 ating the Sa.xon thegns. 
 
 Page 280. The want of Fortresses in England. 
 
 The Saxons were sad destroyers. They destroyed the strong- 
 holds which the Briton had received from the Roman, and built 
 very few others. Thus the land was left open to the Danes. 
 Alfred, sensible of this defect, repaired the walls of London, and
 
 340 NOTES. 
 
 other cities, and nrgently recommended his nobles and prelates to 
 build fortresses, but could not persuade them. His great-souled 
 daughter, Elfleda, was the only imitator of his example. She 
 built eight castles iu three years.^ 
 
 It was tlms that in a country, iu which the general features do 
 not allow of protracted warfare, the inhabitants were always at 
 the hazard of a single pitched battle. Subsequent to the Con- 
 quest, in the reign of John, it was, in truth, the strong castle of 
 Dover, on the siege of which Prince Louis lost so much time, that 
 saved the realm of England from passing to a French djmasty ; 
 and as, in later periods, strongholds fell again into decay, so it is 
 remarkable to observe how easily the country was overrun after 
 any signal victory of one of the contending parties. In this truth, 
 the Wars of the Roses abound with much instruction. The hand- 
 ful of foreign mercenaries with which Henry VII. won his crown, 
 — though the real heir, the Earl of Warwick (granting Edward 
 IV.'s children to be illegiLimate, which they clearly were accord- 
 ing to the rites of the Church), had never lost his claim, by the 
 defeat of Richard at Bosworth ; — the march of the Pretender to 
 Derby, the dismay it spread througliout England, and the cer- 
 tainty of his conquest had he proceeded ; — the easy victory of 
 William III. at a time when certainly the bulk of the nation was 
 opposed to his cause ; — are all facts pregnant with warnings, to 
 which we are as blind as we were in the days of Alfred. 
 
 Page 309. The Ruins of Penmaen-mawr. 
 
 In Camden's " Brittania " there is an account of the remarkable 
 relics assigned, in the text, to the last refuge of Gryffyth-ap-Lle- 
 wellyn, taken from a manuscript by Sir John Wynne in the time 
 of Charles I. In this account are minutely described, " ruinous 
 walls of an exceeding strong fortification, compassed with a treble 
 wall, and, within each wall, the foundations of at least one hun- 
 dred towers, about six yards iu diameter within the walls. This 
 castle seems (while it stood) impregnable; there being no way to 
 offer any assault on it, the hill being so very high, steep, and 
 rocky, and the walls of such strength, — the way or entrance into 
 it ascendiug with many turnings, so that one hundred men might 
 defend themselves against a whole legion ; and yet it should seem 
 that there were lodgings within those walls for twenty thousand 
 men. 
 
 1 AssEB : " De Reb. Gest. Alf.," pp. 17, 18.
 
 NOTES. 341 
 
 "By the tradition we receive from our ancestors, this was the 
 strongest refuge or place of defence that the ancient Britons had 
 in all Snowdon ; moreover, the greatness of the work shows that 
 it was a princely fortification, strengthened by nature and work- 
 manship."^ 
 
 But in the year 1771, Governor Pownall ascended Penmaen- 
 mawr, inspected these remains, and published his account in the 
 " ArchiEologia," a'oI. iii. p. 303, with a sketch both of the mount 
 and the walls at the summit. The Governor is of opinion that it 
 never was a fortification. He thinks that the inward enclosure 
 contained a earn (or arch-Druid's sepulchre), that there is not room 
 for any lodgement, that the walls are not of a kind which can form 
 a cover, and give at the same time the advantage of fighting from 
 them. In short, that the place was one of the Druids' consecrated 
 high places of worship. He adds, however, that " Mr. Pennant 
 has gone twice over it, intends to make an actual survey, and 
 anticipates much from that great antiquary's knowledge and 
 accuracy." 
 
 We turn next to Mr. Pennant, and we find him giving a flat 
 contradiction to the Governor. " I have more than once," ^ says 
 lie, " visited this noted rock, to view the fortifications described by 
 the editor of Camden, from some notes of that sensible old baro- 
 net. Sir John Wynne, of Gwidir, and have found his account very 
 just. 
 
 " The fronts of three, if not four walls, presented themselves 
 very distinctly one above the other. I measured the height of one 
 wall, which was at the time nine feet, the thickness seven feet and 
 a half." (Now, Governor Pownall also measured the walls, agrees 
 pretty well with Pennant as to their width, but makes them only 
 five feet high.) "Between these walls, in all parts, were innu- 
 merable small buildings, mostly circular. These had been much 
 higher, as is evident from the fall of stones which lie scattered at 
 their bottoms, and probably had once the form of towers, as Sir 
 John asserts. Their diameter is, in general, from twelve to eigh- 
 teen feet (ample room here for lodgement) ; the walls were in cer- 
 tain places intersected with others equally strong. This strong- 
 hold of the Britons is exactly of the same kind with those on Carn 
 Madryn, Cam Boduau, and Tre'r Caer. 
 
 1 Camden ; " Caernarvonshire." 
 
 2 Pennant's " Wales," vol. ii. p. 146.
 
 342 NOTES. 
 
 " This was most judiciously chosen to cover the passage into 
 Anglesea, and the remoter part of their country ; and must, from 
 its vast strength, have been invulnerable, except by famine ; being 
 inaccessible by its natural steepness towards the sea, and on the 
 parts fortified in the manner described." So far, Pennant versus 
 Pownall ! " Who shall decide when doctors disagree ? " The 
 opinion of both these antiquarians is liable to demur. Governor 
 Pownall might probably be a better judge of military defences 
 than Pennant ; but he evidently forms his notions of defence with 
 imperfect knowledge of the forts, which would have amply sufficed 
 for the warfare of the ancient Britons ; and moreover, he was one 
 of those led astray by Bryant's crotchets as to " High places," &c. 
 What appears most probable is, that the place was both earn and 
 fort ; that the strength of the place, and the convenience of stones, 
 suggested the surrounding the narrow area of the central sepul- 
 chre with walls, intended for refuge and defence. As to the cir- 
 cular buildings, which seem to have puzzled these antiquaries, it is 
 strange that they appear to have overlooked the accounts which 
 serve best to explain them. Strabo says that " the houses of the 
 Britons were round, with a high pointed covering ; " Cifisar says 
 that they were only lighted by the door ; in the Antonine Column 
 they are represented as circular, with an arched entrance, single or 
 double. They were always small, and seem to have contained but 
 a single room. These circular buildings were not, therefore, ne- 
 cessarily Druidical cells, as has been supposed ; nor perhaps actual 
 towers, as contended for by Sir John Wynne ; but habitations, 
 after the usual fashion of British houses, for the inmates or garri- 
 son of the enclosure. Taking into account the traditions of the 
 spot mentioned by Sir John Wynne, and other traditions still 
 existing, which mark, in the immediate neighborhood, the scenes 
 of legendary battles, it is hoped that the reader will accept the 
 description in the text as suggesting, amidst conflicting authori- 
 ties, the most probable supposition of the nature and character of 
 these very interesting remains in the eleventh century,^ and during 
 the most memorable invasion of Wales (under Harold), wliich 
 occurred between the time of Geraint, or Arthur, and that of 
 Henry II. 
 
 1 The ruins still extant are much diminished since the time even of Pownall or 
 Pennant : and must be indeed inconsiderable, compared with the buildings or 
 walls which existed at the date of my tale.
 
 NOTES. 343 
 
 Page 310. The Idol Bel. 
 
 Mous. Johauneau considers that Bel, or Belinus, is derived from 
 the Greek, a surname of Apollo, aud means the archer ; from 
 6e/os, a dart or arrow. ^ 
 
 I own I think this among the spurious conceits of the learned, 
 suggested hy vague affinities of name. But it is quite as likely (if 
 there be anything in tlie conjecture) that the Celt tauglit the 
 Greek as that the Greek taught the Celt. 
 
 There are some very interesting questions, however, for scholars 
 to discuss, — namely, 1st, When did the Celts first introduce idols ? 
 2d, Can we believe the classical authorities that assure us that the 
 Druids originally admitted no idol worship '' If so, we find the 
 chief idols of the Druids cited by Lucan ; and they therefore ac- 
 quired them long before Lucau's time. From whom would they 
 acquire them? Not from the Romans; for the Roman gods are 
 not the least similar to the Celtic, when the last are fairly exam- 
 ined. Not from the Teutons, from whose deities those of the Celt 
 equally differ. Have we not given too much faith to the classic 
 writers, who assert the original simplicity of the Druid worship ? 
 And will not their popular idols be found to be as ancient as the 
 remotest traces of the Celtic existence ^ Would not the Cimmerii 
 have transported them from the period of tiieir first traditional 
 immigration from the East ^ and is not their Bel identical with 
 the Babylonian deity ? 
 
 1 JOHANN. : " Ap. Acad. Celt.," torn. iii. p. 151.
 
 HAROLD. 
 
 PART SECOND.
 
 Edith, the Christian maid, dwelt in the home of Hilda, 
 the heathen prophetess. 
 
 Harold.
 
 HAEOLD, 
 
 THE LAST OF THE SAXON KINGS. 
 
 BOOK VIII. 
 
 PATE. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Some days after the tragical event with which the last 
 chapter closed, the ships of the Saxons were assembled 
 in the wide waters of Conway ; and on the small fore- 
 deck of the stateliest vessel stood Harold, bare-headed, 
 before Aldyth the widowed queen. For the faithful 
 bard had fallen by the side of his lord ; the dark promise 
 was unfulfilled, and the mangled clay of the jealous 
 Gryffyth slept alone in the narrow bed. A chair of state, 
 with dossel and canopy, was set for the daughter of Algar, 
 and behind stood maidens of Wales, selected in haste for 
 her attendants. 
 
 But Aldyth had not seated herself ; and, side by side 
 with her dead lord's great victor, thus she spoke : — 
 
 " Woe worth the day and the hour when Aldyth left 
 the hall of her fathers, and the land of her birth ! Her 
 robe of a queen has been rent and torn over an aching 
 heart, and the air she has breathed has reeked as with 
 
 VOL. 11. — 1
 
 2 HAROLD. 
 
 blood. I go forth, widowed, and homeless, and lonely ; 
 but my feet shall press the soil of my sires, and my lips 
 draw the breath which came sweet and pure to my child- 
 hood. And thou, Harold, standest beside me like the 
 shape of my own youth, and the dreams of old come back 
 at the sound of thy voice. Fare thee well, noble heait 
 and true Saxon. Thou hast twice saved the child of thy 
 foe, — first from shame, then from famine. Thou wouldst 
 have saved my dread lord from open force and dark 
 murder ; but the saints were wroth : the blood of my 
 kinsfolk, shed by liis hand, called for vengeance, and 
 the shrines he had pillaged and burned murmured doom 
 from their desolate altars. Peace be with the dead, and 
 peace with the living ! I shall go back to my father and 
 brethren ; and if the fame and life of child and sister be 
 dear to them, their swords will never more leave their 
 sheaths against Harold. So thy hand, and God guard 
 thee ! " 
 
 Harold raised to his lips tlie hand which the queen 
 extended to him ; and to Aldyth now seemed restored the 
 rare beauty of her youth, — as pride and sorrow gave her 
 the charm of emotion, which love and duty had failed to 
 bestow. 
 
 " Life and health to thee, noble lady," said the earl. 
 "Tell thy kindred from me, that for thy sake, and thy 
 grandsire's, I would fain be their brother and friend ; 
 were they but united with me, all England were now 
 safe against every foe and each peril. Thy daughter 
 already awaits thee in the halls of Morcar ; and wlien 
 time has scarred the wounds of the past, may the joys 
 re-bloom in the face of thy child. Farewell, noble 
 Aldyth ! " 
 
 He dropped the hand he had held till tlien, turned 
 slowly to the side of the vessel, and re-entered his boat.
 
 HAROLD. 3 
 
 As he was rowed back to shore, the horn gave the signal 
 for raising anchor, and the ship, righting itself, moved 
 majestically through the midst of the fleet. But Aldyth 
 still stood erect, and her eyes followed the boat that bore 
 away the secret love of her youth. 
 
 As Harold reached the shore, Tostig and the JSTorman, 
 who had been conversing amicably together on the beach, 
 advanced towards the earl. 
 
 " Brother," said Tostig, smiling, " it were easy for thee 
 to console the fair widow, and bring to our House all the 
 force of East Anglia and Mercia." Harold's face slightly 
 changed, but he made no answer. 
 
 "A marvellous fair dame," said the Norman, "not- 
 withstanding her cheek be somewhat pinched, and the 
 hue sunburnt. And I wonder not that the poor cat- 
 king kept her so close to his side." 
 
 " Sir Norman," said the earl, hastening to change the 
 subject, " the war is now over, and for long years Wales 
 will leave our Marches in peace. This eve I propose to ride 
 hence towards London, and we will converse by the way." 
 
 " Go you so soon 1 " cried the knight, surprised. 
 "Shall you not take means utterly to subjugate this 
 troublesome race, parcel out the lands among your thegns, 
 to hold as martial fiefs at need, build towers and forts on 
 the heights, and at the river-mouths 1 — where a site, 
 like this, for some fair castle and vawmure ? In a word, 
 do you Saxons merely overrun, and neglect to hold what 
 you win ? " 
 
 " We fight in self-defence, not for conquest. Sir Nor- 
 man. AVe have no skill in building castles ; and I pray 
 you not to hint to my thegns the conceit of dividing a 
 land, as thieves would their plunder. King Grytfyth is 
 dead, and his brothers will reign in his stead. England 
 has guarded her realm, and chastised the aggressors.
 
 4 HAROLD. 
 
 Wliat need England do more 1 We are not, like our first 
 barbarous fathers, carving out homes with the scythe of 
 their saexes. The wave settles after the flood, and the 
 races of men after lawless convulsions." 
 
 Tostig smiled in disdain at the knight, who mused a 
 little over the strange Avords he had heard, and then 
 silently followed the earl to the fort. 
 
 But when Harold gained his chamber, he found there 
 an express, arrived in haste from Cliester, with the news 
 that Algar, the sole enemy and single rival of his power, 
 was no more. Fever, occasioned by neglected wounds, 
 had stretched him impotent on a bed of sickness, and his 
 fierce passions had aided the march of disease ; the rest- 
 less and profitless race was run. 
 
 The first emotion which these tidings called forth was 
 that of pain. The bold sympathize with the bold ; and 
 in great hearts there is always a certain friendship for a 
 gallant foe. But recovering the shock of that first im- 
 pression, Harold could not but feel that England was 
 freed from its most dangerous subject, — himself from 
 the only obstacle apparent to the fulfilment of his lumi- 
 nous career. 
 
 " Now, then, to London," whispered the voice of his 
 ambition. " Not a foe rests to trouble the peace of that 
 empire which thy conquests, Harold, have made more 
 secure and compact than ever yet has been the realm of 
 the Saxon kings. Thy way through the country that 
 thou hast henceforth delivered from tlie fire and sword of 
 the mountain ravager, will be one march of triumph, 
 like a Roman's of old ; and the voice of the people will 
 echo the hearts of the army ; those hearts are thine own. 
 Verily Hilda is a prophetess ; and when Eld ward rests 
 with the saints, from what English heart will not burst 
 the cry, ' Long live Harold the King ' 1 "
 
 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Norman rode by the side of Harold, in the rear of 
 the victorious armament. The ships sailed to their havens, 
 and Tostig departed to his northern earldom. 
 
 " And now," said Harold, " I am at leisure to thank 
 thee, brave Norman, for more than thine aid in council 
 and war, — at leisure now to turn to the last prayer of 
 Sweyn, and the often-shed tears of Githa my mother for 
 "VVolnoth the exile. Thou seest with thine own eyes that 
 there is no longer pretext or plea for thy count to detain 
 these hostages. Thou shalt hear from Edward himself 
 that he no longer asks sureties for the faith of the House 
 of Godwin ; and I cannot think that Duke William 
 would have suffered thee to bring me over this news from 
 the dead if he were not prepared to do justice to the 
 living." 
 
 " Your speech. Earl of Wessex, goes near to the truth. 
 But, to speak plainly and frankly, I think William, my 
 lord, hath a keen desire to welcome in person a chief so 
 illustrious as Harold, and I guess that he keeps the hos- 
 tages to make thee come to claim them." The knight, as 
 he spoke, smiled gayly ; but the cunning of the Norman 
 gleamed in the quick glance of his clear hazel eye. 
 
 " Fain must I feel pride at such wish, if you flatter me 
 not," said Harold ; " and I would gladly myself, now the 
 land is in peace, and my presence not needful, visit a 
 court of such fame. I hear high praise from cheapman 
 and pilgrim of Count William's wise care for barter and
 
 6 HAROLD. 
 
 trade, and might learn much from the ports of the Seine 
 tliat would profit the marts of the Thames. Much, too, I 
 hear of Count William's zeal to revive the learning of the 
 Church, aided by Lanfranc the Lombard ; much I hear of 
 the pomp of his buildings, and the grace of his court. 
 All this would I cheerfully cross the ocean to see ; but 
 all this w^ould but sadden my heart if I returned, without 
 Haco and. Wolnoth." 
 
 " I dare not speak so as to plight faith for the duke," 
 said the Norman, who, though sharp to deceive, had that 
 rein on his conscience that it did not let him openly lie ; 
 " but this I do know, that there are few things in his 
 countdom which my lord would not give to clasp the right 
 hand of Harold, and feel assured of his friendship," 
 
 Though wise and far-seeing, Harold was not suspi- 
 cious ; — no Englishman, unless it were Edward himself, 
 knew the secret pretensions of William to the English 
 throne ; and he answered simply, — 
 
 " It were well, indeed, both for ISTormandy and Eng- 
 land, both against foes and for trade, to be allied and 
 well-liking. I will think over your words, Sire de Gra- 
 ville, and it shall not be my fault if old feuds be not for- 
 gotten, and those now in thy court be the last hostages 
 ever kept by the Norman for the faith of the Saxon." 
 
 With that he turned the discourse ; and the aspiring 
 and able envoy, exhilarated by the hope of a successful 
 mission, animated the way by remarks — alternately 
 lively and shrewd — which drew the brooding earl from 
 those musings which had now grown habitual to a mind 
 once clear and open as the day. 
 
 Harold had not miscalculated the enthusiasm his vic- 
 tories had excited. Where he passed, all the towns 
 poured forth their populations to see and to hail him ; and 
 on arriving at the metropolis, the rejoicings in his honor
 
 HAROLD. 7 
 
 seemed to equal those which had greeted, at the accession 
 of Edward, the restoration of the line of Cerdic. 
 
 According to the barbarous custom of the age, the head 
 of the unfortunate sub-king, and the prow of his special 
 war-ship, had been sent to Edward as the trophies of con- 
 quest : but Harold's uniform moderation respected the 
 living. The race of Gryffyth ^ were re-established on the 
 tributary throne of that hero, in the persons of his 
 brothers, Blethgent and Kigwatle, " and they swore 
 oaths," says the graphic old chronicler, " and delivered 
 hostages to the king and the earl that they would be 
 faithful to him in all things, and be everywhere ready for 
 him, by water and by land, and make such renders from 
 the land as had been done before to any other king." 
 
 Not long after this, Mallet de Graville returned to 
 Normandy, with gifts for William from King Edward, 
 and special requests from that prince, as well as from the 
 earl, to restore the hostages. But Mallet's acuteness 
 readily perceived that in much Edward's mind had been 
 alienated from William. It was clear that the duke's 
 marriage, and the pledges that had crowned the union, 
 •were distasteful to the asceticism of the saint-king : and 
 with Godwin's death, and Tostig's absence from the court, 
 seemed to have expired all Edward's bitterness towards 
 that powerful family of which Harold was now the head. 
 Still, as no subject out of the house of Cerdic had ever 
 yet been elected to the Saxon throne, there was no appre- 
 hension on Mallet's mind that in Harold was the true 
 rival to William's cherished aspiration.?. Though Edward 
 the Atheling was dead, his son Edgar lived, the natural 
 heir to the throne ; and the Norman (whose liege had 
 succeeded to the duchy at the age of eigbt) was not suffi- 
 
 1 Gryffyth left a son, Caradoc; but he was put aside as a minor, 
 according to the Saxon customs.
 
 8 HAROLD. 
 
 ciently cognizant of the invariable custom of the Anglo- 
 Saxons, to set aside, whether for kingdoms or for earl- 
 doms, all claimants unfitted for rule by their tender years. 
 He could, indeed, perceive that the young Atheling's 
 minority was in favor of his Norman liege, and would 
 render him but a weak defender of the realm, and that 
 there seemed no popular attachment to the infant orphan 
 of the Germanized exile : his name was never mentioned 
 at the court, nor had Edward acknowledged him as heir, 
 — a circumstance which he interpreted auspiciously for 
 William. Nevertheless, it was clear that, both at court 
 and amongst the people, the Norman influence in England 
 was at the lowest ebb ; and that the only man who could 
 restore it, and realize the cherished dreams of his grasping 
 lord, was Harold the all-powerful.
 
 HAEOLD. 9 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Trusting, for the time, to the success of Edward's urgent 
 demand for the release of his kinsmen, as well as his 
 own, Harold was now detained at the court by all those 
 arrears of business which had accumulated fast under the 
 inert hands of the monk-king during the prolonged cam- 
 paigns against the Welsh ; but he had leisure at least for 
 frequent visits to the old Roman house ; and those visits 
 were not more grateful to his love than to the harder and 
 more engrossing passion which divided his heart. 
 
 The nearer he grew to the dazzling object, to the pos- 
 session of which Fate seemed to have shaped all circum- 
 stances, the more he felt the charm of those mystic 
 influences which his colder reason had disdained. He 
 who is ambitious of things afar and xxncertain, passes at 
 once into the Poet-Land of Imagination ; to aspire and to 
 imagine are yearnings twin-born. 
 
 "When in his fresh youth and his calm lofty manhood, 
 Harold saw action, how adventurous soever, limited to 
 the barriers of noble duty ; when he lived but for his 
 country, all spread clear before his vision in the sunlight 
 of day ; but as the barriers receded, while the horizon 
 extended, his eye left the Certain to rest on the Vague. ,' 
 As self, though still half concealed from his conscience, 
 gradually assumed the wide space love of country had 
 filled, the maze of delusion commenced ; he was to shape 
 fate out of circumstance, — no longer defy fate through 
 virtue ; and thus Hilda became to him as a voice thai
 
 •10 HAROLD. 
 
 answered the questions of his own restless heart. He 
 needed encouragement from the Unknown to sanction his 
 desires and confirm his ends. But Edith, rejoicing in the 
 fair fame of her betrothed, and content in tlie pure rapt- 
 ure of beholding him again, reposed in the divine credulity 
 of the happy hour; she marked not, in Harold's visits, 
 that, on entrance, the earl's eye sought first the stern face 
 of the Vala, — she wondered not why those two conversed 
 in whispers together, or stood so often at moonlight by 
 the Runic grave. Alone, of all womankind, she felt that 
 Harold loved her, — that that love had braved time, 
 absence, change, and hope deferred ; and she knew not 
 that what love has most to dread in the wild heart of 
 aspiring man, is not persons, but things, — is not things, 
 but their symbols. 
 
 So weeks and months rolled on, and Duke "William 
 returned no answer to the demands for his hostages. And 
 Harold's heart smote him, that he neglected his brother's 
 prayer and his mother's accusing tears. 
 
 Kow Githa, since the death of her husband, had lived 
 in seclusion and apart from town ; and one day Harold 
 was surprised by her unexpected arrival at the large, 
 timbered house in London which had passed to his pos- 
 session. As she abruptly entered the room in which he 
 sat, he sprang forward to welcome and embrace her ; but 
 she waved him back with a grave and mournful gesture, 
 and, sinking on one knee, she said thus : — 
 
 " See, the mother is a suppliant to the son for the 
 son. 'No, Harold, no, — I will not rise till thou hast 
 heard me. For years, long and lonely, have I lingered 
 and pined, — long years ! Will my boy know his mother 
 again ? Thou hast said to me, ' Wait till the messenger 
 returns.' I have waited. Thou hast said, ' This time 
 the count cannot resist the demand of the king.' I bowed
 
 HAROLD. 11 
 
 my head and submitted to thee as I had done to Godwin 
 my lord. And I have not till now claimed thy promise ; 
 for I allowed thy country, thy king, and thy fame to have 
 claims more strong than a mother. Now I tarry no more ; 
 now no more will I be amused and deceived. Thine 
 hours are thine own, — free thy coming and thy going. 
 Harold, I claim thine oath. Harold, I touch thy right 
 hand. Harold, I remind thee of thy troth and thy 
 plight, to cross the seas thyself, and restore the child to 
 the mother." 
 
 " Oh, rise, rise ! " exclaimed Harold, deeply moved. 
 " Patient hast thou been, my mother, and now I will 
 linger no more, nor hearken to other voice than your own. 
 I will seek the king this day, and ask his leave to cross 
 the sea to Duke William." 
 
 Then Githa rose, and fell on the earl's breast weeping.
 
 12 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It so chanced, Avhile this interview took place between 
 Githa and the earl, that Gurth, hawking in the woodlands 
 round Hilda's house, turned aside to visit his Danish 
 kinswoman. The prophetess was absent, but he was told 
 that Edith was within j and Gurth, about to be united to 
 a maiden who had long won his noble affections, cherished 
 a brother's love for his brother's fair betrothed. He 
 entered the gynoecium, and there still, as when we were 
 first made present in that chamber, sat the maids, em- 
 ployed on a work more brilliant to the eye, and more 
 pleasing to the labor, than that which had then tasked 
 their active hands. They were broidering into a tissue 
 of the purest gold the effigy of a fighting warrior, designed 
 by Hilda for the banner of Earl Harold ; and, removed 
 from the awe of their mistress, as they worked, their 
 tongues sang gayly, and it was in the midst of song and 
 laughter that the fair young Saxon lord entered the 
 chamber. The babble and the mirth ceased at his entrance ; 
 each voice was stilled, each eye cast down demurely. 
 Edith was not amongst them, and in answer to his inquiry 
 the eldest of the maidens pointed towards the peristyle 
 without the house. 
 
 The winning and kindly thegn paused a few moments 
 to admire the tissue and commend the work, and then 
 sought the peristyle. 
 
 Near the water-spring that gushed free and bright 
 through the Roman fountain, he found Edith, seated in
 
 HAROLD. 13 
 
 an attitude of deep thought and gloomy dejection. She 
 started as he approached, and, springing forward to meet 
 him, exclaimed, — 
 
 " Gurth, Heaven hath sent thee to me, I know well, 
 thougli I cannot explain to thee why, for I cannot explain 
 it to myself ; but know I do, by the mysterious bode- 
 nients of my own soul, that some great danger is at this 
 moment encircling thy brother Harold. Go to him, I 
 pray, I implore thee, forthwith ; and let thy clear sense 
 and warm heart be by his side." 
 
 "I will go instantly," said Gurth, startled. "But do 
 not suffer, I adjure thee, sweet kinswoman, the supersti- 
 tion that wraps this place, as a mist wraps a marsh, to 
 infect thy pure spirit. In my early youth I submitted to 
 the influence of Hilda ; I became man, and outgrew it. 
 Much secretly has it grieved me of late to see that our 
 kinswoman's Danish lore has brought even the strong 
 heart of Harold under its spell ; and where once he only 
 spoke of duty, I now hear him speak ol fate." 
 
 " Alas ! alas ! " answered Edith, wringing her hands : 
 " when the bird hides its head in the brake, doth it shut 
 out the track of the hound ? Can we baffle fate by refus- 
 ing to heed its approaches ? But we waste precious 
 moments. Go, Gurth, dear Gurth ! Heavier and darker, 
 while we speak, gathers the cloud on my heart ! " 
 
 Gurth said no more, but hastened to remount his steed ; 
 and Edith remained alone by the Roman fountain, motion- 
 less and sad, as if the Nymph of the old Religion stood 
 there to see the lessening stream well away from the shat- 
 tered stone, and know that the life of the Nymph was 
 measured by the ebb of the stream. 
 
 Gurth arrived in London just as Harold was taking 
 boat for the palace of Westminster, to seek the king ; and 
 after interchanging a hurried embrace with his mother, he
 
 14 HAROLD. 
 
 accompanied Harold to the palace, and learned his errand 
 by the way. While Harold spoke, he did not foresee 
 any danger to be incurred by a friendly visit to the Nor- 
 man court ; and the interval that elapsed between Harold's 
 communication and their entrance into the king's chamber, 
 allowed no time for mature and careful reflection. 
 
 Edward, on whom years and infirmity had increased of 
 late with rapid ravage, heard Harold's request with a 
 grave and deep attention, which he seldom vouclisafed to 
 earthly affairs. And he remained long silent after his 
 brother-in-law had finished ; so long silent, that the earl, 
 at first, deemed that he was absorbed in one of those 
 mystic and abstracted reveries, in wliich, more and more 
 as he grew nearer to the borders of the World Unseen, 
 Edward so strangely indulged. But, looking more close, 
 both he and Gurth were struck by the evident dismay on 
 the king's face, while the collected light of Edward's cold 
 eye showed that his mind was awake to the human 
 world. In truth, it is probable tliat Edward, at tluit 
 moment, was recalling rash hints, if not promises, to his 
 rapacious cousin of Normandy, made during his exile. 
 And sensible of his own declining health, and the tender 
 years of the young Edgar, he might be musing over the 
 terrible pretender to the English throne, whose claims his 
 earlier indiscretion might seem to sanction. Whatever 
 his thoughts, they were dark and sinister, as at length he 
 said, slowly, — 
 
 " Is thine oath indeed given to thy mother, and doth she 
 keep thee to it?" 
 
 " Both, O king," answered Harold, briefly. 
 
 " Then I can gainsay thee not. And thou, Harold, art 
 a man of this living world ; thou playest here the part of 
 a centurion ; thou sayest, ' Come,' and men come, — ' Go,' 
 and men move at thy will. Therefore thou mayest well
 
 HAROLD. 15 
 
 judge for thyself. I gainsay thee not, nor interfere 
 between man and his vow. But think not," continued 
 the king in a more solemn voice, and with increasing 
 emotion, — " think not that I will charge my soul that I 
 counselled or encouraged this errand. Yea, I foresee that 
 thy journey will lead but to great evil to England, and 
 sore grief or dire loss to thee." ^ 
 
 " How so, dear lord and king 1 " said Harold, startled 
 by Edward's unwonted earnestness, though deeming it 
 but one of the visionary chimeras habitual to the saint. 
 " How so ? William thy cousin hath ever borne the 
 name of one fair to friend, though fierce to foe. And 
 foul indeed his dishonor, if he could meditate harm 
 to a man trusting his faith, and sheltered by his own 
 roof-tree." 
 
 " Harold, Harold," said Edward, impatiently, " I know 
 William of old. Nor is he so simple of mind that he will 
 cede aught for thy pleasure, or even to my will, unless it 
 bring some gain to himself.^ I say no more. Thou art 
 cautioned, and I leave the rest to Heaven." 
 
 It is the misfortune of men little famous for worldly 
 lore, that in those few occasions when, in that sagacity 
 caused by their very freedom from the strife and passion 
 of those around, they seem almost prophetically inspired, 
 — it is their misfortune to lack the power of conveying 
 to others their own convictions ; they may divine, but 
 they cannot reason ; and Harold could detect nothing to 
 deter his purpose, in a vague fear, based on no other argu- 
 ment than as vague a perception of the duke's general 
 character. But Gurth, listening less to his reason than 
 his devoted love for his brother, took alarm, and said, after 
 a pause, — 
 
 ^ "BromtonChron.," Knyghton, Walsinghara, Hoveden, &c. 
 2 Broraton, Knyghtou, &c.
 
 16 HAROLD. 
 
 " Thinkest thou, good my king, that the same danger 
 were incurred if Gurth instead of Harold crossed the seas 
 to demand the hostages 1 " 
 
 "No," said Edward, eagerly, "and so would I counsel. 
 William would not have the same ohjects to gain in prac- 
 tising his worldly guile upou thee JSTo ; methinks that 
 were the prudent course." 
 
 " And the ignoble one for Harold," said the elder 
 brother, almost indignantly. " Howbeit, I thank thee 
 gratefully, dear king, for thy affectionate heed and care ; 
 and so the saints guard thee ! " 
 
 On leaving the king, a warm discussion between the 
 brothers took place ; but Gurth's arguments were stronger 
 than those of Harold, and the earl was driven to rest his 
 persistence on his own special pledge to Githa. As soon, 
 however, as they had gained their home, that plea was 
 taken from him ; for the moment Gurth related to his 
 mother Edward's fears and cautions, slie, ever mindful of 
 Godwin's preference for the earl, and his last commands 
 to her, hastened to release Harold from his pledge ; and 
 to implore him at least to sufi'er Giu'th to be his substi- 
 tute to the Norman court. " Listen dispassionately," 
 said Gurth ; " rely upon it that Edward has reasons for 
 his fears, more rational than those he has given to us. 
 He knows William from his youth upward, and hatli 
 loved him too well to hint doubts of his good faith with- 
 out just foundation. Are there no reasons why danger 
 from William should be special against thyself ? While 
 the Normans abounded in the court, there were rumors 
 that the duke had some designs on England, which 
 Edward's preference seemed to sanction : such designs 
 now, in the altered state of England, were absurd, — too 
 frantic for a prince of William's reputed wusdom to enter- 
 tain ; yet he may not unnaturally seek to regain the
 
 HAROLD. 17 
 
 former Norman influence in tliese realms. He knows 
 that in you he receives the most powerful man in Eng- 
 land ; that your detention alone would convulse the 
 country from one end of it to the other, and enable hira, 
 perhaps, to extort from Edward some measures dishonor- 
 able to us all ; but against me he can harbor no ill design, 
 — my detention would avail him nothing. And, in truth, 
 if Harold be safe in England, Gurth must be safe in 
 Eouen. Thy preseuce here at the head of our armies 
 guarantees me from wrong. But reverse the case, and 
 with Gurth in England, is Harold safe in Rouen '? I, 
 but a simple soldier and homely lord, with slight influence 
 over Edward, no command in the country, and little prac- 
 tised of speech in the stormy Witan, — I am just so great 
 that William dare not harm me, but not so great that he 
 should even wish to harm me." 
 
 " He detains our kinsmen, why not thee?" said Harold. 
 
 " Because with our kinsmen he has at least the pretext 
 that they were pledged as hostages ; because I go simply as 
 guest and envoy. No, to me ilauger cannot come : be 
 ruled, dear Harold." 
 
 "Be ruled, my son," cried Githa, clasping the earl's 
 knees, " and do not let me dread, in the depth of the 
 night, to see the shade of Godwin, and hear his voice 
 say, ' Woman, where is Harold ? ' " 
 
 It was impossible for the earl's strong understanding 
 to resist the arguments addressed to it ; and, to say truth, 
 he had been more disturbed than he liked to confess by 
 Edward's sinister forewarnings ; }■ et, on the other hand, 
 there were reasons against his acquiescence in Gurth's 
 proposal. The primary, and, to do him justice, the 
 strongest, was in his native courage and his generous 
 pride. Should he, for the first time in his life, shrink 
 from a peril in the discharge of his duty, — a peril, too, 
 
 VOL. II. 2
 
 18 HAROLD. 
 
 so uncertain and vague ? Should he suffer Gurth to ful- 
 fil the pledge he himself had taken? And granting even 
 that Gurth were safe from whatever danger he individu- 
 ally might incur, did it become him to accept the proxy 1 
 Would Gurth's voice, too, be as potent as his own in 
 effecting the return of the hostages ? 
 
 The next reasons that swayed him were those he could 
 not avow. In clearing his way to the English throne, it 
 would be of no mean importance to secure the friendship 
 of the Norman duke, and the Norman acquiescence in his 
 pretensions ; it would be of infinite service to remove 
 those prepossessions against his House which were still 
 rife with the Normans, who retained a bitter remem- 
 brance of their countrymen decimated,^ it was said, with 
 the concurrence, if not at the order, of Godwin, when 
 they accompanied the ill-fated Alfred to the English 
 shore, and who were yet sore with tlieir old expulsion 
 from the English court at the return of his father and 
 himself. 
 
 Though it could not enter into his head that William, 
 possessing no party whatever in England, could himself 
 aspire to the English crown, yet, at Edward's death there 
 might be pretenders whom the Norman arms could find 
 ready excuse to sanction. There was the boy Atheling 
 on the one side ; there was the valiant Norwegian King 
 Hardrada on the other, who might revive the claims of 
 his predecessor Magnus as heir to the rights of Canute. 
 So near and so formidable a neighbor as the count of tlie 
 Normans, every object of policy led him to propitiate ; 
 and Gurth, with his unbending hate of all that was Nor- 
 
 ^ The word " decimated " is tlie one generally applied by the 
 historians to the massacre in question, and it is tlierefore retained 
 here; but it is not correctly applied ; for that Initchery was perpe- 
 tratedj not uj^ou one out of ten, but nine out of ten.
 
 HAROLD. 19 
 
 man, was not, at least, the most politic envoy he could 
 select for that end. Add to this, that, despite their pres- 
 ent reconciliation, Harold could never long count upon 
 amity with Tostig ; and Tostig's connection with William, 
 through their marriages into the House of Baldwin, was 
 full of danger to a new throne, to which Tostig would 
 probably be the most turbulent subject ; the influence of 
 this connection how desirable to counteract ! ^ 
 
 Nor could Harold, who, as patriot and statesman, felt 
 deeply the necessity of reform and regeneration in the 
 decayed edifice of the English monarchy, willingly lose 
 an occasion to witness all that William had done to raise so 
 high in renown and civilization, in martial fame and com- 
 mercial prosperity, that petty duchy wlu(>h he had placed 
 on a level with the kingdoms of the Teuton and the 
 Frank. Lastly, the Normans were the special darlings of 
 the Roman Church. William had obtained the dispensa- 
 tion to his own marriage with Matilda ; and might not 
 the Norman influence, duly conciliated, back the prayer 
 which Harold trusted one day to address to the pontiff", 
 and secure to him the hallowed blessing, without which 
 ambition lost its charm and even a throne its splendor 1 
 
 All these considerations, therefore, urged the earl to 
 persist in his original purpose ; but a warning voice in his 
 heart, more powerful than all, sided with the prayer of 
 Githa and the arguments of Gurth. In this state of irreso- 
 lution, Gurth said, seasonably, — 
 
 " Bethink thee, Harold, if menaced but with peril to 
 thyself, thou wouldst have a brave man's right to resist 
 us ; but it was of ' great evil to England ' that Edward 
 
 1 The above reasons for Harold's memorable expedition are 
 sketched at this length, because they suggest the most probable 
 motives which induced it, and furnish, in no rash and inconsider- 
 ate policy, that key to his visit wliich is not to be found in chron- 
 icler or historian.
 
 20 HAROLD. 
 
 spoke, and thy reflection must tell thee that, in this crisis 
 of our country, danger to thee is evil to England, — evil 
 to England thou hast no right to incur." 
 
 " Dear mother, and generous Gurth," said Harold, then 
 joining the two in one embrace, " ye have wellnigh con- 
 quered. Give me but two days to ponder well, and be 
 assured that I will not decide from the rash promptings 
 of an ill-considered judgment." 
 
 Farther than this they could not then move the earl ; 
 but Gurth was pleased shortly afterwards to see him 
 depart to Edith, whose fears, from whatever source they 
 sprang, would, he was certain, come in aid of his own 
 pleadings. 
 
 But as the earl rode alone towards the once stately 
 home of the perished Roman, and entered at twilight the 
 darkening forest-land, his thoughts were less on Edith 
 than on the Vala, with whom his ambition had more and 
 more connected his soul. Perplexed by his doubts, and 
 left dim in the waning lights of human reason, never 
 more involuntarily did he fly to some guide to interpret 
 the future and decide his path. 
 
 As if fate itself responded to the cry of his heart, he 
 suddenly came in sight of Hilda herself, gathering leaves 
 from elm and ash amidst the woodland. 
 
 He sprang from his horse and approached her. 
 
 " Hilda," said he, in a low but firm voice, " thou hast 
 often told me that the dead can advise the living. Raise 
 thou the Sein-lseca of the hero of old, — raise the Ghost, 
 which mine eye or my fancy beheld before, vast and dim 
 by the silent bautastein, and I will stand by thy side. 
 Fain would I know if thou hadst deceived me and thy- 
 self ; or if, in truth, to man's guidance Heaven doth 
 vouchsafe saga and rede from those who have passed into 
 the secret shores of eternity."
 
 HAROLD. 21 
 
 " The dead," answered Hilda, " will not reveal them- 
 selves to eyeS' uninitiate, save at their own will uncom- 
 pelled by charm and rune. To me their forms can appear 
 distinct through the airy flame ; to me, duly prepared by 
 spells that purge the eye of the spirit, and loosen the 
 walls of the flesh. I cannot say that what I see in the 
 trance and the travail of my soul thou also wilt behold ; 
 for even when the vision hath passed from my sight, and 
 the voice from my ear, only memories, confused and dim, 
 of what I saw and heard, remain to guide the waking and 
 common life. But thou shalt stand by my side while I in- 
 voke the phantom, and hear and interpret the words which 
 rush from my lips, and the runes that take meaning from 
 the sparks of the charmed fire. 1 knew ere thou earnest, 
 by the darkness and trouble of Edith's soul, that some 
 shade from the ash-tree of life had fallen upon thine." 
 
 Then Harold related what had passed, and placed 
 before Hilda the doubts that beset him. 
 
 The prophetess listened with earnest attention ; but her 
 mind, when not under its more mystic influences, being 
 strongly biased by its natural courage and ambition, she 
 saw at a glance all the advantages towards securing the 
 throne predestined to Harold, which might be effected by 
 his visit to the N'orman court ; and she held in too great 
 disdain both the worldly sense and the mystic reveries of 
 the monkish king (for the believer in Odin was naturally 
 incredulous of the visitation of the Christian saints) to 
 attach much weight to his dreary predictions. 
 
 The short reply she made was therefore not calculated 
 to deter Harold from the ex]')edition in dispute ; but she 
 deferred till the following night, and to wisdom more 
 dread than her own, the counsels that should sway his 
 decision. 
 
 With a strange satisfaction at the thought that he
 
 22 HAROLD. 
 
 sliould, at least, test personally the reality of those 
 assumptions of preternatural power which had of late 
 colored his resolves and oppressed his heart, Harold then 
 took leave of the Vala, who returned mechanically to her 
 employment ; and, leading his horse by the rein, slowly 
 continued his musing way towards the green knoll and 
 its heathen ruins. But ere he gained the hillock, and 
 while his thoughtful eyes were bent on the ground, he 
 felt his arm seized tenderly, — turned, and beheld Edith's 
 face full of unutterable and anxious love. 
 
 With that love, indeed, there was blended so much 
 wistfulness, so much fear, that Harold exclaimed, — 
 
 "Soul of my soul, what hatli chanced? what affects 
 thee thus?" 
 
 "Hath no danger befallen thee?" asked Edith, falter- 
 ingly, and gazing on his face with wistful, searching eyes. 
 
 " Danger ! none, sweet trembler," answered the earl, 
 evasively. 
 
 Edith dropped her eager looks, and, clinging to his 
 arm, drew him on silently into the forest land. She 
 paused at last, where the old fantastic trees shut out the 
 view of the ancient ruins ; and when, looking round, she 
 saw not those gray, gigantic shafts which mortal hand 
 seemed never to have piled together, she breathed more 
 freely. 
 
 " Speak to me," then said Harold, bending his face to 
 hers ; " why this silence 1 " 
 
 " Ah, Harold ! " answered his betrothed, "thou knowest 
 that ever since we have loved one another, my existence 
 hath been but a shadow of thine ; by some weird and 
 strange mystery, which Hilda would explain by the stars 
 or the fates, that have made me apart of thee, I know by 
 the lightness or gloom of niy own spirit when good or ill 
 shall bsfall thee. How often in thine absence hath a joy
 
 HAROLD. 23 
 
 suddenly broke upon me ; and I felt by that joy, as by 
 the smile of a good angel, that thou hadst passed safe 
 through some peril, or triumphed over some foe ! And 
 now thou askest me why I am so sad, — I can only 
 answer thee by saying, that the sadness is cast upon me 
 by some thunder-gloom on thine own destiny." 
 
 Harold had sought Edith to speak of his meditated 
 journey, but seeing her dejection he did not dare ; so he 
 drew her to his brtBast, and chid her soothingly for her 
 vain apprehensions. But Edith would not be comforted ; 
 there seemed something weighing on her mind and strug- 
 gUng to her lips not accounted for merely by sympathetic 
 forebodings ; and at length, as he pressed her to tell all, 
 she gathered courage and spoke. 
 
 "Do not mock me," she said; "but what secret, 
 whether of vain folly or of meaning fate, should I hold 
 from thee ? All this day I struggled in vain against the 
 heaviness of my forebodings. How I hailed tlie sight of 
 Gurtli thy brother ! I besought him to seek thee, — thou 
 hast seen him." 
 
 " I have ! " said Harold. " But thou wert about to tell 
 me of something more than this dejection." 
 
 " Well," resumed Edith, " after Gurth left me, my feet 
 sought involuntarily the hill on which we have met so 
 often. I sat down near the old tomb ; a strange weari- 
 ness crept on my eyes, and a sleep that seemed not wholly 
 sleep fell over me. I struggled against it, as if conscious 
 of some coming terror ; and as I struggled, and ere I 
 slept, Harold, — yes, ere I slept, — I saw distinctly a pale 
 and glimmering figure rise from the Saxon's grave. I 
 saw, — I see it still ! Oh, that livid front, those glassy 
 eyes ! " 
 
 " The figure of a warrior?" said Harold, startled. 
 
 " Of a warrior, armed as in the ancient days, — armed
 
 24 HAROLD. 
 
 like the warrior that Hilda's maids are working for thy 
 banner. I saw it ; and in one hand it held a spear, and 
 in the other a crown." 
 
 " A crown ! — Say on, say on." 
 
 " I saw no more ; sleep, in spite of myself, fell on me, 
 a sleep full of confused and painful, rapid and shape- 
 less images, till at last this dream rose clear. I beheld a 
 bright and starry shape that seemed as a spirit, yet Avore 
 thine aspect, standing on a rock ; and an angry torrent 
 rolled between the rock and the dry safe land. The 
 waves began to invade the rock, and the spirit unfurled 
 its wings as to flee. And then foul things climbed up 
 from the slime of the rock, and descended from the mists 
 of the troubled skies, and they coiled round the wings 
 and clogged them. 
 
 " Then a voice cried in my ear, ' Seest thou not on the 
 perilous rock the Soul of Harold the Brave 1 — seest thou 
 not that the waters engulf it, if the wings fail to fleel 
 Up, Truth, whose strength is in purity, whose image is 
 woman, and aid the soul of the brave ! ' I sought to 
 spring to thy side ; but I was powerless, and behold, close 
 beside me, through my sleep as through a veil, appeared 
 the shafts of the ruined temple in which I lay reclined. 
 And methought I saw Hilda sitting alone by the Saxon's 
 grave, and pouring from a crystal vessel black drops into 
 a human heart which she held in her hands ; and out 
 of that heart grew a child, and out of that child a youth, 
 Avith dark, mournful brow. And the youth stood by thy 
 side and whispered to thee ; and from his lips there came 
 a reeking smoke, and in that smoke, as in a blight, the 
 wings withered up. And I hesird the Voice say, ' Hilda, 
 it is thou that hast destroyed the good angel, and reared 
 from the poisoned heart the loathsome tempter !' And 
 I cried aloud, but it was too late ; the waves swept over
 
 HAROLD. 25 
 
 thee, and above the waves there floated an iron helmet, 
 and on the hehnet was a golden crown, — the crown I 
 had seen in the hand of the spectre ! " 
 
 " But this is no evil dream, my Edith," said Harold, 
 
 gayly. 
 
 Edith, unheeding him, continued, — 
 
 " I started from my sleep. The sun was still high, — 
 the air lulled and windless. Then through the shafts 
 and down the hill there glided in that clear waking day- 
 light a grisly shape, like that which I have heard our 
 maidens say the witch-hags, sometimes seen in the forest, 
 assume ; yet in truth it seemed neither of man nor 
 woman. It turned its face once towards me, and on that 
 hideous face were the glee and hate of a triumphant fiend. 
 Oh, Harold, what should all this portend 1 " 
 
 " Hast thou not asked thy kinswoman, the diviner of 
 dreams 1 " 
 
 " I asked Hilda, and she, like thee, only murmured 
 ' The Saxon crown ! ' But if there be faith in those 
 airy children of the night, surely, adored one, the 
 vision forebodes danger, not to life, but to soul ; and the 
 words I heard seemed to say that thy wings were thy 
 valor, and the Fylgia thou hadst lost was — no, that were 
 impossible — " 
 
 " That my Fylgia was Truth, which losing, I were 
 indeed lost to thee. Thou dost well," said Harold, loftily, 
 " to hold that among the lies of the fancy. All else may 
 perchance desert me, but never mine own free soul. Self- 
 reliant hath Hilda called me in mine earlier days, and — 
 wherever fate casts me — in my truth, and my love, and 
 my dauntless heart, I dare both man and the fiend." 
 
 Edith gazed a moment in devout admiration on the 
 mien of her hero-lover, then she drew close and closer to 
 his breast, consoled and believing.
 
 26 HAKOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 With all her persuasion of her own powers in penetrat- 
 ing the future, we have seen that Hilda had never con- 
 sulted her oracles on the fate of Harold without a dark 
 and awful sense of the ambiguity of their responses. 
 That fate, involving the mightiest interests of a great 
 race, and connected with events operating on the farthest 
 times and the remotest lands, lost itself to her prophetic 
 ken amidst omens the most contradictory, shadows and 
 lights the most conflicting, meshes the most entangled. 
 Her human heart, devoutly attached to the earl through 
 her love for Edith, — her pride obstinately bent on secur- 
 ing to the last daughter of her princely race that throne, 
 which all her vaticinations, even when most gloomy, 
 assured her was destined to the man with whom Edith's 
 doom was interwoven, combined to induce her to the 
 most favorable interpretation of all that seemed sinister 
 and doubtful. But according to the tenets of that pecul- 
 iar form of magic cultivated by Hilda, the comprehension 
 became obscured by whatever partook of human sympa- 
 thy. It was a magic wholly distinct from the malignant 
 witchcraft more popularly known to us, and which was 
 equally common to the Germanic and Scandinavian 
 heathens. 
 
 The magic of Hilda was rather akin to the old Cim- 
 brian Alirones, or sacred prophetesses ; and, as with them, 
 it demanded the priestess, — that is, the person without 
 human ties or emotions, a spirit clear as a mirror, — •
 
 HAKOLD. 27 
 
 upon which the great images of destiny might be cast 
 untroubled. 
 
 However the natural gifts and native character of 
 Hilda might be perverted by the visionary and delusive 
 studies habitual to her, there was in her very infirmities 
 a grandeur, not without its pathos. In this position, 
 which she had assumed between the earth and the 
 heaven, she stood so solitary and in such chilling air, — 
 all the doubts that beset her lonely and daring soul came 
 in such gigantic forms of terror and menace ! On the 
 verge of the mighty Heathenesse sinking fast into the 
 night of ages, she towered amidst the shades, a shade her- 
 self ; and round her gathered the last demons of the 
 Dire Belief, defying the march of their luminous foe, and 
 concentring round their mortal priestess the wrecks of 
 their horrent empire over a world redeemed. 
 
 All the night that succeeded her last brief conference 
 with Harold, the Vala wandered through the wild forest- 
 land, seeking haunts, or employed in collecting herbs, 
 hallowed to her dubious yet solemn lore ; and the last 
 stars were receding into the cold gray skies, when, return- 
 ing homeward, she beheld within the circle of the Druid 
 temple a motionless object, stretched on the ground near 
 the Teuton's grave ; she approached, and perceived what 
 seemed a corpse, it was so still and stiflf in its repose, and 
 the face upturned to the stars was so haggard and death- 
 like, — a face horrible to behold : the evidence of extreme 
 age was written on the shrivelled, livid skin and the 
 deep furrows, but the expression retained that intense 
 malignity which belongs to a power of life that extreme 
 age rarely knows. The garb, which was that of a remote 
 fashion, was foul and ragged, and neither by the garb, 
 nor by the face, was it easy to guess what was the sex of 
 this seeming corpse. But by a strange and peculiar odor
 
 28 HAROLD. 
 
 that rose from the form, and a certain glistening on 
 the face, and the lean, folded hands, Hilda knew that the 
 creature was one of those witches, esteemed of all the 
 most deadly and abhorred, who, by the application of 
 certain ointments, were supposed to possess the art of 
 separating soul from body, and, leaving the last as dead, 
 to dismiss the first to the dismal orgies of the Sabbat. It 
 was a frequent custom to select for the place of such 
 trances, heathen temples and ancient graves. And Hilda 
 seated herself beside the witch to await the waking. 
 The cock crowed thrice, heavy mists began to arise from 
 the glades, covering the gnarled roots of the forest trees, 
 when the dread face, on which Hilda calmly gazed, showed 
 symptoms of returning life ! A strong convulsion shook 
 the vague indefinite form under its huddled garments ; 
 the eyes opened, closed, — opened again ; and Avhat had 
 a few moments before seemed a dead thing, sat up and 
 looked round. 
 
 " Wicca," said the Danish prophetess, with an accent 
 between contempt and curiosity, " for what mischief to 
 beast or man hast thou followed the noiseless path of the 
 Dreams through the airs of Night ? " 
 
 The creature gazed hard upon the questioner from its 
 bleared but fiery eyes, and replied slowly, " Hail, Hilda, 
 the Morthwyrtha ! why art thou not of us, — why comest 
 thou not to our revels ? Gay sport have we had to-night 
 with Faul and Zabulus ; i but gayer far shall our sport 
 be in the wassail hall of Senlac, when thy grandchild 
 shall come in the torchlight to the bridal bed of her lord. 
 A buxom bride is Edith the Fair, and fair looked her 
 face in her sleep on yesternoon, when I sat by her side, 
 and breathed on her brow, and murmured the verse that 
 
 ^ Faul was an evil spirit much dreaded by the Saxons. Zabulua 
 and Diabolus (the Devil) seem to have been the same.
 
 HAROLD. 29 
 
 blackens the dream ; but fairer still shall she look in her 
 sleep by her lord. Ha ! ha ! Ho ! we shall be there, 
 with Zabulus and Faul ; we shall be there ! " 
 
 " How ! " said Hilda, thrilled to learn that the secret 
 ambition she cherished was known to this loathed sister 
 in the art. " How dost thou pretend to that mystery of 
 the future, which is dim and clouded even to me ? Canst 
 thou tell when and where the daughter of the Norse kings 
 shall sleep on the breast of her lord 1 " 
 
 A sound that partook of laughter, but was so unearthly 
 in its malignant glee that it seemed not to come from a 
 liuman lip, answered the Yala ; and as tlie laugh died, the 
 Avitch rose, and said, — 
 
 "Go and question thy dead, Morthwyrtha ! Thou 
 deemest thyself wiser than we are ; we wretched hags, 
 whom the ceorl seeks when his herd has the murrain, or 
 the girl when her false love forsakes her ; we, who have 
 no dwelling known to man, but are found at need in the 
 wold or the cave, or the side of dull, slimy streams where 
 the murderess-mother hath drowned her babe. Askest 
 thou, Hilda, the rich and the learned, askest thou counsel 
 and lore from the daughter of Faul 1 " 
 
 "No," answered the Yala, haughtily, "not to such as 
 thou do the great Nomas unfold the future. "What 
 knowest thou of the runes of old, whispered by the 
 trunkless skull to the mighty Odin 1 runes that control 
 the elements, and conjure up the Shining Shadows of the 
 grave. Not with thee will the stars confer ; and thy 
 dreams are foul with revelries obscene, not solenni and 
 haunted with the bodements of tilings to come ! Only 
 I marvelled, while I beheld thee on the Saxon's grave, 
 what joy such as thou can find in that life above life, 
 which draws upward the soul of the true Yala." 
 
 " The joy," replied the witch, — " the joy which comes
 
 30 HAROLD. 
 
 from wisdom and power, higher than you ever won with 
 your spells from the rune or the star. Wrath gives the 
 venom to the slaver of the dog, and death to the curse of 
 the Witch. When wilt thou be as wise as the hag thou 
 despisest 1 When will all the clouds that beset thee roll 
 away from thy ken 1 When thy hopes are all crushed, 
 when thy passions lie dead, when thy pride is abased, 
 when thou art but a wreck, like the shafts of this temple, 
 through which the starlight can shine. Then only thy 
 soul vi'ill see clearly the sense of the runes, and then thou 
 and I will meet on the verge of the Black Shoreless 
 Sea ! " 
 
 So, despite all her haughtiness and disdain, did these 
 words startle the lofty Prophetess, that she remained 
 gazing into space long after that fearful apparition had 
 vanished, and up from the grass, which those obscene 
 steps had profaned, sprang the lark carolling. 
 
 But ere the sun had dispelled the dews on the forest 
 sward, Hilda had recovered her wonted calm, and, locked 
 ■within her own secret chamber, prepared the seid and the 
 runes for the invocation of the dead.
 
 HAROLD. 31 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Resolving, should the auguries consulted permit him to 
 depart, to intrust Gurth with the charge of informing 
 ]'](lith, Harold parted from his betrotlied without hint of 
 his suspended designs ; and he passed the day in making 
 all preparations for his absence and his journey, promising 
 Gurth to give his final answer on the morrow, when 
 either himself or his brother should depart for Rouen ; 
 l)ut more and more impressed with the arguments of 
 Gurth and his own sober reason, and somewhat perhaps 
 influenced by the forebodings of Edith (for that mind, 
 once so constitutionally firm, had become tremulously 
 alive to such airy influences), he had almost predeter- 
 mined to assent to his brother's prayer, when he departed 
 to keep his dismal appointment with the Morthwyrtha. 
 The night was dim, but not dark ; no moon shone, but 
 the stars, wan though frequent, gleamed pale, as from the 
 farthest deeps of the heaven ; clouds gray and fleecy 
 rolled slowly across the welkin, veiling and disclosing, by 
 turns, the melancholy orbs. 
 
 The Morthwyrtha, in her dark dress, stood within the 
 circle of stones. She had already kindled a fire at the 
 foot of the bautastein, and its glare shone redly on 
 the gray shafts, playing through their forlorn gaps upon 
 the sward. By her side was a vessel, seemingly of pure 
 water, filled from the old Roman fountain, and its clear 
 surface flashed blood-red in the beams. Behind them, in 
 a circle round both fire and water, were fragments of 
 bark, cut in a peculiar form, like the head of an arrow,
 
 32 HAROLD. 
 
 and inscribed with the mystic letters ; nine were the frag- 
 ments, and on each fragment were graved the runes. In 
 her right hand the Morthwyrtha held her seid staff; her 
 feet were bare, and her loins girt by the Hunnish belt, 
 inscribed with mystic letters ; from the belt hung a 
 pouch or gipsire of bear-skin, with plates of silver. Her 
 face, as Harold entered the circle, had lost its usual calm, 
 — it was wild and troubled. 
 
 She seemed unconscious of Harold's presence, and her 
 eye, fixed and rigid, was as that of one in a trance. 
 Slowly, as if constrained by some power not her own, she 
 began to move round the ring with a measured pace, 
 and at last her voice broke low, hollow, and internal, 
 into a rugged chant, which may be thus imperfectly 
 translated, — 
 
 "By tlie Urdar- fount dwelling, 
 Da}^ by day from the rill 
 The Nomas besprinkle 
 
 The ash Ygg-drassill.^ 
 The hart bites the buds, 
 
 And the snake gnaws the root, 
 But the eagle, all-seeing, 
 Keeps watch on the fruit. 
 
 " These drops on thy tomb 
 
 From the fountain I pour ; 
 Witli the rune I invoke thee. 
 
 With flame I restore. 
 Dread Father of men. 
 
 In the land of thy grave 
 Give voice to the Vala, 
 
 And light to the Brave." 
 
 As she thus chanted, the Morthwyrtha now sprinkled 
 the drops from the vessel over the bautastein, — now one 
 
 1 Ygq-drassiJl , the mystic Ash-tree of Life, or symbol of the 
 earth, watered by the Fates,
 
 HAROLD. 33 
 
 by one cast the fragments of bark scrawled with runes on 
 the fire. Then, whether or not some glutinous or other 
 chemical material had been mingled in the water, a pale 
 gleam broke from the gravestone thus besprinkled, and 
 the whole tomb glistened in the light of the leaping fire. 
 From this light a mist or thin smoke gradually rose, and 
 took, though vaguely, the outline of a vast human form ; 
 but so indefinite was the outline to Harold's eye, that, 
 gazing on it steadily, and stilling with strong effort his 
 loud heart, he knew not whether it was a phantom or a 
 vapor that he beheld. 
 
 The Vala paused, leaning on her staff, and gazing in 
 awe on the glowing stone, while the earl, with his arms 
 folded on his broad breast, stood hushed and motionless. 
 The sorceress recommenced, — 
 
 " Mighty Dead, I revere thee, 
 Dim-shaped from the cloud, 
 With the light of thy deeds 
 For the web of thy shroud ; 
 
 "As Odin consulted 
 
 Mimir's skull hollowed-eyed,* 
 Odin's heir comes to seek 
 In the phantom a guide." 
 
 As the Morthwyrtha ceased, the fire crackled loud, and 
 from its flame flew one of the fragments of bark to the 
 feet of the sorceress, — the runic letters all indented with 
 sparks. 
 
 The sorceress uttered a loud cry, which, despite his 
 courage and his natural strong sense, thrilled through the 
 earl's heart to his marrow and bones, so appalling was it 
 
 1 Mimir, the most celebrated of the giants. The Vaner with 
 whom he was left as a hostage cut off his head. Odin embalmed 
 it by his seid, or magic art, pronounced over it mystic runes, and 
 ever after consulted it on critical occasions. 
 VOL. n. — 3
 
 34 HAROLD. 
 
 with wrath and terror ; and while she gazed aghast on 
 the blazing letters, she burst forth, — 
 
 •' No warrior art thou, 
 
 And no child of the tomb ; 
 I know thee, and shudder, 
 Great Asa of Doom. 
 
 " Thou constrainest my lips, 
 And thou crushest my spell, 
 Bright Son of the Giant, — 
 Dark Father of Hell ! " ^ 
 
 The whole form of the Morthwyrtha then became con- 
 vulsed and agitated, as if with the tempest of frenzy ; the 
 foam gathered to her lips, and her voice rang forth hke a 
 shriek, — 
 
 " In the Iron Wood rages 
 The Weaver of Harm, 
 The giant Blood -drinker 
 Hag-born Managarm.'* 
 
 " A keel nears the shoal ; 
 
 From the slime and the mud 
 Crawl the newt and the adder, 
 The spawn of the flood. 
 
 ^ Asa-Lok or Loke (distinct froin Utgard-Lok, the demon of the 
 Infernal Regions) descended from the Giants, but received among 
 the celestial deities ; a treacherous and malignant Power, fond of 
 assuming disguises and plotting evil ; — corresponding in his at- 
 tributes with our " Lucifer." One of his progeny was Ilela, tlie 
 queen of Hell. 
 
 '^ " A hag dwells in a wood called Jamvid, the Iron Wood, the 
 mother of many gigantic sons, shaped like wolves; there is one of 
 a race more fearful than all, named 'Managarm.' He will be 
 filled with the l)lood of men who draw near their end, and will 
 swallow up the moon and stain the heavens imd the earth with 
 blood." — From the "Prose Edda." In tlie .Scandinavian poetry, 
 Managarm is sometimes the symbol of ivar, and the " Iron Wood " 
 a metaphor for spears.
 
 HAROLD. 35 
 
 " Thoii stand'st on the rock 
 
 Where the dreamer beheld thee. 
 O soul, spread thy wings 
 Ere the glamour hath spell'd thee. 
 
 " Oh, dread is the tempter, 
 And strong the control ; 
 But conquered the tempter. 
 If firm be the soul ! " 
 
 The Yala paused ; and though it was evident that in 
 her frenzy she was still unconscious of Harold's presence, 
 and seemed but to be the compelled and passive voice to 
 some Power, real or imaginary, beyond her own existence, 
 the proud man approached, and said, — 
 
 " Firm shall be my soul ; nor of the dangers which 
 beset it would I ask the dead or the living. If plain 
 answers to mortal sense can come from these airy shadows 
 or these mystic charms, reply, interpreter of fate ; reply 
 but to the questions I demand. If I go to the court of 
 the Xorman, shall I return unscathed ? " 
 
 The Vala stood rigid as a shape of stone while Harold 
 thus spoke, and her voice came so low and strange as if 
 forced from her scarce-moving lips, — 
 
 " Thou shalt return unscathed." 
 
 " Shall the hostages of Godwin, my father, be re- 
 released 1 " 
 
 " The hostages of Godwin shall be released," answered 
 the same voice ; " the hostage of Harold be retained." 
 
 " Wherefore hostage from me ? " 
 
 " In pledge of alliance with the Norman." 
 
 " Ha ! then the Norman and Harold shall plight friend- 
 ship and troth ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered the Vala ; but this time a visible 
 shudder passed over her rigid form.
 
 36 HAROLD. 
 
 " Two questions more, and I have done The Norman 
 priests have the ear of the Roman pontiff. Shall my 
 league with William the Norman avail to win me my 
 bride?" 
 
 " It will win thee the bride thou wouldst never have 
 wedded but for thy league with William the Norman. 
 Peace with thy questions, peace ! " continued the voice, 
 trembling as with some fearful struggle ; " for it is the 
 Demon that forces my words, and they wither my soul to 
 speak them." 
 
 " But one question more remains ; shall I live to wear 
 the crown of England ; and if so, when shall I be a 
 king?" 
 
 At these words the face of the prophetess kindled, the 
 fire suddenly leaped up higher and brighter ; again, vivid 
 sparks lighted the runes on the fragments of bark that 
 were shot from the flame ; over these last the Morth- 
 wyrtha bowed her head, and then, lifting it, triumphantly 
 burst once more into song. 
 
 *D' 
 
 " When the Wolf Month,i grim and still, 
 Heaps the snow-mass on the hill ; 
 When, through white air sharp and bitter, 
 Mocking sunbeams freeze and glitter ; 
 When the ice-gems, bright and barbed. 
 Deck the boughs the leaves had garbed, 
 Then the measure shall be meted, 
 And the circle be completed. 
 Cerdic's race, the Thor-descended, 
 In the ]\Ionk-king's tomb be ended ; 
 And no Saxon brow but thine 
 Wear the crown of Woden's line. 
 
 ^ Wolf Month, January.
 
 HAROLD. 37 
 
 " Where thou wendest, wend unfearing, 
 Every step thy throne is nearing. 
 Fraud may plot and force assail thee, — 
 Shall the soul thou trustest fail thee? 
 If it fail thee, scornful hearer, 
 Still the throne shines near and nearer. 
 Guile with guile oppose, and never 
 Crown and brow shall Force dissever, 
 Till the dead men, unforgiving, 
 Loose the war-steeds on the living ; 
 Till a sun whose race is ending 
 Sees the rival stars contending. 
 Where the dead men unforgiving, 
 Wheel the war-steeds round the living. 
 
 " Where thou wendest, wend unfearing ; 
 Every step thy throne is nearing. 
 Never shall thy House decay. 
 Nor thy sceptre pass away. 
 While the Saxon name endureth 
 In the land thy throne secureth. 
 Saxon name and throne together. 
 Leaf and root, shall wax and wither ; 
 So the measure shall be meted, 
 And the circle close completed. 
 
 " Art thou answered, dauntless seeker? 
 Go, thy bark shall ride the breaker ; 
 Every billow, high and higher, 
 Waft thee up to thy desire ; 
 And a force beyond thine own, 
 Drift and strand thee on the throne. 
 
 " When the Wolf Month, grim and still. 
 Piles the snow-mass on the hill, 
 In the white air sharp and bitter 
 Shall thy kingly sceptre glitter:
 
 38 HAROLD. 
 
 When the ice-gems barb the bough 
 Shall the jewels clasp thy brow ; 
 Winter-wind, the oak up-rending ; 
 With the altar-anthem blending, 
 Wind shall howl, and mone shall sing, 
 ' Hail to Harold,— Hail the King ! ' " 
 
 An exultation that seemed more than human, so intense 
 it was, and so solemn, thrilled, in the voice whicli thus 
 closed predictions that seemed signally to belie the more 
 vague and menacing warnings with which the dreary 
 incantation had commenced. The Morthwyrtha stood 
 erect and stately, still gazing on the pale-blue flame that 
 rose from the burial-stone, till slowly the flame waned 
 and paled, and at last died with a sudden flicker, leaving 
 the gray tomb standing forth all weather-worn and deso- 
 late, while a wind rose from the north and sighed through 
 the roofless columns. Then, as the light over the grave 
 expired, Hilda gave a deep sigh, and fell to the ground 
 senseless. 
 
 Harold lifted his eyes towards the stars, and mur- 
 mured, — 
 
 " If it be a sin, as the priests say, to pierce the dark 
 walls which surround us here, and read the future in the 
 dim world beyond, why gavest thou, O Heaven, the 
 reason, never resting, save when it explores 1 Why hast 
 thou set in the heart the mystic Law of Desire, ever toil- 
 ing to the High, ever grasping at the Far ? " 
 
 Heaven answered not the unquiet soul. The clouds 
 passed to and fro in their wanderings, the wind still 
 sighed through the hollow stones, the fire shot with vain 
 sparks towards the distant stars. In the cloud and the 
 wind and the fire couldst thou read no answer from 
 Heaven, unquiet soul 1
 
 HAROLD. 39 
 
 The next day, with a gallant company, the falcon on 
 his wrist, ^ the sprightly hound gambolling before his 
 steed, blithe of heart and high in hope, Earl Harold took 
 his way to the iN^orman court. 
 
 1 Bayeux tapestry.
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 THE BONES OP THE DEAD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 William, count of the Normans, sat in a fair chamber 
 of his palace of Rouen ; and on the large table before 
 him were ample evidences of the various labors, as 
 "warrior, chief, thinker, and statesman, which filled the 
 capacious breadth of that sleepless mind. 
 
 There lay a plan of the new poi-t of Cherbourg, and 
 beside it an open MS. of the duke's favorite book, 
 the Commentaries of Caesar, from which, it is said, he 
 borrowed some of the tactics of his own martial science; 
 marked and dotted and interlined with his large bold 
 handwriting, were the words of the great Roman. A 
 score or so of Ion" arrows, which had received some 
 skilful improvement in feather or bolt, lay carelessly 
 scattered over some architectural sketches of a new 
 abbey church, and the proposed charter for its endow- 
 ment. An open cyst, of the beautful workmanship for 
 which the English goldsmiths were then pre-eminently 
 renowned, that had been among the parting gifts of 
 Edward, contained letters from the various potentates 
 near and far, who sought his alliance or menaced his 
 repose.
 
 42 HAROLD. 
 
 On a percli behind liim sat bis favorite Norway falcon, 
 unliooded, for it bad been taugbt the finest polish in its 
 dainty education ; namely, " to face company undisturbed." 
 At a kind of easel at the farther end of tlie hall, a dwarf, 
 misshapen in limbs, but of a face singularly acute and 
 intelligent, was employed in the outline of that famous 
 action at Val des Dunes, whicli had been the scene of one 
 of the most brilliant of William's feats in arms, — an out- 
 line intended to be transferred to the notable " stitch 
 work " of Matilda the Duchess. 
 
 Upon tlie floor, playing with a huge boar-hound of 
 English breed, that seemed but ill to like tlie play, and 
 every now and then snarled and showed his white teeth, 
 was a young boy, with something of the duke's features, 
 but with an expression more open and less sagacious ; and 
 something of the duke's broad build of chest and shoulder, 
 but without promise of the duke's stately stature, which 
 was needed to give grace and dignity to a strength other- 
 wise cumbrous and graceless. And indeed, since William's 
 visit to England, his athletic shape had lost much of its 
 youthful symmetry, though not yet deformed by that 
 corpulence which was a disease almost as rare in the 
 Norman as the Spartan. Nevertheless, what is a defect 
 in the gladiator is often but a beauty in the prince ; and 
 the duke's large proportions filled the eye with a sense 
 both of regal majesty and physical power. His counte- 
 nance yet more than his form showed the work of time : 
 the short, dark hair was worn into partial baldness at the 
 temples by the habitual friction of the casque ; and the 
 constant indulgence of wily stratagem and ambitious 
 ci'aft had deepened the wrinkles round the plotting eye 
 and the firm mouth, so that it was only by an effort 
 like that of an actor that liis aspect regained the knightly 
 and noble frankness it had once worn. The accomplished
 
 HAROLD. 43 
 
 prince was no longer, in truth, what the bold warrior had 
 been, — he was greater in state and less in soul. And 
 already, despite all his grand qualities as a ruler, his 
 imperious nature had betrayed signs of what he (whose 
 constitutional sternness the Norman freeman, not without 
 effort, curbed into the limits of justice) might become, if 
 wider scope were afforded to his fiery passions and unspar- 
 ing will. 
 
 Before the duke, who was leaning his chin on his 
 hand, stood Mallet de Graville, speaking earnestly, and 
 his discourse seemed both to interest and please his 
 lord. 
 
 " Eno ' ! " said Yfilliam, " I comprehend the nature 
 of the land and its men, — a land that, untaught by 
 experience, and persuaded that a peace of twenty or 
 thirty years must last till the orack of doom, neglects 
 all its defences, and has not one fort, save Dover, between 
 the coast and the capital ; a land which must be won or 
 lost by a single battle, and men [here the duke hesitated] 
 — and men" he resumed with a sigh, " whom it will be 
 so hard to conquer, that, pardex, I don't wonder they 
 neglect their fortresses. Enough, I say, of them. Let us 
 return to Harold, — thou thiukest, then, that he is worthy 
 of his fame 1 " 
 
 " He is almost the only Englishman I have seen," 
 answered De Graville, "who hath received scholarly 
 rearing and nurture ; and all his faculties are so evenly 
 balanced, and all accompanied by so composed a calm, 
 that methinks, when I look at and hear him, I contem- 
 plate some artful castle, the strength of which can never 
 be known at tlie first glance, nor except by those who 
 assail it." 
 
 "Thou art mistaken. Sire de Graville," said the duke, 
 with a shrewd and cunning twinkle of his luminous
 
 44 HAKOLD. 
 
 dark eyes ; " for thou tellest me that he hath no thought of 
 my pretensions to the English throne, that he inchnes 
 willingly to thy suggestions to come himself to my court 
 for the hostages, — that, in a word, he is not suspicious." 
 
 " Certes, he is not suspicious," returned Mallet. 
 
 " And thinkest thou that an artful castle were worth 
 much without warder or sentry, — or a cultivated mind 
 strong and safe, without its watchman, Suspicion 1 " 
 
 " Truly, my lord speaks well and wisely," said the 
 knight, startled : " hut Harold is a man thoroughly Eng- 
 lish and the English are a gens the least suspecting of any 
 created thing between an angel and a sheep." 
 
 William laughed aloud. But his laugh was checked 
 suddenly ; for at that moment a fierce yell smote his 
 ears, and, looking hastily up, he saw his hound and his 
 son rolling together on the ground in a grapple that 
 seemed deadly. 
 
 William sprang to the spot ; but the boy, who was 
 then under the dog, cried out, — " Laissez oiler ! Laissez 
 oiler ! no rescue ! I will master ray own foe ; " and so 
 saying with a vigorous effort he gained his knee, and with 
 both hands griped the hound's throat, so that the beast 
 twisted in vain to and fro with gnashing jaws, and in 
 another minute would have panted out its last. 
 
 "I may save my good hound now," said "William, 
 with tlie gay smile of his earlier days ; and, though not 
 without some exertion of his prodigious strength, he drew 
 the dog from his son's grasp. 
 
 " That was ill done, father," said Robert, surnamed 
 even then the Courthose, " to take part with thy son's foe." 
 
 " But my son's foe is thy father's property, my vail- 
 lant,'' said the duke ; "and thou must answer to me for 
 treason in provoking quarrel and feud with my own four- 
 footed vavasour."
 
 HAROLD. 45 
 
 " It is not thy property, father ; thou gavest the dog to 
 me when a whelp." 
 
 " Fables, Alonseigneiir de Conrthose ; I lent it to 
 thee but for a day, when thou hadst put out thine ankle- 
 bone in jumping off the rampire ; and all maimed as thou 
 wert, thou hadst still malice enow in thee to worry the 
 poor beast into a fever." 
 
 " Gave or lent, it is the same thing, father ; what I have 
 once, that will I hold, as thou didst before me.in thy cradle." 
 
 Then the great duke, who in his own house was the 
 fondest and weakest of men, was so doltish and doting as 
 to take the boy in his arms and kiss him, — nor, with all 
 his far-sighted sagacity, deemed he that in that kiss lay 
 the seed of the awful curse that grew up from a father's 
 agony, to end in a son's misery and perdition. 
 
 Even Mallet de Graville frowned at the sight of the 
 sire's infirmity, — even Turold the dwarf shook his head. 
 At that moment an officer entered, and announced that an 
 English nobleman, apparently in great haste (for his 
 horse had dropped down dead as he dismounted), had 
 arrived at the palace, and craved instant audience of the 
 duke. William put down the boy, gave the brief order 
 for the stranger's admission, and, punctilious in ceremo- 
 nial, beckoning De Graville to follow him, passed at once 
 into the next chamber, and seated himself on his chair of 
 state. 
 
 In a few moments one of the seneschals of the palace 
 ushered in a visitor, whose long mustache at once pro- 
 claimed him Saxon, and in whom De Graville with 
 surprise recognized his old friend Godrith. The young 
 thegn, -with a reverence more hasty than that to which 
 William was accustomed, advanced to the foot of the 
 dais, and, using the Norman language, said, in a voice 
 thick with emotion, — »
 
 46 HAROLD. 
 
 " From Harold the Earl, greeting to thee, Monseigneur. 
 Most foul and unchristian wrong hath been done the earl 
 by thy liegeman Guy, Count of Ponthieu. Sailing hither 
 in two barlis from England, with intent to visit thy court, 
 storm and wind drove the earl's vessels towards the mouth 
 of the Somme ; ^ there landing, and without fear, as in no 
 hostile country, he and his train were seized by the count 
 himself, and cast into prison in the Castle of Belrem.^ 
 A dungeon fit but for malefactors, holds, while I speak, 
 the first lord of England, and brother-in-law to its king. 
 Nay, hints of famine, torture, and death itself, have been 
 darkly thrown out by this most disloyal count, whether 
 in earnest, or with the base view of heightening ransom. 
 At length, wearied perhaps by tlie earl's firmness and 
 disdain, this traitor of Ponthieu hath permitted me in the 
 earl's behalf to bear the message of Harold. He came to 
 thee as to a prince and a friend : sufferest thou thy liege- 
 man to detain him as a thief or a foe % " 
 
 "Noble Englishman," replied William, gravely, "this 
 is a matter more out of my cognizance than thou seemest 
 to think. It is true that Guy, Count of Ponthieu, holds 
 fief under me, but I have no control over the laws of his 
 realm ; and by those laws he hath right of life and death 
 over all stranded and waifed on his coast. Much grieve I 
 for the mishap of your famous earl, and what I can do I 
 will ; but I can only treat in this matter with Guy as 
 prince with prince, not as lord to vassal. Meanwhile I 
 pray you to take rest and food ; and I will seek prompt 
 counsel as to the measures to adopt." 
 
 The Saxon's face showed disappointment and dismay 
 at this answer, so different from what he had expected ; 
 and he replied with the natural honest bluntness which 
 
 1 "Roman de Ron." See part ii. 1078. 
 
 2 Belrem, the present Beaurain, near Montreuil.
 
 HAROLD. 47 
 
 all Ills younger affection of ISTorman manners liad never 
 eradicated, — 
 
 " Food will I not touch, nor wine drink, till thou. 
 Lord Count, hast decided what help, as noble to nohle, 
 Christian to Christian, man to man, thou givest to him 
 who has come into this peril, solely from his trust in 
 thee." 
 
 ** Alas ! " said the grand dissimulator, " heavy is the 
 responsibility with which thine ignorance of our land, 
 laws, and men would charge me. If I take but one 
 false step in this matter, woe indeed to thy lord ! Guy 
 is hot and haught}'", and in his droits ; he is capable of 
 sending me the earl's head in reply to too dure a request 
 for his freedom. Much treasure and broad lands will it 
 cost me, I fear, to ransom the earl. But be cheered ; half 
 my duchy were not too high a price for thy lord's safety. 
 Go, then, and eat with a good heart, and drink to the 
 earl's health with a hopeful prayer." 
 
 " An it please you, my lord," said De Graville, " I know 
 this gentle thegn, and will beg of you the grace to see to 
 his entertainment, and sustain his spirits." 
 
 "Thou shalt, but later; so noble a guest none but my 
 chief seneschal should be the first to honor." Then, turn- 
 ing to the officer in waiting, he bade him lead the Saxon 
 to the chamber tenanted by William Fitzosborne (who 
 then lodged within the palace), and committed him to 
 that count's care. 
 
 As the Saxon sullenly withdrew, and as the door closed 
 on him, William rose and strode to and fro the room 
 exultingly. 
 
 " I have him ! I have him ! " he cried aloud ; "not as 
 free guest, but as ransomed captive. I have him, — the 
 earl ! — I have him ! Go, Mallet, my friend, now seek 
 this sour-looking Englishman ; and, hark thee ! fill his
 
 48 HAROLD. 
 
 ears with all the tales thou caust think of as to Guy's 
 cruelty and ire. Enforce all tlie difficulties that lie iu 
 iny way towards the earl's delivery. Great make the 
 danger of the earl's capture, and vast all the favor of 
 release. Comprehendest thou 1 " 
 
 " I am Norman, Monseigneiir,'' replied De Graville, 
 with a slight smile ; " and we Nortuans can make a short 
 mantle cover a large space. You will not be displeased 
 with my address." 
 
 " Go, then, — go," said William, " and send me forth- 
 with, Lanfranc — no, hold, not Lanfranc, he is too scru- 
 pulous ; Fitzosborne, — no, too haughty. Go first to my 
 brother, Odo of Bayeux, and pray him to seek me on the 
 instant." 
 
 The knight bowed and vanished, and William con- 
 tinued to pace tlie room with sparkling eyes and murmur- 
 ing lips.
 
 HAROLD. 49 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Not till after repeated messages, at first without talk of 
 ransom, and in high tone, affected, no doubt, by William 
 to spin out the negotiations, and augment the value of 
 his services, did Guy of Ponthieu consent to release his 
 illustrious captive, — the guerdon, a large sum and tm bel 
 manier ^ on the river Eaulne, But whether that guerdon 
 were tlie fair ransom-fee, or the price for concerted snare, 
 no man now can say, and sharper than ours the wit that 
 forms the more likely guess. These stipulations effected, 
 Guy himself opened the doors of the dungeon • and affect- 
 ing to treat the whole matter as one of law and right, now 
 happily and fairly settled, was as courteous and debon- 
 air as he had before been dark and menacing. 
 
 He even himself, with a brilliant train, accompanied 
 Harold to the Chdteau d'Eu,'^ whither William journeyed 
 to give him the meeting ; and laughed with a gay grace 
 at the earl's short and scornful replies to his compliments 
 and excuses. At the gates of this chateau, not famous, 
 in after-times, for tlie good faith of its lords, William 
 himself, laying aside all the pride of etiquette which he 
 had established at his court, came to receive his visitor ; 
 and, aiding him to dismount, embraced him cordially, 
 amidst a loud fanfaron of fifes and trumpets. 
 
 The flower of that glorious nobility, which a few gen- 
 erations had sufficed to rear out of the lawless pirates of 
 
 1 "Roman de Kou," Part ii. 1079. 
 
 2 William of Poitiers, " apud Aucense Castrum." 
 
 TOL. II. — 4
 
 60 HAROLD. 
 
 the Baltic, had been selected to do honor alike to guest 
 and host. 
 
 There were Hugo de Montfort and Eoger de Beaumont, 
 famous in council as in the field, and already gray with 
 fame. There was Henri, Sire de Ferrers, wliose name is 
 supposed to have arisen from the vast forges that burned 
 around his castle, on the anvils of which were welded the 
 arms impenetrable in every field. There was Raoul de 
 Tancarville, the old tutor of William, hereditary Cliamber- 
 lain of the Norman Counts ; and Geoffroi de Mande- 
 ville, and Tonstain the Fair, whose name still preserved, 
 amidst the general corruption of appellations, the evidence 
 of his Danish birth ; and Hugo de Grantmesnil, lately 
 returned from exile : and Humphrey de Bohun, whose 
 old castle in Carcutau may yet be seen ; and St. Juhn, 
 and Lacie, and D'Aincourt, of broad lands between the 
 Maine and th.e Oise ; and William de Monthchet, and 
 Roger nicknamed " Bigod," and Roger de Alortemer ; and 
 many more, whose fame lives in another land than that 
 of Neustria ! There, too, were the chief jjrelates and 
 abbots of a church, that since William's accession had 
 risen into repute with Rome and with Learning, unequalled 
 on this side the Alps ; their white aubes over their gor- 
 geous robes ; Lanfranc, and the Bishop of Coutance, and 
 the Abbot of Bee, and foremost of all in rank, but not 
 in learning, Odo of Bayeux. 
 
 So great the assemblage of quens and prelates, that 
 there was small room in the courtyard for the lesser 
 knights and chiefs, who yet hustled each other, with loss 
 of Norman dignity, for a sight of the lion which guarded 
 England. And still, amidst all tliose men of mark and 
 might, Harold, simple and calm, looked as he had looked 
 on his war-ship in the Thames, the man who could lead 
 them all !
 
 HAROLD. 51 
 
 Prom those indeed, who were fortunate enough to see 
 him as he passed up by the side of William, as tall as the 
 duke, and no less erect, — of for slighter bulk, but with 
 a strength almost equal, to a practised eye, in his com- 
 pacter symmetry and more supple grace, — from those 
 who saw him thus, an admiring murnmr rose ; for no 
 men in the world so valued and cultivated personal 
 advantages as the Nonnan knighthood. 
 
 Conversing easily with Harold, and well watching him 
 while he conversed, the duke led his guest into a private 
 chamber in the third floor ^ of the castle, and in that 
 chamber were Haco and Wolnoth. 
 
 '" This, I trust, is no surprise to you," said the duk©, 
 smiling ; " and now I shall but mar your commune." So 
 saying, he left the room, and Wolnoth rushed to his 
 brother's arms, while Haco, more timidly, drew near and 
 touched the earl's robe. 
 
 As soon as the first joy of the meeting was over, the 
 earl said to Haco, whom he had drawn to his breast with 
 an embrace as fond as that bestowed on Wolnoth, — 
 
 '' Remembering thee a boy, T came to say to thee, * Be 
 my son ; ' but seeing thee a man, I change the prayer : — 
 supply thy father's place, and be my brother ! And thou, 
 Wolnoth, hast thou kept thy word to me'? Norman is 
 thy garb, in truth ; is thy heart still English 1" 
 
 " Hist ! " whispered Haco 5 *' hist ! We have a proverb, 
 that walls have ears-." 
 
 *' But Norman walls can hardly understand our broad 
 Saxon of Kent, I trust," said Harold, smiling, though 
 with a shade on his brow. 
 
 *' True ; continue to speak Saxon," said Haco, *' and 
 we are safe." 
 
 ^ As soon as the rude fort of the middle ages admitted some- 
 thing of magnificence and display, the state-rooms were placed Ju 
 the third story of the inner court, as being the most secure.
 
 52 HAROLD. 
 
 " Safe ! " echoed Harokl. 
 
 " Haco's fears are childish, my brother," said Wolnoth, 
 " and he wrongs the duke." 
 
 "Not the duke, but the policy which surrounds hira 
 like an atmosphere," exclaimed Haco. " Oh, Harold, 
 generous indeed wert thou to come hither for thy kins- 
 folk, — generous ! But for England's weal, better that 
 we had rotted out our lives in exile, ere thou, hope and 
 prop of England, set foot in these webs of wile." 
 
 " Tut ! " said Wolnoth, impatiently ; " good is it for 
 England that the Norman and Saxon should be friends." 
 
 Harold, who had lived to grow as wise in men's hearts 
 as his father, save when the natural trustfulness that lay 
 under his calm reserve lulled his sagacity, turned his eye 
 steadily on the faces of his two kinsmen ; and he saw at 
 the first glance that a deeper intellect and a graver temper 
 than Wolnoth's fair face betrayed, characterized the dark 
 eye and serious brow of Haco. He therefore drew his 
 nephew a little aside, and said to him, — 
 
 " Forewarned is forearmed. Deemest thou that this 
 fair-spoken duke will dare aught against my life 1 " 
 
 " Life, no ; liberty, yes." 
 
 Harold started, and those strong passions native to his 
 breast, but usually curbed beneath his majestic will, 
 heaved in his bosom and flashed in his e3^e. 
 
 " Liberty ! — let him dare ! Though all his troops 
 paved the way from his court to his coasts, I would hevv 
 my way tlirough their ranks." 
 
 "Deemest tliou that I am a coward 1 " said Haco, 
 simply ; " yet contrary to all law and justice, and against 
 King Edward's well-known remonstrance, hath not the 
 count detained me years, yea, long years, in his land t 
 Kind are his words, wily his deeds. Fear not force ; fear 
 fraud." i
 
 HAROLD. 63 
 
 " I fear neither," answered Harold, drawing himself up, 
 *' nor do I repent me one moment — no ! nor did I repent 
 in the dungeon of that felon count, whom God grant me 
 life to repay with fire and sword for his treason — tliat I 
 myself have come hither to demand my kinsmen. I come 
 in the name of England, strong in her might, and sacred 
 in her majesty." 
 
 Before Haco could reply, the door opened, and Raoul 
 de Tancarville, as grand chamberlain, entered, with all 
 Harohl's Saxon train and a goodly number of Norman 
 squires and attendants, bearing rich vestures. 
 
 The noble bowed to tlie earl witli his country's polished 
 courtesy, and besought leave to lead him to the bath, 
 while his own squires prepared his raiment for the ban- 
 quet to be held in his honor. So all further conference 
 with his young kinsmen was then suspended. 
 
 The duke, who affected a state no less regal than that 
 of the court of France, permitted no one, save his own 
 family and guests, to sit at his own table. His great 
 officers (those imperious lords) stood beside his chair ; 
 and William Fitzosborne, ''tlie Proud Spirit," placed on 
 the board with his own liand the dainty dishes for which 
 the Norman cooks were renowned. And great men were 
 those Norman cooks ; and often for some " delicate," more 
 ravishing than wont, gold cliain and gem, and even " hel 
 maneir,^' fell to their guerdon.^ It was worth being a 
 cook in those days ! 
 
 The most seductive of men was William in his fair 
 moods ; and he lavished all the witcheries at his control 
 upon his guest. If possible, yet more gracious was 
 Matilda the Duchess. This woman, eminent for mental 
 culture, for personal beauty, a,nd for a spirit and an 
 
 1 A manor (but, not, alas! in Normandy) was held by one of his 
 cooks, on the tenure of supplying William with a dish of dillegrout.
 
 54 HAEOLD. 
 
 ambition no less great than lier lord's, knew well how 
 to choose such subjects of discourse as might most flatter 
 an English ear. Her connection with Harold, through 
 her sister's marriage with Tostig, warranted a familiarity 
 almost caressing, which she assumed towards the comely 
 earl ; and she insisted, with a winning smile, that all the 
 hours the duke would leave at his disposal, he must spend 
 with her. 
 
 The banquet was enlivened by the song of the great 
 Taillefer himself, wlio selected a theme that artfully 
 flattered alike the Norman and the Saxon, — namely, the 
 aid given by Eolfganger to Athelstan, and the alliance be- 
 tween the Engiisli king and the Norman founder. Ho 
 dexterously introduced into the song praises of the English, 
 and the value of their friendship ; and the countess sig- 
 nificantly applauded each gallant compliment to the land 
 of the famous guest. If Harold was pleased by such 
 poetic courtesies, lie was yet more surprised by the high 
 honor in which duke, baron, and prelate evidently held 
 the poet : for it was among tlie worst signs of that sordid 
 spirit, honoring only wealth, which had crept over the 
 original character of the Anglo-Saxon, that the bard, or 
 scop, with them, had sunk into great disrepute, and it 
 Avas even forbidden to ecclesiastics ^ to admit such landless 
 vagrants to their company. 
 
 Much, indeed, tliere was in that court which, even on 
 the first day, Harold saw to admire : tliat stately temper- 
 ance, so foreign to English excesses (but which, alas ! the 
 Norman kept not long when removed to another soil) ; 
 that methodical state and noble pomp which characterized 
 the Feudal system, linking so harmoniously prince to 
 peer, and peer to knight ; the easy grace, the polished 
 
 1 The council of Cloveshoe forbade the clergy to harbor poets, 
 harpers, musicians, and buffoons.
 
 HAROLD. 55 
 
 wit of the courtiers ; the wisdom of Lanfranc and the 
 higher ecclesiastics, blending worldly lore with decorous, 
 not pedantic, regard to their sacred calling ; the en- 
 lightened love of music, letters, song, and art, wliich 
 colored the discourse both of duke and duchess and the 
 younger courtiers, prone to emulate high example, whether 
 for ill or good, — all impressed Harold with a sense of 
 civilization and true royalty, which at once saddened and 
 inspired his musing mind : saddened him when he thought 
 how far behindhand England was in much with this com- 
 paratively petty principality, — inspired him when he felt 
 what one great chief can do for his native land. 
 
 The unfavorable impressions made upon his thoughts 
 by Haco's warnings, could scarcely fail to yield beneath 
 the prodigal courtesies lavished upon him, and the frank 
 openness with which William laughingly excused himself 
 for having so long detained the hostages, " in order, my 
 guest, to make thee come and fetch them ; and, by St. 
 Valery, now thou art here, thou shalt not depart till at 
 least thou hast lost in gentler memories the recollection 
 of the scurvy treatment thou hast met from that barbar- 
 ous count ; nay, never bite thy lip, Harold, my friend, 
 leave to me thy revenge upon Guy. Sooner or later, the 
 very maneir he hath extorted from me shall give excuse 
 for sword and lance, and then, pardex, thou shalt come 
 and cross steel in thine own quarrel. How I rejoice that 
 I can show to the heaxi frere of my dear cousin and 
 seigneur some return for all the courtesies the English 
 king and kingdom bestowed upon me ! To-morrow we 
 will ride to Rouen ; there all knightly sports shall be 
 held to grace thy coming ; and by St. Michael, knight- 
 saint of the Norman, nought less will content me than to 
 have thy great name in the list of my chosen chevaliers. 
 But the night wears now, and thou sure must needs
 
 56 HAROLD. 
 
 sleep ; " and, thus talking, the duke himself led the way 
 to Harold's chamber, and insisted on removing the ouche 
 from his robe of state. As he did so, he passed his 
 hand, as if carelessly, along the earl's right arm. " Ha ! " 
 said he, suddenly, and in his natural tone of voice, which 
 was sliort and quick, " these muscles have known practice ! 
 Dost think thou couldst bend ray bow 1 " 
 
 "Who could bend that of — Ulysses?" returned the 
 earl, fixing his deep-blue eye upon the Norman's. 
 William unconsciously changed color, for he felt that he 
 was at that moment more Ulysses than Achilles.
 
 HAKOLD. 57 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Side by side, William and Harold entered the fair city of 
 Rouen, and there a succession of the brilliant pageants 
 and knightly entertainments (comprising those "rare 
 feats of honor," expanded, with the following age, into 
 the more gorgeous display of joust and tourney) was 
 designed to dazzle the eyes and captivate the fancy of 
 the earl. But though Harold won, even by the confes- 
 sion of the chronicles most in favor of the Norman, 
 golden opinions in a court more ready to deride than 
 admire the Saxon, — though not only the "strength of 
 his body," and " the boldness of his spirit," as shown in 
 exhibitions unfamiliar to Saxon warriors, but his " man- 
 ners," his "eloquence, intellect, and other good qualities," ^ 
 were loftily conspicuous amidst those knightly courtiers, 
 — that sublimer part of his character, which was found 
 in its simple manhood and intense nationality, kept him 
 unmoved and serene amidst all intended to exercise that 
 fatal spell which Normanized most of those who came 
 within the circle of Norman attraction. 
 
 These festivities were relieved by pompous excursions 
 and progresses from town to town, and fort to fort, 
 throughout tlie duchy, and, according to some authorities, 
 even to a visit to Philip, the French king, at Compeigne. 
 On the return to Rouen, Harold, and the six thegns of 
 his train, were solemnly admitted into that peculiar band 
 of warlike brothers which William had instituted, and to 
 
 1 Ord. Vital.
 
 58 HAKOLD. 
 
 which, following the chronicles of the after-eentttry, w& 
 have given the name of knights. The silver halJrick was. 
 helted on, and the lance, with its pointed banderol, was 
 placed in the hand, and the seven Saxon lords hecame 
 Norman knights. 
 
 The evening after this ceremonial, Harold was with 
 the duchess and her fair daughters, — all children. The 
 beauty of one of the girls drew from him those compli- 
 ments so sweet to a mother's ear. Matilda looked up 
 from the broidery on which she was engaged, and beck- 
 oned tO' her the child thus praised. 
 
 " Adeliza," she said, placing her hand on the girl's 
 dark locks, " though we would not that thou shonldst 
 learn too early how men's tongues ean gloze and Hatter, 
 yet this noble guest hath so high a repute for truth, that 
 thou mayest at least believe him sincere when he says 
 thy face is fair. Think of it, and with pride, my child ; 
 let it kee'p thee through youth proof against the homag© 
 of meaner men ; and, peradventure,. St. Michael and St. 
 Valery may bestow on thee a mate valiant a,nd comely 
 as this noble lord." 
 
 The child blushed to her hrow, but answered with th© 
 quickness of a spoiled infant, — unless, perhaps, she had 
 been previously tutored so to reply, — " Sweet mother, I 
 will have no mate and no lord but Harold himself ; and 
 if he will not have Adeliza as his wife, she will die a nun.'* 
 
 " Froward child, it is not for thee to woo 1 " said 
 Matilda, smiling. "Thou heardest heif, noble Harold: 
 what is thine answer"?" 
 
 " That she will grow wiser," said the carl, laughing, as 
 he kissed the child's forehead. " Fair damsel, ere thou 
 art ripe for the altar, time Avill have sown gray in these 
 locks ; and thou wouldst smile indeed in scorn if Harold 
 then claimed thy troth."
 
 HAROLD. 59 
 
 " Not so," said Matilda, seriously ; " high-born damsels 
 see youth not in years but in fame, — fame, which is 
 young forever ! " 
 
 Startled by the gravity with which Matilda spoke, as 
 if to give importance to what had seemed a jest, the earl, 
 versed in courts, felt that a suare was round him, and 
 replied, in a tone between jest and earnest, " Happy am 
 I to wear on my heart a charm proof against all the 
 beauty even of this court." 
 
 Matilda's face darkened ; and William entering at that 
 time with his usual abruptness, lord and lady exchanged 
 glances not unobserved by Harold. 
 
 The duke, however, drew aside the Saxon, and saying, 
 gayly, " We Normans are not naturally jealous ; but then, 
 till now, we have not had Saxon gallants closeted with 
 our wives ; " added more seriously, " Harold, I have a 
 grace to pray at thy hands, — come with me." 
 
 The earl followed William into his chamber, which he 
 found filled with chiefs, in high converse ; and William 
 then hastened to inform him that he was about to make a 
 military expedition against the Bretons : and knowing 
 his peculiar acquaintance with the warfare, as with the 
 language and manners, of their kindred Welsh, he 
 besought his aid in a campaign, which he promised him 
 should be brief. 
 
 Perhaps the earl was not, in his own mind, averse 
 from returning William's display of power by some evi- 
 dence of his own milittiry skill, and the valor of the 
 Saxon thegns in his train. There might be prudence in 
 such exhibition, and, at all events, he could not with a 
 good grace decline the proposal. He enchanted "William, 
 therefore, by a simple acquiescence ; and the rest of the 
 evening — deep into night — was spent in examining 
 charts of the fort and country intended to be attacked.
 
 60 HAROLD. 
 
 The conduct and courage of Harold and his Saxons in 
 this expedition are recorded by the Norman chroniclers. 
 The earl's personal exertions saved, at the passage of 
 Coesnon, a detachment of soldiers, who would otherwise 
 have perished in the quicksands ; and even the warlike 
 skill of William, in the brief and brilliant campaign, Avas, 
 if not eclipsed, certainly equalled by that of the Saxon 
 chief. 
 
 While the campaign lasted, William and Harold had 
 but one table and one tent. To outward appearance, the 
 familiarity between the two was tliat of brothers; in 
 reality, however, these two men, both so able, — one so 
 deep in his guile, the other so wise in his tranquil caution, 
 — felt that a silent Avar between the two for mastery was 
 working on, under the guise of loving peace. 
 
 Already Harold was conscious that the politic motives 
 for his mission had failed liim ; already he perceived, 
 though he scarce knew why, that William the Norman 
 was the last man to whom he could confide his ambition, 
 or trust for aid. 
 
 One day, as during a short truce with the defenders of 
 the place they were besieging, the Normans were divert- 
 ing their leisure with martial games, in which Taillefer 
 shone pre-eminent ; while Harold and William stood 
 without their tent, watching the animated field, the duke 
 abruptly exclaimed to Mallet de Graville, " Bring me my 
 bow. Now, Harold, let me see if thou canst bend it." 
 
 The bow was brought, and Saxon and Norman gathered 
 round the spot. 
 
 " Fasten thy glove to yonder tree. Mallet," said the 
 duke, taking that mighty bow in his hand, and bending 
 its stubborn yew into the noose of the string with prac- 
 tised ease. 
 
 Then he drew the arc to his ear ; and the tree itself
 
 HAROLD. 61 
 
 seemed to sliake at the shook, as the shaft, piercing the 
 glove, lodged half-way in the trunk. 
 
 " Such are not our weapons," said the earl ; " and ill 
 would it become me, unpractised, so to peril our English 
 honor, as to strive against the arm that could bend that 
 arc and wing that arrow. But that I may show these 
 Norman knights that at least we have some weapon 
 wherewith we can parry shaft and smite assailer, bring 
 me forth, Godrith, my shield and my Danish axe." 
 
 Taking the shield and axe which the Saxon brought 
 to liim, Harold then stationed himself before the tree. 
 
 " Now, fair duke," said he, smiling, " choose thou thy 
 longest shaft, bid thy ten doughtiest archers take their 
 bows : round this tree will I move, and let each shaft be 
 aimed at whatever space in my mailless body I leave 
 unguarded by my shield." 
 
 " No ! " said William, hastily ; " that were murder." 
 
 " It is but the common peril of war," said Harold, 
 simply ; and he walked to the tree. 
 
 The blood mounted to William's brow, and the lion's 
 thirst of carnage parched his throat. 
 
 *' An he will have it so," said he, beckoning to his 
 archers, " let not Normandy be shamed. Watch well, 
 and let every shaft go home ; avoid only the Ijead and 
 the heart ; such orgulous vaunting is best cured by 
 blood-letting." 
 
 The archers nodded, and took their post, each at a 
 separate quarter ; and deadly, indeed, seemed the danger 
 of the earl, for, as he moved, though he kept his back 
 guarded by the tree, some parts of his form the shield 
 left exposed, and it would have been impossible, in his 
 quick-shifting movements, for the archers so to aim as to 
 wound, but to spare life ; yet the earl seemed to take no 
 peculiar care to avoid the peril ; lifting his bare head
 
 62 HAROLD. 
 
 fearlessly above the shield, and including in one gaze of 
 his steadfast eye, calmly bright even at the distance, all 
 the shafts of the archers. 
 
 At one moment five of the arrows hissed throuoh the 
 air ; and with such wonderful quickness had the shield 
 turned to each, that three fell to the ground blunted 
 against it, and two broke on its surface. 
 
 But William, waiting for the first discharge, and seeing 
 full mark at Harold's shoulder as the buckler turned, 
 now sent forth his terrible shaft. The noble Taillefer, 
 with a poet's true sympathy, cried, " Saxon, beware ! " 
 but the watchful Saxon needed not the Avaruing. As if 
 in disdain, Harold met not the shaft with his shield, but 
 swinging high the mighty axe (which with most men 
 required both arms to wield it), he advanced a step, and 
 clove the rushing arrow in twain ! 
 
 Before William's loud oatli of wrath and surprise left 
 his lips, the five shafts of the remaining archers fell as 
 vainly as their predecessors against the nimble shield. 
 
 Then advancing, Harold said cheerfullv : " This is but 
 defence, fair duke, — and little worth were the axe if it 
 could not smite as well as ward. Wherefore, I pray you, 
 place upon yonder broken stone pillar, which seems some 
 relic of Druid heathenesse, such helm and shirt of mail, 
 as thou deemest most proof against sword and pertuizan, 
 and judge then if our English axe can guard well our 
 English land." 
 
 " If thy axe can cleave the helmet I wore at Bavent, 
 ■when the Franks and their king fled before me," said tlie 
 duke, grimly, " I shall hold Cisesar in fault not to have 
 invented a weapon so dread." 
 
 And striding back into his pavilion, he came forth with 
 the helm and shirt of mail, which was worn stronger and 
 heavier by the Normans, as fighting usually on horseback,
 
 HAROLD, 63 
 
 than by Dane ami Saxon, who, mainly fightuig on foot, 
 could not have endured so cumbrous a burden : and if 
 strong and dour generally with the Norman, judge what 
 solid weight that mighty duke could endure ! With his 
 own hand William placed the mail on the ruined Druid 
 stone, and on the mail the helm. 
 
 Harold looked long and gravely at the edge of the axe ; 
 it was so richly gilt and damasquined that the sharpness 
 of its temper could not well have been divined under that 
 holiday glitter. But this axe had come to him from 
 Canute the Great, who himself, unlike the Danes, small 
 and slight,^ had supplied his deficiency of muscle by the 
 finest dexterity and the most perfect weapons. Famous 
 had been that axe in the delicate hand of Canute, — how 
 much more tremendous in the ample grasp of Harold ! 
 Swinging now in both hands this weapon witli a peculiar 
 and rapid whirl, which gave it an inconceivable impetus, 
 the earl let fall the crushing blow : at the first stroke, cut 
 right in the centre, rolled the helm, at the second, 
 through all the woven mail (cleft asunder as if the slight- 
 est filigree-work of the goldsmith) shore the blade, and a 
 great fragment of the stone itself came tumbling on the sod. 
 
 The jSTormans stood aghast, and William's face was as 
 pale as the shattered stone. The great duke felt even his 
 matchless dissimulation fail him ; nor, unused to the 
 special practice and craft which the axe required, could he 
 have pretended, despite a physical strength superior even 
 to Harold's, to rival blows that seemed to him more than 
 mortal. 
 
 " Lives there any other man in the wide world whose 
 arm could have wrought that feat ] " exclaimed Bruse, the 
 ancestor of the famous Scot. 
 
 1 Canute made his inferior strength and stature his excuse for 
 not meeting Edward Ironsides in single combat.
 
 64 HAKOLD. 
 
 "Nay," said Harold, simply, "at least thirty thousand 
 such men have I left at home ! But this was but the 
 stroke of an idle vanity, and strength becomes tenfold in a 
 good cause." 
 
 The duke heard, and fearful lest he should betray his 
 sense of the latent meaning couched under his guest's 
 words, he hastily muttered forth reluctant compliment 
 and praise ; while Fitzosborue, De Bohun, and other 
 chiefs more genuinely knightly, gave way to unrestrained 
 admiration. 
 
 Then beckoning De Graville to follow him, the duke 
 strode off towards the tent of his brother of Bayeux, 
 who, though, except on extraordinary occasions, he did not 
 join in positive conflict, usually accompanied William in 
 his military excursions, both to bless the host, and to 
 advise (for his martial science was considerable) the 
 council of war. 
 
 The bishop, who, despite the sanctimony of the court, 
 and his own stern nature, was (though secretly and deco- 
 rously) a gallant of great success in otiier fields than those 
 of Mars,^ sat alone in his pavilion, inditing an epistle to a 
 certain fair dame in Eouen, whom he had iinwilliiio-Iv left 
 to follow his brother. At the entrance of William, whose 
 morals in such matters were pure and rigid, he swept the 
 letter into the chest of relics which always accompanied 
 him, and rose, saying indifferently, — 
 
 " A treatise on the authenticity of St. Thomas's little 
 finger ! But what ails you ] — j'ou are disturbed ! " 
 
 " Odo, Odo, this man baffles me, — this man fools me; 
 I make no ground with him. I have spent — heaven 
 
 1 Odo's licentiousness was, at a later period, one of the alleged 
 causes of his downfall, or rather against his release from tlie 
 prison to which he had been consigned. He had a son named 
 John, who distinguished himself under Henry I. — Oru. Vital, 
 lib. iv.
 
 HAROLD. 65 
 
 knows what I have spent," said the duke, sighing with 
 penitent parsimony, "in banquets and ceremonies and 
 processions ; to say nothing of my bel manier of Yonne, 
 and the sum wrung from my coffers by that greedy 
 Ponthevin. All gone, all wasted, all melted like snow ! and 
 the Saxon is as Saxon as if he had seen neither Norman 
 splendor, nor been released from the danger by Norman 
 treasure. But by the Splendor Divine, I were fool indeed 
 if I suffered him to return home. Would thou hadst seen 
 the sorcerer cleave my helmet and mail just now, as 
 easily as if they had been willow twigs. Oh, Odo, Odo, 
 my soul is troubled, and St. Michael forsakes me ! " 
 
 While William ran on thus distractedly, the prelate 
 lifted his eyes inquiringly to De Graville, who now 
 stood within the tent, and the knight briefly related the 
 recent trial of strength. 
 
 " I see nought in this to chafe thee," said Odo ; "the 
 man once thine, the stronger the vassal, the more powerful 
 the lord." 
 
 " But he is not mine ; I have sounded him as far as I 
 dare go. Matilda hath almost openly offered him my 
 fairest child as his wife. Nothing dazzles, nothing moves 
 him. Thinkest thou I care for his strong arm 1 Tut, no ; 
 I chafe at the proud heart that set the arm in motion, the 
 proud meaning his words symbolled out, * So will English 
 strength guard English land from the Norman, — so axe 
 and shield will defy your mail and your shafts.' But let 
 him beware ! " growled the duke, fiercely, " or — " 
 
 "May I speak," interrupted De Graville, "and suggest 
 a counsel ? " 
 
 " Speak out, in God's name ! " cried the duke. 
 
 "Then I should say, with submission, that the way to 
 tame a lion is not by gorging him, but daunting. Bold is 
 the lion against open foes ; but a lion in the toils loses his 
 
 VOL. II. — 5
 
 66 HAKOLD. 
 
 nature. Just now my lord said that Harold should not 
 return to his native land — " 
 
 " Nor shall he, but as my sworn man ! " exclaimed the 
 duke. 
 
 " And if you now put to him that choice, think yon it 
 will favor your views 1 Will he not reject your proffers, 
 and with hot scorn 1 " 
 
 " Scorn ! darest thou that word to me 1 " cried the duke. 
 " Scorn ! have I no headsman whose axe is as sharp as 
 Harold's 1 and the neck of a captive is not sheathed in my 
 Norman mail." 
 
 " Pardon, pardon, my liege," said Mallet, "with spirit ; 
 *' but to save my chief from a hasty action that might 
 bring long remorse, I spoke thus boldly. Give the earl at 
 least fair warning : — a prison, or fealty to thee, that is the 
 choice before him ! — let him know it ; let him see that thy 
 dungeons are dark, and tliy walls impassable. Threaten 
 not his life, — brave men care not for that ! — threaten 
 thyself nought, but let others work upon him with fear of 
 his freedom. I know well these Saxish men ; I know 
 well Harold : freedom is their passion, — they fire cowards 
 when threatened with the doom of four walls." 
 
 "I conceive thee, wise son," exclaimed Odo. 
 
 " Ha ! " said the duke, slowly ; " and yet it was to 
 prevent such suspicions that I took care, after the first 
 meeting, to separate him from Haco and Wolnoth, for they 
 must have learned much in Norman gossip ill to repeat to 
 the Saxon." 
 
 " Wolnoth is almost wholly Norman," said the bishop, 
 smiling; " Wolnoth is bound par amours to a certain fair 
 Norman dame ; and, I trow well, prefers her charms here 
 
 ^ William of Poitiers, the coutemporary Norman chronicler, says 
 of Harold, that he was a man to whom imprisonment was more 
 odious than shipwreck.
 
 HAROLD. 67 
 
 to the thought of his return. But Haco, as thou knowest, 
 is sullen aud watchful." 
 
 " So much the better companion for Harold now," said 
 De Graville. 
 
 " I am fated ever to plot and to scheme ! " said the 
 duke, groaning, as if he had been the simplest of men ; 
 " but, nathless, I love the stout earl, and I mean all for 
 his own good, — that is, compatibly with my rights and 
 claims to the heritage of Edward my cousin." 
 
 " Of course," said the bishop.
 
 68 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The snares now spread for Harold were in pursuance of 
 the policy thus resolved on. The camp soon afterwards 
 broke up, and tlie troops took their way to Bayeux. 
 William, without greatly altering his manner towanis the 
 earl, evaded markedly (or as markedly replied not to) 
 Harold's plain declarations, that his presence was required 
 in England, and that he could no longer defer his depart- 
 ure ; while under pretence of being busied with affairs, he 
 absented himself much from the earl's company, or refrained 
 from seeing him alone, and suffered Mallet de Graville, and 
 Odo the bishop, to supply his place with Harold. The 
 earl's suspicions now became thoroughly aroused, and these 
 were fed both by the hints, kindly meant, of De Graville, 
 and the less covert discourse of the prelate ; while Mallet 
 let drop, as in gossiping illustration of William's herce and 
 vindictive nature, many anecdotes of that cruelty which 
 really stained the Norman's character ; Odo, more bluntly, 
 appeared to take it for granted that Harold's sojourn in 
 the land would be long, 
 
 " You will have time," said he, one day, as they rode 
 together, " to assist me, I trust, in learning the language 
 of our forefithers. Danish is still spoken much at 
 Bayeux, the sole place in Neustria ^ where the old tongue 
 
 1 In the environs of Bayeux still may perhaps linger the sole 
 remains of the Scandinavian Normans, apart from the gentry. For 
 centuries the inhabitants of Ba^'eiix and its vicinity were a class 
 distinct from the Franco-Normans, or the rest of Neustria , they
 
 HAROLD. 69 
 
 and customs still linger ; and it AA^ould serve my pastoral 
 ministry to receive your lessons ; in a year or so I might 
 hope so to profit by them as to discourse freely with the 
 less Frankish part of my flock." 
 
 " Surely, Lord Bishop, you jest," said Harold, seri- 
 ously ; " you know well that within a week, at farthest, I 
 must sail back for England with my young kinsmen." 
 
 The prelate laughed. 
 
 " I advise you, dear count and son, to be cautious how 
 you speak so plainly to William. I perceive that you 
 have already ruffled him by such indiscreet remarks ; and 
 you must have seen eno' of the duke to know that, when 
 his ire is up, his answers are short, but his arms are long." 
 
 "You most grievously wrong Duke AVilliara," cried 
 Harold, indignantly, " to suppose, merely in that playful 
 humor, for which ye Normans are famous, that he could 
 lay force on his confiding guest." 
 
 *' No, not a confiding guest, — a ransomed captive. 
 Surely my brother will deem tliat he has purchased of 
 Count Guy his rights over his illustrious prisoner. But 
 courage ! The Norman court is not the Ponthevin dun- 
 geon ; and your chains, at least, are roses." 
 
 Tlie reply of wrath and defiance that rose to Harold's lip 
 was checked by a sign horn De Graville, who raised his 
 finger to his lip with a face expressive of caution and 
 alarm, and, some little time after as tliey halted to water 
 their horses, De Graville came up to him and said in a 
 low voice, and in Saxon, — 
 
 " Beware how you speak too frankly to Odo. What is 
 said to him is said to William ; and the duke, at times, so 
 acts on the spur of the moment that — but let me not 
 wrong him, or needlessly alarm you." 
 
 submitted with great reluctance to the ducal authority, and re- 
 tained tlieir old heatheu cry of " Thor-aide ! " instead of " Dieu- 
 aide ! "
 
 70 HAROLD. 
 
 " Sire de Graville," said Harold, " this is not the first 
 time that the Prelate of Bayeux hath hinted at compulsion, 
 nor that you (no doubt kindly) have warned me of 
 pui-[)ose hostile or fraudfal. As plain man to plain man, 
 1 ask you, on your knightly honor, to tell me if you know 
 aught to make you believe that William the Duke will, 
 under any pretext, detain me here a captive." 
 
 jN^ow, though Mallet de Graville had lent himself to the 
 service of an ignoble craft, he justified it by a better 
 reason than complaisance to his lords ; for, knowing 
 William well, his hasty ire and his relentless ambition, he 
 was really alai^med for Harold's safety. And, as the 
 reader may have noted, in suggesting that policy of intimi- 
 dation, the knight had designed to give the earl at least 
 the benefit of forewarning. So, thus adjured, De Graville 
 replied sincerely, — 
 
 " Earl Harold, on my honor as your brother in knight- 
 hood, I answer your plain question. I have cause to 
 believe and to know that William will not suffer you to 
 depart, unless fully satisfied on certain points, which he 
 himself will doubtless ere long make clear to you." 
 
 " And if I insist on my departure, not so satisfying 
 him 1 " 
 
 " Every castle on our road hath a dungeon as deep as 
 Count Guy's ; but where another William to deliver you 
 from William ? " 
 
 " Over yon seas, a prince mightier than William, and 
 men as resolute, at least, as your Normans." 
 
 " Cher et puissant, my Lord Earl," answered De 
 Graville, " these are brave words, but of no weight in the 
 ear of a schemer so deep as the duke. Think you really 
 that King Edward (pardon my bluntness) would rouse 
 himself from his apathy to do more in your behalf than 
 he has done in your kinsmen's, — remonstrate and preach ]
 
 HAROLD. 71 
 
 Are you even sure that on the representation of a man he 
 hath so loved as William, he will not be content to rid his 
 throne of so formidable a subject 1 You speak of the 
 English people ; doubtless you are popular and beloved ; 
 but it is the habit of no people, least of all your own, to 
 stir actively and in concert without leaders. The duke 
 knows the factions of England as well as you do. Re- 
 member how closely he is connected with Tostig, your 
 ambitious brother. Have you no fear that Tostig him- 
 self, earl of the most warlike part of the kingdom, will 
 not only do his best to check the popular feeling in your 
 favor, but foment every intrigue to detain you here, and 
 leave himself the first noble in the land ? As for other 
 leaders, save Gurth (who is but your own vice-earl), who 
 is there that will not rejoice at the absence of Haruld ] 
 You have made foes of the only family that approaches 
 the power of your own, — the heirs of Leofric and Algar. 
 Your strong hand removed from the reins of the empire, 
 tumults and dissensions ere long will break forth that will 
 distract men's minds from an absent captive, and centre 
 them on the safety of their own hearths, or the advance- 
 ment of their own interests. You see that I know some- 
 thing of the state of your native land ; but deem not my 
 own observation, though not idle, sufficed to bestow that 
 knowledge. I learn it more from William's discourses, — 
 William, who from Flanders, from Boulogne, from England 
 itself, by a thousand channels, hears all that passes be- 
 tween the cliffs of Dover and the Marches of Scotland." 
 
 Harold paused long before he replied, for his mind was 
 now tlioroughly awakened to his danger ; and while recog- 
 nizing the wisdom and intimate acquaintance of affairs 
 with which De Graville spoke, he was also rapidly revolv- 
 ing the best course for himself to pursue in such extremes. 
 At length he said, —
 
 72 HAROLD. 
 
 "I pass by your remarks on the state of England with 
 but one comment. You underrate Gurth, my brother, 
 when you speak of him but as the vice-earl of Harold. 
 You underrate one, who needs but an object to excel in 
 arms and in council my fatlier Godwin himself That 
 object a brother's wrongs would create from a brother's 
 love, and three hundred ships would sail up the Seine to 
 demand your captive, manned by warriors as hardy as 
 those who wrested Neustria from King Charles." 
 
 "Granted," said De Graville. "Rut William, who 
 could cut off the hands and feet of his own subjects for 
 an idle jest on his birth, could as easily put out the eyes 
 of a captive foe. And of what worth are the a})Iest brain 
 and the stoutest arm when the man is dependent on 
 anotlier for very sight ! " 
 
 Harold involuntarily shuddered ; but recovering him- 
 self on the instant, he replied, with a smile, — 
 
 " Thou makest thy duke a butcher, more fell than his 
 ancestor Eolfganger. But thou saidst he needed but to 
 be satisfied on certain points. What are they 1 " 
 
 " Ah, that thou must divine, or he unfold. But see, 
 William himself approaches yon." 
 
 And here the duke, who had been till then in the rear, 
 spurred np with courteous excuses to Harold for his long 
 defection from his side ; and, as they resumed their way, 
 talked with all his former frankness and gayety. 
 
 " By the way, dear brother in arms," said he, " I have 
 provided thee this evening with comrades more Avelcome, 
 I fear, than myself, — Haco and Wolnoth. That last is 
 a youth whom I love dearly ; the first is unsocial eno', 
 and methinks would make a better hermit than soldier. 
 But, by St. Valery, I forgot to tell thee that an envoy 
 from Flanders to-day, amongst other news, brought me 
 some that may interest thee. There is a strong commo-
 
 HAEOLD. 73 
 
 tion in thy brother Tostig's Northumhrian earldom, and 
 the rumor runs that his fierce vassals will drive him forth 
 and select some other lord ; talk was of the sons of Algar, 
 — so I think ye called the stout dead earl. This looks 
 grave, for my dear cousin Edward's health is fiiiling fast. 
 May the saints spare him long from their rest ! " 
 
 "These are indeed ill tidings," said the earl; "and I 
 trust that they suffice to plead at once my excuse fur 
 urging my immediate departure. Grateful I am for thy 
 most gracious hostship, and thy just and generous inter- 
 cession with thy liegeman^' (Harold dwelt emphatically 
 on the last word) " for my release from a capture dis- 
 graceful to all Christendom. Tlie ransom so nobly paid 
 for me I will not insult thee, dear my lord, by affecting to 
 repay ; but such gifts as our cheapmen hold most rare, 
 perchance thy lady and thy fair children will deign to 
 receive at my hands. Of these hereafter. Now may I 
 ask but a vessel from tliy nearest port 1 " 
 
 " We will talk of this, dear guest and brother knight, 
 on some later occasion. Lo, yon castle, — ye have no 
 such in England, See its vawmures and fosses ! " 
 
 "A noble pile," answered Harold. "But pardon me 
 that I press for — " 
 
 " Ye have no such strongholds, I say, in England," 
 interrupted the duke, petulantly, 
 
 " Nay," replied the Englishman, " we have two strong- 
 holds far larger than that, — Salisbury Plain and New- 
 market Heath ! ^ — strongholds that will contain fifty 
 thousand men who need no walls but their shields. 
 Count William, England's ramparts are her men, and her 
 strongest castles are her widest plains." 
 
 1 Similar was the answer of Goodyn the hishop of 'Winchester, 
 ambassador from Plenry VIII. to the French king. To this day the 
 English entertain the same notion of forts as Harold and Goodyn.
 
 74 HAROLD. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the duke, biting his lip, " ah, so be it, — 
 
 but to return : in that castle, mark it well, the dukes of 
 Normandy hold their prisoners of state ; " and then he 
 added with a laugh : " but we hold you, noble captive, in 
 a prison more strong, — our love and our heart." 
 
 As he spoke, he turned his eye full upon Harold, and 
 the gaze of the two encountered : that of the duke was 
 brilliant, but stern and sinister ; that of Harold, steadfast 
 and reproachful. As if by a spell, the eye of each rested 
 long on that of the other, — as the eyes of two lords of 
 the forest, ere the rush and the spring. 
 
 William was the first to withdraw his gaze, and as he 
 did so, his lip quivered and his brow knit. Then, wav- 
 ing his hand for some of the lords behind to join him and 
 the earl, he spurred his steed, and all further private con- 
 versation was suspended. The train pulled not bridle 
 before they reached a monastery, at which they rested for 
 the night.
 
 HAKOLD. 75 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 On entering the chamber set apart for him in the convent, 
 Harold found Haco and Wolnoth already awaiting him ; 
 and a wound he had received in the last skirmish against 
 the Bretons having broken out afresli on the road, allowed 
 him an excuse to spend the rest of the evening alone with 
 his kinsmen. 
 
 On conversing with them, — now at length, and un- 
 restrainedly, — Harold saw everything to increase his 
 alarm ; for even Wolnoth, when closely pressed, could not 
 but give evidence of the unscrupulous astuteness with 
 which, despite all the boasted honor of chivalry, the 
 duke's character was stained. For, indeed, in his excuse 
 it must be said, that from the age of eight exposed to the 
 snares of his own kinsmen, and more often saved by craft 
 than by strength, William had been taught betimes to 
 justify dissimulation, and confound wisdom with guile. 
 Harold now bitterly recalled the parting words of 
 Edward, and recognized their justice, though as yet he 
 did not see all that they portended. Fevered and dis- 
 quieted yet more by the news from England, and conscious 
 that not only the power of his house and the foundations 
 of his aspiring hopes, but the very weal and safety of the 
 land, were daily imperilled by his continued absence, a 
 vague and unspeakable terror for the first time in his life 
 preyed on his bold heart, — a terror like that of supersti- 
 tion ; for, like superstition, it was of the Unknown : there 
 was everything to shun, yet no substance to grapple with.
 
 76 HAKOLD. 
 
 He wlio could have smiled at the brief pangs of death, 
 shrunk from the thought of the perpetual prison ; he 
 whose spirit rose elastic to every storm of life, and exulted 
 in the air of action, stood appalled at the fear of blindness : 
 blindness in the midst of a career so grand, blindness in 
 the midst of his pathway to a thi-one, blindness, that curse 
 which palsies the strong and enslaves the free, and leaves 
 the whole man defenceless, — defenceless in an Age of 
 Iron. 
 
 What, too, were those mysterious points on which he 
 was to satisfy the duke % He sounded his young kins- 
 men ; but Wolnoth evidently knew nothing ; Haco's eye 
 showed intelligence, but by his looks and gestures he 
 seemed to signify that what he knew he would only dis- 
 close to Harold. Fatigued not more with his emotions 
 than with that exertion to conceal them so peculiar to the 
 English character (proud virtue of manhood, so little 
 appreciated and so rarely understood !), he at length 
 kissed Wolnoth, and dismissed him, yawning, to his rest. 
 Haco, lingering, closed the door, and looked long and 
 mournfully at the earl. 
 
 " Noble kinsman," said the young son of Sweyn, " I 
 foresaw from the first that as our fate will be tliine, only 
 round thee will be wall and fosse ; unless, indeed, thou 
 wilt lay aside thine own nature — it will give thee no 
 armor here — and assume that which — " 
 
 " Ho ! " interrupted the earl, shaking with repressed 
 passion, " I see already all the foul fraud and treason to 
 guest and noble that surround me ! But if the duke dare 
 such shame, he shall do so in the eyes of day. I will 
 hail the first boat I see on his river or his sea-coast ; and 
 woe to those who lay hand on this arm to detain me ! " 
 
 Haco lifted his ominous eyes to Harold's, and there 
 was something in their cold and unimpassioned expres-
 
 HAP.OLD. 77 
 
 sion which seemed to repel all enthusiasm, and to deaden 
 all courage. 
 
 "Harold," said he, " if but for one such moment thou 
 obey est the impulse of thy manly pride or thy just resent- 
 ment, thou art lost forever , one show of violence, one 
 word of affront, and thou givest the duke the excuse he 
 thirsts for. Escape ! It is impossible. For the last five 
 years I have pondered night and day the means of flight ; 
 for I deem that my hostageship, by right, is long since 
 over ; and no means have I seen or found. Si:)ies dog 
 my every step, as spies, no doubt, dog thine." 
 
 " Ha ! it is true," said Harold ; " never once have I 
 wandered three paces from the camp or the troop, but, 
 under some pretext, I have been followed by knight or 
 courtier. God and our Lady help me, if but for England's 
 sake ! But what counsellest thou 1 Boy, teach nie ; 
 thou hast been reared in this air of wile : to me it is 
 strange, and I am as a wild beast encompassed by a circle 
 of fire." 
 
 " Then," answered Haco, " meet craft by craft, smile 
 by smile. Feel that thou art under compulsion, and 
 act, — as the Church itself pardons men for acting so 
 compelled." 
 
 Harold started, and the blush spread red over his 
 cheeks. 
 
 Haco continued : — 
 
 " Once in prison, and thou art lost evermore to the 
 sight of men. William would not then dare to release 
 thee, — unless, indeed, he first rendered thee powerless to 
 avenge. Though I will not malign him, and say that he 
 himself is capable of secret murder, yet he has ever those 
 about him who are. He drops in his wrath some hasty 
 "word ; it is seized by ready and ruthless tools. The great 
 Count of Bretagne was in his way : William feared him
 
 78 HAROLD. 
 
 as he fears thee ; and in his own court, and amongst his 
 own men, the great Count of Bretagne died by poison. 
 For thy doom, open or secret, William, however, could 
 find ample excuse." 
 
 " How, boy ? What charge can the i^orman bring 
 against a free Englishman % " 
 
 " His kinsman Alfred," answered Haco, "was blinded, 
 tortured, and murdered ; and in the court of Eouen Lliey 
 say these deeds were done by Godwin tliy father. The 
 Normans who escorted Alfred were decimated in cold 
 blood ; again, they say Godwin tliy father slaughtered 
 them." 
 
 " It is hell's own lie ! " cried Harold, " and so have I 
 proved already to the duke." 
 
 " Proved % No ! The lamb does not prove the cause 
 which is prejudged by the wolf. Often and often have 
 I hearJ the Normans speak of tliose deeds, and cry that 
 vengeance yet shall await them. It is but to renew the 
 old accusation, — to say Godwin's sudden death was 
 God's proof of his crime, — and even Edward himself 
 would forgive the duke for thy bloody death. But grant 
 the best ; grant that the more lenient doom were but the 
 prison ; grant that Edward and the English invaded 
 Normandy to enforce thy freedom, — knowest thou what 
 William hath ere now done with hostages 1 He hath put 
 them in the van of his army, and seared out their eyes in 
 tlie siglit of both hosts. Deemest tliou he would be more 
 gentle to us and to thee] Such are thy dangers. Be 
 bold and frank, — and thou canst not escape them ; Ije 
 wary and wise, promise and feign, and they are baffled : 
 cover thy lion heart with the fox's hide until thou art 
 free from the toils." 
 
 " Leave me, leave me," said Harold, hastily. " Yet, 
 hold ! Thou didst seem to understand me when I hinted
 
 HAKOLD. 79 
 
 of — in a word, what is the object William would gain 
 from me 1 " 
 
 Haco looked round ; again went to the door ; again 
 opened and closed it, — approached, and whispered, 
 " The crown of England ! " 
 
 The earl bounded, as if shot to the heart ; then again 
 he cried, " Leave me ! I must be alone, — alone now. 
 Go ! go 1 "
 
 80 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Only in solitude could that strong man give way to his 
 emotions ; and at first they rushed forth so confused and 
 stormy, so hurtling one the other, that hours elapsed 
 before he could serenely face the terrible crisis of his 
 position. 
 
 The great historian of Italy has said, that whenever 
 tlie simple and truthful German came amongst the plot- 
 ting and artful Italians, and experienced their duplicity 
 and craft, he straightway became more false and subtle 
 than the Italiaiis themselves : to his own countrymen, 
 indeed, he continued to retain liis characteristic sincerity 
 and good faith ; but, once duped and tricked by the 
 southern schemers, as if with a fiei'ce scorn, he rejected 
 trotli with the truthless ; he exulted in mastering them 
 in their own wily statesmanship ; and if reproached for 
 insincerity, retorted with naive wonder, " Ye Italians, and 
 complain of insincerity ! How otherwise can one deal with 
 you, — how be safe amongst you 1 " 
 
 Somewhat of this revolution of all the natural elements 
 of his character took place in Harold's mind that stormy 
 and solitary night. In the transport of his indignation, 
 he resolved not doltishly to be thus outwitted to his ruin. 
 The perfidious host had deprived himself of that privi- 
 lege of Truth, — the large and heavenly security of man ; 
 it was but a struggle of wit against wit, snare against 
 snare. The state and law of warfare had started up in 
 the lap of fraudful peace ; and ambush must be met by 
 ambush, plot by plot.
 
 HAROLD. 81 
 
 Such was the nature of the self-excuses by which the 
 Saxon defeuded bis resolves, and they appeared to him 
 more sanctioned by the stake which depended on success, 
 — a stake which his undying patriotism allowed to be 
 far more vast than his individual ambition. Nothing was 
 more clear than tliat, if lie were detained in a Norman 
 prison at the time of King Edward's death, the sole 
 obstacle to William's design on the English throne would 
 be removed. In the interim, the duke's intrigues would 
 again surround the infirm king with Norman influences ; 
 and in the absence both of any legitimate heir to the 
 throne capable of commanding the trust of the people, and 
 of his own preponderating ascendancy both in the Witan 
 and the armed militia of the nation, what could arrest 
 the designs of the grasping duke 1 Thus his own liberty 
 was indissolubly connected with that of his country ; — 
 and for that great end, the safety of England, all means 
 grew holy. 
 
 When the next morning he joined the cavalcade, 
 it was only by his extreme paleness that the struggle 
 and agony of the past night could be traced, and he 
 answered with correspondent cheerfulness William's 
 cordial greetings. 
 
 As they rode together — still accompanied by several 
 knicrhts, and the discourse was thus general — the fea- 
 tures of the country suggested the theme of the talk. For, 
 now in the heart of Normandy, but in rural districts 
 remote from the great towns, nothing could be more waste 
 and neglected than the face of the land. Miserable ami 
 sordid to the last degree were the huts of the serfs ; and 
 when these last met them on their way, lialf-naked 
 and hunger-worn, there was a wild gleam of hate and dis- 
 content in their eyes, as they louted low to the Norman 
 riders, and heard the bitter and scorriful taunts with 
 
 VOL. u. — 6
 
 82 HAROLD, 
 
 which they were addressed ; for the Norman and the 
 Frank had more than inditference for the peasants of their 
 land ; they literally both despised and abhorred them, as 
 of different race from the conqnerors. The A^orman set- 
 tlement especially was so recent in the land, that none of 
 that amalmimation between class and class which centuries 
 had created in England, existed there ; though in England, 
 the theowe was whoP.y a slave, and the ceorl in a politi- 
 cal servitude to his lord, yet public opinion, more mild, 
 than law, preserved the thraldom from wanton aggrava- 
 tion ; and slavery was felt to be wrong and unchristian. 
 The Saxon Church — not the less, perhaps, for its very 
 ignorance — sympathized more with the subject popula- 
 tion, and was more associated with it, than the compara- 
 tively learned and haughty ecclesiastics of the Continent, 
 who held aloof from the unpolished vulgar. The Saxon 
 Church invariably set the example of freeing the theowe 
 and emancipating the ceorl, and taught that such acts were 
 to the salvation of the soul. The rude and homely manner 
 in which the greater part of the Saxon thegns lived, — 
 dependent solely for their subsistence on their herds and 
 agricultural produce, and therefore on the labor of their 
 pea.sants, — not only made the distinctions of rank less 
 hai'sh and visible, but rendered it the interest of the 
 lords to feed and clothe well their dependents. All our 
 records of the customs of the Saxons prove the ample sus- 
 tenance given to the poor, and a general care for their lives 
 and rights, wliich, compared with the Frank laws, may be 
 called enlightened and humane. And above all, the low- 
 est serf ever had the great hope both of freedom and of 
 promotion ; but the beast of the field was holier in the 
 eyes of the Norman than the wretched villein.^ We have 
 
 1 See Mr. Wright's very interesting article on the " Condition 
 of the Engli.sh Peasantry," &c., " Archreologia," vol. xxx. pp. 205-
 
 HAROLD. 83 
 
 likened tlie Korman to the Spartan, and, most of all, he 
 was like him in his scorn of the helot. 
 
 Thus embruted and degraded, deriving little from 
 religion itself except its terrors, the general habits of the 
 peasants on the continent of France were against the very 
 basis of Christiauitj^, — marriage. They lived together 
 for the most part without that tie, and hence the common 
 name, with which they were called by their masters, lay 
 and clerical, was the coarsest word contempt can apply to 
 the sons of women. 
 
 "The hounds glare at us," said Odo, as a drove of these 
 miserable serfs passed along. "They need ever the lash 
 to teach them to know the master. Are they thus muti' 
 nous and surly in England, Lord Harold ? " 
 
 " No ; but there our meanest theowes are not seen so 
 clad, nor housed in such hovels," said the earl. 
 
 " And is it really true that a villein with you can rise 
 to be a noble 1 " 
 
 " Of at least yearly occurrence. Perhaps the forefathers 
 
 244 I must, however, observe, that one very important fact seems 
 to have been generally overlooked by all inquirers, or at least not 
 sufficiently enforced, — namely, that it was the Norman's contempt 
 for the general mass of the subject population which, more perhaps 
 than any other cause, broke up positive slavery in England Thus 
 the Norman very soon lost siglit of that distinctiou the Anglo- 
 Saxons had made Ijetween the agricultural ceorl and the theowe, — 
 that is, between the serf of the soil and the personal slave. Hence 
 these classes became fused in each other, and were gradually 
 emancipated by the same circumstances. This, be it remarked, 
 could never have taken place under the Anglo-Saxon laws, which 
 kept constantly feeding the class of slaves by adding to it convicted 
 felons and tlieir children. The subject population became too 
 necessary to the Norman barons, in their feuds with each other, or 
 their king, to be long oppressed ; and in the time of Froissart, 
 that worthy chronicler ascribes the insolence or high spirit of l6 
 menu peujile to their grand aise, et abondunce de blens.
 
 84 HAROLD. 
 
 of one-fourth of our Anglo-Saxon thegns held the plough, 
 or followed some craft mechanical." 
 
 Duke William politicly checked Odo's answer, and 
 said, mildly, — 
 
 " Every land its own laws, and by them alone should 
 it be governed by a virtuous and wise ruler. Eut, noble 
 Harold, I grieve that you should thus note the sore point 
 in my realm. I grant that the condition of the peas- 
 ants and the culture of the land need reform. But in 
 my childhood there was a fierce outbreak of rebellion 
 among the villeins, needing bloody example to check, and 
 the memories of wrath between lord and villein must 
 sleep before we can do justice between them, as, please 
 St. Peter, and by Lanfranc's aid, we hope to do. Mean- 
 while, one great portion of our villeinage in our larger 
 towns we have much mitigated. For trade and commerce 
 are the strength of rising states ; and if our fields are 
 barren, our streets are prosperous." 
 
 Harold bowed, and rode musingly on. That civiliza- 
 tion he had so much admired bounded itself to the noble 
 class, and, at farthest, to the circle of the duke's commer- 
 cial policy. Beyond it, on the outskirts of humanity, lay 
 the mass of the people. And here no comparison in 
 favor of the latter could be found between English and 
 Norman civilization. 
 
 The towers of Bayeux rose dim in the distance, when 
 William proposed a halt in a pleasant spot by the side of 
 a small streain, overshadowed by oak and beech. A tent 
 for himself and Harold was pitched in haste, and after an 
 abstemious refreshment, the duke, taking Harold's arm, 
 led him away from the train along the margin of the mur- 
 muring stream. 
 
 They were soon in a remote, pastoral, primitive spot, — 
 a spot like those which the old menestrels loved to
 
 HAIiOLD. 85 
 
 describe, and in which some pious hermit might, pleased, 
 have fixed his solitary home. 
 
 Halting where a mossy bank jutted over the water, 
 William motioned to his companion to seat himself, and, 
 reclining at his side, abstractedly took the pebbles from 
 the margin and dropped them into the stream. They fell 
 to the bottom with a hollow sound ; the circle they made 
 on the surface widened, and was lost; and the wave 
 rushed and murmured on, disdainfuh 
 
 " Harold," said the duke at last, " thou hast thought, 
 I fear, that I have trifled with thy impatience to return. 
 But there is on my mind a matter of great moment to 
 thee and to me, and it must out before thou canst depart. 
 On this very spot where we now sit, sat in early youth 
 Edward thy king, and William thy host. Soothed by 
 the loneliness of the place, and the music of the bell 
 from the cliurch tower, rising pale through yonder glaile, 
 Edward spoke of his desire for the monastic life, and of 
 his content with his exile in the Norman land. Few 
 then were the hopes that he should ever attain tlie throne 
 of Alfred. I, more maitial and ardent for liim as myself, 
 combated the thought of the convent, and promised that, 
 if ever occasiini meet arrived, and he needed the Norman 
 help, I would, with arm and heart, do a chief's best to 
 win him his lawful crown. Heedest thou me, dear 
 Harold 1 " 
 
 " Ay, my host, with heart as with ear." 
 
 "And Edward then, pressing my hand as I now press 
 thine, while answering gratefully, promised, that if he 
 did, contrary to all human foresight, gain his heritage, 
 he, in case I survived him, would bequeath that heritage 
 to me. Thy hand withdraws itself from mine." 
 
 *' But from surprise. Duke William, proceed." 
 
 " Now," resumed Willianj, " wlien thy kinsmen were
 
 86 HAROLD. 
 
 sent to me as hostages for the most powerful House in 
 England, — the only one that could thwart the desire of 
 my cousin, — I naturally deemed this a corrohoration uf 
 Ills promise, and an earnest of his continued designs ; and 
 in this I was reassured by the prelate, Robert archbishop 
 of Canterbury, who knew the most secret conscience of 
 your king. Wherefore my pertinacity in retaining those 
 hostages; wherefore my disregard to Edward's mere re- 
 monstrances, which I, not unnaturally, conceived to be 
 but his meek concessions to the urgent demands of thy- 
 self and House. Since then, Fortune or Pruvitlence hath 
 favored the promise of the king, and my just expectatiiuis 
 founded theret)n. For one moment it seemed indeed that 
 Edward regretted or reconsidered the pledge of our youth. 
 He sent for his kinsman, the Atheliug, natural heir to the 
 throne; but the poor prince died. The son, a mere child, 
 if I am rightly informed, the laws of thy land will set 
 aside, should Edward die ere the child grow a man ; and, 
 moreover, I am assured that the young Edgar hath no 
 power of mind or intellect to wield so weighty a sceptre 
 as that of England, Your king, also, even since your 
 absence, hath had severe visitings of sickness, and ere 
 another year his new abbey may hold his tomb." 
 
 William here paused ; again dropped the pebbles into 
 the stream, and glanced furtively on the unrevealing face 
 of the earl. He resumed, — 
 
 " Thy brother Tostig, as so nearly allied to my House, 
 would, I am advised, back my claims; and wert thou 
 absent from England, Tostig, I conceive, would be in thy 
 place as the head of the great party of Godwin. But 
 to prove how little I care for thy brotlier's aid com- 
 pareil with thine, and how implicitly I count on thee, 
 I have openly told thee what a wilier plotter would 
 have concealed, — namely, the danger to which thy
 
 HAROLD. 87 
 
 brother is menaced in his own earldom. To the point, 
 then, I pass at once. I might as my ransomed captive 
 detain thee here, until, without thee, I had won my 
 English throne, and I know that thou alone couldst 
 obstruct my just claims, or interfere with the king's v,-ill, 
 by which that appanage will be left to me. Nevertheless, 
 I unbosom myself to thee, and would owe my crown 
 solely to thine aid. I pass on to treat with thee, dear 
 Harold, not as lord with vassal, but as prince with prince. 
 On thy part, thou shalt hold for me the castle of Dover, 
 to yield to my fleet when the hour comes ; thou shalt aid 
 me in peace, and through tliy National Witan, to succeed 
 to Edward, by whose laws I will reign in all things con- 
 formably with the English rites, habits, and decrees. A 
 stronger king to guard England from the Dane, and a 
 more practised head to improve her prosperity, I am vain 
 eno' to say thou wilt not find in Christendom. On my 
 part, I offer to thee my fairest daughter, Adeliza, to whom 
 thou shalt be straiglitway betrothed ; thine own young 
 unwedded sister, Thyra, thou shalt give to one of my 
 greatest barons ; all the lands, dignities, and possessions 
 thou boldest now, thou shalt still retain ; and if, as T sus- 
 pect, thy brother Tostig cannot keep his vast principality 
 north the Humber, it shall pass to thee. "Whatever else 
 thou canst demand in guarantee of my love and gratitude, 
 or so to confirm thy power that thou shalt rule over thy 
 countships as free and as powerful as the great Counts of 
 Provence or Anjou reign in France over theirs, subject 
 only to the mere form of liolding in fief to the Suzerain, 
 as I, stormy subject, hold Normandy under Philip of 
 France, — shall be given to thee. In truth, there will be 
 two kings in England, though in name but one. And 
 far from losing by the death of Edward, thou shalt gain 
 by the subjection of every meaner rival, and the cordial
 
 88 HAROLD. 
 
 love of thy grateful William. — Splendor of God, earl, 
 thou keepest me long for thine answer ! " 
 
 " What thou offerest," said the earl, fortifying himself 
 with the resolution of the previous night, and compressing 
 his lips, livid with rage, " is beyond my deserts, and all 
 that the greatest chief under royalty could desire. But 
 England is not Edward's to leave, nor mine to give ; its 
 throne rests with the Witan." 
 
 "And the Witan rests with thee," exclaimed William, 
 sharply, " I ask but for possibilities, man : I ask but all 
 thine influence on my belialf ; and if it be less than I 
 deem, mine is the loss. What dost thou resign 1 I will 
 not presume to menace thee ; but thou wouldst, indeed, 
 despise my folly, if now, knowing my designs, I let thee 
 f(n'th, — not to aid but betray them. I know thou lovest 
 England, so do I. Thou deemest me a foreigner ; true, 
 but the Norman and Dane are of precisely the same 
 origin. Thou, of the race of Canute, knowest how popu- 
 lar was the reign of that king. Why should William's 
 be less sol Canute had no right whatsoever, save that 
 of the sword. My right will be kinship to Edward, 
 Edward's wish in my favor, the consent through thee of 
 the Witan, the absence of all other worthy heir, — my 
 wife's clear descent from Alfred, which, in my children? 
 restore the Saxon line, through its purest and noblest 
 ancestry, to the throne. Think over all this, and then 
 wilt thou tell me tliat I merit not this crown 1 " 
 
 Harold yet paused, and the fiery duke resumed, — 
 
 " Are the terms I give not tempting eno' to my cap- 
 tive, — to the son of the great Godwin, who, no doubt 
 falsely, but still by the popular voice of all Europe, had 
 power of life and death over my cousin Alfred and my 
 Norman knights 1 or dost thou thyself covet the English 
 crown ; and is it to a rival that I have opened my heart 1 "
 
 HAROLD. 89 
 
 " Xay," said Harold, in the crowning effort of his new 
 and fatal lesson in simulation. " Thou hast convinced 
 me, Duke William ; let it be as thou say est." 
 
 The duke gave way to his joy by a loud exclamation, 
 and then recapitulated the articles of the engagement, to 
 which Harold simply bowed his head. Amicably tlien, 
 the duke embraced the earl, and the two returned towards 
 the tent. 
 
 While the steeds were brought forth, William took the 
 opportunity to draw Odo apart ; and, after a short whis- 
 pered conference, the prelate hastened to his barb, and 
 spurred fast to Bayeux in advance of the party. All that 
 day, and all that night, and all the next morn till noon, 
 couriers and riders went abroad, north and south, east and 
 west, to all the more famous abbeys and churches in 
 Normandy, and holy and awful was the spoil with which 
 they returned for the ceremony of the next day.
 
 9CI HAKQLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The stafcely mirth of the evening banquet seemed to 
 Harold as the malign revel of some demoniac orgy. He 
 thought he read in every face tlie exultation over the sale 
 of England. Every light laugh in the proverbial ease of 
 the social Normans rang on his ear like the joy of a 
 ghastly Sabbat. All his senses preternaturally sharpened 
 to that magnetic keenness in which we less hear and see 
 than conceive and divine, the lowest murmur William 
 breathed in the ear of Odo, boomed clear to his own ; the 
 slightest interchange of glance between some dark-browed 
 priest, and large-breasted warrior,, flashed upon his vision. 
 The irritation of his recent and neglected wound, combined 
 with his mental excitement to quicken, yet to confuse his 
 faculties. Body and soul were fevered. He floated, as it 
 were, between a delirium and a dream. 
 
 Late in the evening he was led into the chamber where 
 the duchess sat alone with Adeliza and her second son 
 William, — a boy who had the red hair and florid hues of 
 the ancestral Dane, but was not without a certain bold and 
 strange kind of beauty, and who, even in childhood, all 
 covered with broidery and gems, betrayed the passion for 
 that extravagant and fantastic foppery for which William, 
 the red king, to the scandal of church and pulpit, 
 exchanged the decorous pomp of his fatlier's generation. 
 A formal presentation of Harold to the little maid Avas 
 followed by a brief ceremony of words, which conveyed 
 what to the scornful sense of the earl seemed the mockery 
 of betrothal between infant and bearded man, Glozing
 
 HAROLD. 91 
 
 congratulations buzzed around him ; then there was a 
 tlasli of lights oil his dizzy eyes ; he found himself moving 
 through a corridor between Odoand William. He was in 
 his room hung with arras and strewed with rushes ; before 
 him, in niches, various images of the Virgin, the Arch- 
 angel Michael, St. Stephen, St. Peter, St. John, St. 
 Valery ; and from the bells in the monastic edifice hard by 
 tolled the third watch ^ of the night, — the narrow case- 
 ment was out of reach, high in the massive wall, and the 
 starlight was darkened by the great church-tower. Harold 
 longed for air. All his earldom had he given at tliat 
 moment, to feel the cold blast of his native skies moan- 
 ing round his Saxon woLls. He opened his door, and 
 looked forth. A lanthorn swung on high from the 
 groined roof of the corridor. By the lanthorn stood a 
 tall sentry in arms, and its gleam fell red upon an iron 
 grate that jealously closed the egress. The earl closed the 
 door, and sat down on his bed, covering his face with his 
 clinched hand. The veins throbbed in every pulse ; his 
 own toucli seemed to him like fire. The prophecies of 
 Hilda on the fatal night by the bautastein which had 
 decided him to reject the prayer of Gurth, the fears of 
 Edith, and the cautions of Edward, came back to him, 
 dark, haunting, and overmasteringly. They rose between 
 him and his sober sense, whenever he sought to re-collect 
 his thoughts, now to madden him with the sense of his 
 folly in belief, now to divert his mind from the perilous 
 present to the triumphant future they foretold ; and of all 
 the varying chants of the Vala, ever two lines seemed to 
 burn into his memory, and to knell upon his ear as if they 
 contained the counsel they ordained him to pursue : 
 
 " Guile by guile oppose, and never 
 Crown and brow shall Force dissever 1 " 
 
 ^ Twelve o'clock.
 
 92 HAROLD. 
 
 So there he sat, locked and rigid, not reclining, not disrob- 
 ing, till in that posture, a haggard, troubled, fitful sleep 
 came over him ; nor did he wake till the hour of prime,^ 
 when ringing bells and trampling feet, and the hum of 
 prayer from the neighboring chapel, roused him into 
 Avaking yet more troubled, and welluigh as dreamy. But 
 now Godrith and Haco entered the room, and the former 
 inquired, with some surprise in his tone, if he had arranged 
 with the duke to depart that day ; "for," said he, "the 
 duke's hors-thegn has just been with me, to say that the 
 duke himself, and a stately retinue, are to accompany you 
 this evening towards Harfleur, where a ship will be in 
 readiness for our transport ; and I know that the chamber- 
 lain (a courteous and pleasant man) is going round to my 
 fellow thegns in your train, with gifts of hawks, and 
 chains, and broidered palls." 
 
 " It is so," said Haco, in answer to Harold's brightening 
 and appealing eye. 
 
 " Go then, at once, Godrith," exclaimed the earl, bound- 
 ing to his feet, " have all in order to part at the first 
 break of the trump. Never, I ween, did trump sound so 
 cheerily as the blast that shall announce our return to 
 England. Haste, haste ! " 
 
 As Godrith, pleased in the earl's pleasure, though him- 
 self already much fascinated by the honors he had received, 
 and the splendor he had witnessed, withdrew, Haco said, 
 "Thou hast taken my counsel, noble kinsman?" 
 
 " Question me not, Haco ! Out of my memory, all that 
 hath passed here ! " 
 
 "Not yet," said Haco, with that gloomy and intense 
 seriousness of voice and aspect, which was so at variance 
 with his years, and which impressed all he said with an 
 indescribable authority, — " not yet ; for even while the 
 
 ^ Six A. M.
 
 HAKOLD. 93 
 
 chamberlain went his round with the parting gifts, I, 
 standing in the angle of the wall in the yard, heard the 
 duke's deep whisper to Roger Bigod, who has the guard of 
 the keape, ' Have the men all armed at noon in the 
 passage below the council-hall, to mount at the stamp of 
 my foot ; and if then I give thee a prisoner, wonder not, 
 but lodge him — ' The duke paused ; and Bigod said, 
 ' Where, my liege 1 ' And the duke answered, fiercely, 
 * Where 1 why, where but in the Ton?^ noir ? — where, but 
 in the cell in which Malvoisin rotted out his last hour ] ' 
 Not yet, then, let the memory of Norman wile pass away ; 
 let the lip guard the freedom still." 
 
 All the bright, native soul that before Haco spoke had 
 dawned gradually back on the earl's fair face, now closed 
 itself up, as the leaves of a poisoned flower ; and the 
 pupil of the eye receding, left to the orb that secret and 
 strange expression which had baffled all readers of the 
 heart in the look of his impenetrable father. 
 
 " Guile by guile oppose ! " he muttered, vaguely ; then 
 started, clinched his hand, and smiled. 
 
 In a few moments, more than the usual levee of Norman 
 nobles thronged into the room ; and what with the 
 wonted order of the morning, in the repast , the church 
 service of tierce, and a ceremonial visit to Matilda, who 
 confirmed the intelligence that all was in preparation for his 
 departure, and charged him with gifts of her own needle- 
 work to his sister, the queen, and various messages of 
 gracious nature, the time waxed late into noon without his 
 having yet seen either William or Odo. 
 
 He was still with Matilda, when the Lords Fitzosborne 
 and Raoul de Tancarville entered in full robes of state, anil 
 with countenances unusually composed and grave, and 
 prayed the earl to accompany them into the duke's 
 presence.
 
 94 HAEOLD. 
 
 Harold obeyed in silence, not unprepared for covert 
 danger, b}'- the formality of the counts, as by the warn- 
 ings of Haco ; but, indeed, undivining the solemnity of the 
 appointed snare. On entering the loftj"^ hall, he beheld 
 William seated in state ; his sword of office in his hand, 
 his ducal robe on his imposing form, and with that 
 peculiarly erect air of the head which he assumed upon all 
 ceremonial occasions.^ Behind him stood Odo of Bayeux, 
 in aube and pallium ; some score of the duke's greatest 
 vassals ; and, at a little distance from the throne-chair, was 
 what seemed a table, or vast chest, covered all over with 
 cloth-of-gold. 
 
 Small time for wonder or self-collection did the duke 
 give the Saxon. 
 
 " Approach, Harold," said he, in the full tones of that 
 voice, so singularly effective in command ; " approach, and 
 without fear, as without regret. Before the members of 
 tliis noble assembly — all witnesses of thy faith, and all 
 guarantees of mine — I summon thee to coniirm by oath 
 the promises thou mad'st me yesterday ; namely, to aid me 
 to obtain the kingdom of England on the death of King 
 Edward, my cousin ; to marry my daughter Adeliza ; and 
 to send thy sister hither, that I may wed her, as we 
 agreed, to one of my worthiest and prowest counts. 
 Advance thou, Odo, my brother, and repeat to the 
 noble earl the Xorman form by which he will take the 
 oath." 
 
 1 A celebrated antiquary, in his treatise in the " Archseologia," 
 on the authenticity of the Bayeux tapestry, very justly invites at- 
 tention to the rude attempt of the artist to preserve individuality 
 in his portraits ; and especially to the singularly erect bearing of 
 the dulse, by which he is at once recognized wherever he is intro- 
 duced. Less pains are taken with the portrait of Harold; but 
 even in that a certain elegance of proportion, and length of limb, 
 as well as height of stature, are generally preserved.
 
 HAROLD. 95 
 
 Then Odo stood forth by that mysterious receptacle 
 covered with the cloth-of-gold, and said briefly : " Thou 
 wilt swear, as far as is in thy power, to fulfil thy agree- 
 ment with William, duke of the Normans, if thou live, 
 and God aid thee ; and in witness of that oath thou wilt 
 lay thy hand upon the reliquaire," pointing to a small box 
 that lay on the cloth-of-gold. 
 
 All this was so sudden, all flashed so rapidly upon 
 the earl, whose natural intellect, however great, was, as 
 we have often seen, more deliberate than prompt ; so 
 thoroughly was the bold heart, which no siege could 
 have sapped, taken by surprise and guile ; so paramount 
 through all the whirl and tumult of his mind, rose the 
 thought of England irrevocably lost, if he who alone 
 could save her was in the Norman dungeons ; so darkly 
 did all Haco's fears, and his own just suspicions, quell 
 and master him, that mechanically, dizzily, dreamily, he 
 laid his hand on the reliquaire, and repeated, with auto- 
 maton lips, — • 
 
 " If I live, and if God aid me to it ! " 
 
 Then all the assembly repeated solemnly, — 
 
 " God aid him ! " 
 
 And suddenly, at a sign from William, Odo and Raoul 
 de Tancarville raised the gold cloth, and the duke's voice 
 bade Harold look below. 
 
 As when man descends from the gilded sepulchre to 
 the loathsome charnel, so, at the lifting of that cloth, all 
 the dread ghastliness of death was revealed. There, from 
 abbey and from church, from cyst and from shrine, had 
 been collected all the relics of human nothingness in 
 which superstition adored the mementos of saints divine ; 
 there lay, pell-mell and huddled, skeleton and mummy, 
 — the dry, dark skin, the white, gleaming bones of the 
 dead, mockingly cased in gold, and decked with rubies ;
 
 96 HAROLD. 
 
 there, grim fingers protruded through the hideous chaos, 
 and pointed towards the living man ensnared ; there, the 
 skull grinned scotf under the holy mitre ; — and suddenly- 
 rushed back, luminous and searing, upon Harold's memory, 
 the dream long forgotten, or but dimly remembered in the 
 healthful business of life, — the gibe and the wirble of 
 the dead men's bones. 
 
 "At that sight," say the Norman chronicles, "the 
 earl shuddered and trembled." 
 
 "Awful, indeed, thine oath, and natural thine emo- 
 tion," said the duke ; " for in that cyst are all those 
 relics which religion deems the holiest in our land. The 
 dead have heard thine oath, and the saints even now 
 record it in the halls of heaven ! Cover again the holy 
 bones ! "
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE ON THE ALTAR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The good Bishop Aired, now raised to the See of York, 
 had been summoned from his cathedral seat by Edward, 
 •who had indeed undergone a severe illness during the 
 absence of Harold ; and that illness had been both pre- 
 ceded and followed by mystical presentiments of the evil 
 days that were to fall on England after his death. He 
 had therefore sent for the best and the holiest prelate in 
 his realm, to advise and counsel with. 
 
 The bishop had returned to his lodging in London 
 (which was in a Benedictine Abbey, not far from the 
 Aldgate) late one evening, from visiting the king at his 
 rural palace of Havering ; and he was seated alone in his 
 cell, musing over an interview with Edward, which had 
 evidently much disturbed him, when the door was abruptly 
 thrown open, and pushing aside in haste the monk, who 
 was about formally to announce him, a man so travel- 
 stained in garb, and of a mien so disordered, rushed in, 
 that Aired gazed at first as on a stranger, and not till the 
 intruder spoke did he recognize Harold the Earl. Even 
 then, so wild was the earl's eye, so dark his brow, and so 
 
 VOL. II. — 7
 
 98 IIAKOLD. 
 
 livid his cheek, that it rather seemed the ghost of the 
 man than the man himself. Closing the door on the 
 monk, the earl stood a moment on the threshold, with a 
 hreast heaving with emotions which he sought in vain to 
 master ; and, as if resigning the effort, lie sprang forward, 
 clasped the prelate's knees, bowed his head on his lap, 
 and sobbed aloud. The good bishop, who had known all 
 the sons of Godwin from their infancy, and to whom 
 Harold was as dear as his own child, folding his hands 
 over the earl's head, soothingly murmured a benediction. 
 
 " N"o, no," cried the earl, starting to his feet, and toss- 
 ing the dishevelled hair from his eyes, "bless me not yet ! 
 Hear my tale first, and then say what comfort, what 
 refuge, thy Church can bestow ! " 
 
 Hurriedly then the earl poured forth the dark story, 
 already known to the reader, — the jirison at Belrem, the 
 detention at William's court, the fears, the snares, the 
 discourse by the river-side, the oath over the relics. This 
 told, he continued, " I found myself in the open air, and 
 knew not, till the light of the sun smote me, what might 
 have passed into my soul. I was, before, as a corpse 
 which a witch raises from the dead, endows with a spirit 
 not its own, — passive to her hand, lifelike, not living. 
 Then, then it was as if a demon had })assed from my 
 body, laughing scorn at the foul things it had made the 
 clay do. Oh, father, father ! is there not absolution from 
 this oath, — an oath I dare not keep? rather perjure 
 myself than betray my land ! " 
 
 The prelate's face was as pale as Harold's, and it was 
 some moments before he could reply. 
 
 " The Church can loose and unloose, — such is its 
 delegated authoritj'. But speak on ; what saidst thou at 
 the last to William ? " 
 
 " I know not, remember not, — aught save these words.
 
 HAROLD. 09 
 
 ' Now, then, give me those for whom I placed myself in 
 thy power ; let me restore Haco to his fatherland, and 
 Wolnoth to his mother's kiss, and wend home my way.' 
 And, saints in heaven ! what was the answer of this 
 caitiff I^orman, with his glittering eye and venomed smile 1 
 ' Haco thou shalt have, for he is an orphan, and an uncle's 
 love is not so hot as to burn from a distance ; but Wol- 
 noth, thy mother's son, must stay with me as a hostage 
 for thine own faith. Godwin's hostages are released ; 
 Harold's hostage I retain : it is but a form, yet these 
 forms are the bonds of princes.' 
 
 " I looked at him, and his eye quailed. And I said, 
 * That is not in the compact.' And William answered, 
 ' No, but it is the seal to it.' Then I turned from the 
 duke and I called my brother to my side, and I said, 
 ' Over the seas have I come for thee. Mount thy steed 
 and ride by my side, for I will not leave the land without 
 thee.' And Wolnoth answered, ' Nay, Duke William 
 tells me that he hath made treaties with thee, for which 
 I am still to be the hostage ; and Normandy has grown 
 my home, and I love William as my lord.' Hot words 
 followed, and Wolnoth, chafed, refused entreaty and com- 
 mand, and suffered me to see that his heart was not with 
 England ! Oh, mother, mother, how shall I meet thine 
 eye ! So I returned with Haco. The moment I set 
 foot on my native England, that moment her form seemed 
 to rise from the tall cliffs, her voice to speak in the winds ! 
 All the glamour by which I had been bound, forsook me ; 
 and I sprang forward in scorn, above the fear of the dead 
 men's bones. Miserable overcraf t of the snarer ! Had 
 my simple word alone bound me, or that word been rati- 
 fied after slow and deliberate thought, by the ordinary 
 oaths that appeal to God, far stronger the bond upon my 
 soul than the mean surprise, the covert tricks, the insult,
 
 100 HAROLD. 
 
 and the mocking fraud. But as I rode on, the oath pur- 
 sued me, — pale spectres mounted behind me on my 
 steed, ghastly lingers pointed from the welkin ; and then 
 suddenly, my father, — I who, sincere in my simple 
 faith, had, as thou knowest too well, never bowed sub- 
 missive conscience to priest and Church, — then suddenly 
 I felt the might of some power, surer guide than that 
 liaughty conscience which had so in the hour of need 
 betrayed me ! Then I recognized that supreme tribunal, 
 that mediator between Heaven and man, to which I 
 might come with the dire secret of my soul, and say, as I 
 say now, on my bended knee, oh, father, father, — bid 
 me die, or absolve me from my oath ! " 
 
 Then Aired rose erect, and replied, " Did I need sub- 
 terfuge, son, I would say, that William himself hath 
 released thy bond, in detaining the hostage against the 
 spirit of the guilty compact ; that in the very words 
 themselves of the oath, lies the release, — ' if God aid 
 thee.'' God aids no child to parricide, — and thou art 
 England's child ! But all school-casuistry is here a mean- 
 ness. Plain is the law, that oaths extorted by compul- 
 sion, through fraud and in fear, the Church hatli the 
 right to loose : plainer still the law of God and of man, 
 that an oath to commit crime it is a deadlier sin to keep 
 than to forfeit. Wherefore, not absolving thee from the 
 misdeed of a vow that, if trusting more to God's provi- 
 dence and less to man's vain strength and dim wit, thou 
 wouldst never have uttered even for England's sake, — 
 leaving her to the angels; — not, I say, absolving thee 
 from that sin, but pausing yet to decide what penance 
 and atonement to fix to its committal, I do in the name 
 of the Power whose priest I am, forbid thee to fulfil the 
 oath; I do release and absolve thee from all obligation 
 thereto. And if in this I exceed my authority as Romish
 
 HAROLD. 101 
 
 priest, I do but accomplish my duties as living man. To 
 these gray hairs I take the sponsorship. Before this holy 
 cross, kneel, my son, with me, and pray that a life of 
 truth and virtue may atone the madness of an hour." 
 So by the crucifix knelt the warrior and the priest.
 
 102 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 All other thought had given way to Harold's impetuous 
 yearning to throw himself upon the Church, to hear his 
 doom from the purest and wisest of its Saxon preachers. 
 Had the prelate deemed his vow irrefragable, he would 
 have died the Roman's death rather than live the traitor's 
 life ; and strange indeed was the revolution created in 
 this man's character, that he, " so self-dependent," he who 
 had hitherto deemed himself his sole judge below of cause 
 and action, now felt the whole life of his life committed 
 to tlie word of a cloistered shaveling. All other thought 
 had given way to that fiery impulse, — home, mother, 
 Edith, king, power, policy, ambition ! Till the weight 
 was from his soul, he was as an outlaw in liis native land. 
 But when the next sun rose, and that awful burden was 
 lifted from his heart and his being ; when his own calm 
 sense, returning, sanctioned the fiat of the priest ; when, 
 though with deep shame and rankling remorse at the 
 memory of the vow, he yet felt exonerated, not from the 
 guilt of having made, but the deadlier guilt of fulfilling 
 it, — all the objects of existence resumed their natural 
 interest, softened and chastened, but still vivid in the 
 heart restored to humanity. But from that time, Harold's 
 stern philosophy and stoic ethics were shaken to the dust ; 
 re-created, as it were, by the breath of religion, he adopted 
 its tenets even after the fashion of his age. The secret of his 
 shame, the error of his conscience, humbled him. Those
 
 HAROLD. 103 
 
 unlettered monks whom he had so despised, how had he 
 lost the right to stand aloof from their control ! how had 
 his wisdom, and his strength, and his courage, met 
 unguarded the hour of temptation ! 
 
 Yes, might the time come, when England could spare 
 him from her side ! when he, like Sweyn the outlaw, 
 cuuld pass a pilgrim to the Holy Sepulchre, and there, as 
 the creed of the age taught, win full pardon for the single 
 lie of his truthful life, and regain the old peace of his 
 stainless conscience ! 
 
 There are sometimes event and season in the life of 
 man the hardest and most rational, when he is driven 
 jDerforce to faith the most implicit and submissive; as the 
 storm drives the wings of the petrel over a measureless 
 sea, till it falls tame, and rejoicing at refuge, on the sails 
 of some lonely ship. Seasons when difficulties, against 
 which reason seems stricken into palsy, leave him be- 
 wildered in dismay ; when darkness, which experience 
 cannot pierce, wraps the conscience, as sudden night 
 wraps the traveller in the desert ; when error entangles 
 his feet in its inextricable web ; when, still desirous of 
 the right, he sees before him but a choice of evil ; and 
 the Angel of the Past, with a flaming sword, closes on 
 him the gates of the Future. Then, Faith flashes on 
 him, with a light from the cloud. Then, he clings to 
 Prayer as a drowning wretch to the plank. Then, that 
 solemn authority which clothes the Priest, as the inter- 
 preter between the soul and the Divinity, seizes on the 
 heart that trembles with terror and joy ; then, that mys- 
 terious recognition of Atonement, of sacrifice, of purifying 
 lustration (mystery which lies hid in the core of all 
 religions), smooths tlie frown on the Past, removes the 
 flaming sword from the Future. The Orestes escapes from 
 the hounding Furies, and follows the oracle to the spot
 
 104 HAROLD. 
 
 where the cleansing dews shall descend on the expiated 
 guilt. 
 
 He who hath never known in himself, nor marked in 
 another, such strange crisis in human fate, cannot judge 
 of the strength and the weakness it bestows ; but till he 
 can so judge, the spiritual part of all history is to him a 
 blank scroll, a sealed volume. He cannot comprehend 
 what drove the fierce Heathen, cowering and humbled, 
 into the fold of the Church ; what peopled Egypt with 
 eremites ; what lined the roads of Europe and Asia with 
 pilgrim homicides ; what, in the elder world, while Jove 
 yet reigned on Olympus, is couched in the dim traditions 
 of the expiation of Apollo, the joy-god, descending into 
 Hades ; or wliy the sinner went blithe and light-hearted 
 from the healing lustrations of Eleusis. In all these 
 solemn riddles of the Jove world, and the Christ's, is 
 involved the imperious necessity that man hath of repen- 
 tance and atonement : through their clouds, as a rain- 
 bow, shines the covenant that reconciles the God and the 
 man. 
 
 Now Life with strong arms plucked the reviving 
 Harold to itself. Already the news of his return had 
 spread through the city, and his chamber soon swarmed 
 with joyous welcomes and anxious friends. But the first 
 congratulations over, each had tidings, that claimed his 
 instant attention, to relate. His absence had sufficed to 
 loosen half the links of that ill-woven empire. 
 
 All the iSTorth was in arms. Northumbria had re- 
 volted as one man from the tyrannous cruelty of Tostig ; 
 the insurgents had marched upon York ; Tostig had fled 
 in dismay, none as yet knew whither. The sons of Algar 
 had sallied forth from their Mercian fortresses, and were 
 now in the ranks of the Xorthumbrians, who it was 
 rumored had selected Morcar (the elder) in the place of 
 Tostig.
 
 HAROLD. 105 
 
 Amidst these disasters, the king's health was fast decay- 
 ing : his mind seemed bewildered and distraught ; dark 
 ravings of evil portent that had escaped from his lip in 
 his mystic reveries and visions, had spread abroad, 
 bandied with all natural exaggerations, from lip to lip. 
 The country was in one state of gloomy and vague appre- 
 hension. 
 
 But all would go well, now Harold the great earl — 
 Harold the stout, and the wise, and tlie loved — had come 
 back to his native land ! 
 
 In feeling himself thus necessary to England, — all 
 eyes, all hopes, all hearts turned to him, and to him 
 alone, — Harold shook the evil memories from his soul, 
 as a lion shakes the dews from his mane. His intellect, 
 that seemed to have burned dim and through smoke ia 
 scenes unfamiliar to its exercise, rose at once equal to 
 the occasion. His words reassured the most despondent. 
 His orders were prompt and decisive. While, to and 
 fro, went forth his bodes and his riders, he himself leaped 
 on his horse, and rode fast to Havering. 
 
 At length, that sweet and lovely retreat broke on his 
 sight, as a bower through the bloom of a garden. This 
 was Edward's favorite abode : he had built it himself for 
 his private devotions, allured by its woody solitudes, and 
 the gloom of its copious verdure. Here it was said, that 
 once at night, wandering through the silent glades, and 
 musing on heaven, the loud song of the nightingales had 
 disturbed his devotions ; with vexed and impatient soul 
 he had prayed that the music might be stilled ; and since 
 then, never more the nightingale was heard in the shades 
 of Havering ! 
 
 Threading the woodland, melancholy yet glorious with 
 the hues of autumn, Harold reached the low and humble 
 gate of the timber edifice, all covered with creepers and
 
 106 HAROLD. 
 
 young ivy ; and in a few moments more he stood in the 
 presence of the king. 
 
 Edward raised himself with pain from the couch on 
 which he was reclined/ beneath a canopy supported by 
 columns and surmounted by carved symbols of the bell 
 towers of Jerusalem : and his languid face briifhtened at 
 the sight of Harold. Behind tlie king stood a man with 
 a Danish battle-axe in his hand, tlie captain of the royal 
 house-carles, who on a sign from the king withdrew. 
 
 "Tliou art come back, Harold," said Edward then, in 
 a feeble voice ; and the earl drawing near, was grieved 
 and shocked at the alteration of his face. " Thou art 
 come back to aid this benumbed hand, from which the 
 earthly sceptre is about to fall. Hash ! for it is so, 
 and I rejoice." Then, examining Harold's features, yet 
 pale with recent emotions, and now saddened by sympa- 
 thy with the king, he resumed: — "Well, man of this 
 Avorld, that went forth confiding in thine own strength, 
 and in the faith of men of the world like thee, — well, 
 were my warnings prophetic, or art thou contented with 
 thy mission % " 
 
 " Alas !" said Harold, mournfidly. " Thy wisdom was 
 greater than mine, king ; and dread the snares laid for 
 me and our native land, under pretext of a promise made 
 by thee to Count William, that he should reign in Eng- 
 land, should he be your survivor." 
 
 Edward's face grew troubled and embarrassed. " Such 
 promise," he said, falteringly, "when I knew not the 
 laws of England, nor that a realm could not pass like 
 house and hide, by a man's single testament, might well 
 escape from my thoughts, never too bent upon earthly 
 affairs. But I marvel not that my cousin's mind is more 
 tenacious and mundane. And verily, in those vague 
 
 1 Bayeux tapestry.
 
 HAEOLD, 107 
 
 words, and from thy visit, I see the future dark with 
 fate and crimson with blood," 
 
 Then Edward's eyes grew locked and set, staring into 
 space ; and even that reverie, though it awed him, 
 relieved Harold of much disquietude for he rightly con- 
 jectured, that on waking from it Edward would press 
 him no more as to those details and dilemmas of con- 
 science, of which he felt that the arch-worshipper of 
 relics was no fitting judge. 
 
 When the king, with a heavy sigh, evinced return 
 from the world of vision, he stretched forth to Harold his 
 wan, transparent hand, and said : — 
 
 " Thou seest the ring on this finger ; it comes to me 
 from above, a merciful token to prepare my soul for 
 death. Perchance thou mayest have heard that once an 
 aged pilgrim stopped me on my way from God's house, 
 and asked for alms, — - and I, having nought else on my 
 person to bestow, drew from my finger a ring, and gave 
 it to him, and the old man went his way, blessing me." 
 
 " I mind me well of thy gentle charity," said the earl ; 
 " for the pilgrim bruited it abroad as he passed, and much 
 talk was there of it." 
 
 The king smiled faintly. " Now this was years ago. 
 It so chanced this year, that certain Englishers, on their 
 way from the Holy Land fell in with two pilgrims, — and 
 these last questioned them much of me. Anil one with 
 face venerable and benign, drew forth a ring and said, 
 ' When thou reachest England, give thou this to tlie 
 king's own hand, and say, by this token that on Twelfth- 
 Day Eve he shall be with me. For what he gave to me. 
 will I prepare recompense without bound ; and already 
 the saints deck for the new-comer the halls where the 
 worm never gnaws and the moth never frets.' ' And 
 who,' asked my subjects, amazed, — ■ ' who shall we say
 
 108 HAROLD. 
 
 speaketh thus to us 1 ' And the pilgrim answered, ' He on 
 whose breast leaned the son of God, and my name is 
 John ! ' ^ Wherewith the apparition vanished. This is 
 the ring I gave to the pilgrim ; on the fourteenth night 
 from thy parting, miraculously returned to me. Where- 
 fore, Harold, my time here is brief, and I rejoice that thy 
 coming delivers me up from the cares of state to the prep- 
 aration of my soul for the joyous day." 
 
 Harold, suspecting under this incredible mission some 
 wily device of the Norman, who, by thus warning Edward 
 (of whose precarious health he was well aware), might 
 induce his timorous conscience to take steps for the com- 
 pletion of the old promise. — Harold, we say, thus sus- 
 pecting, in vain endeavored to combat the king's presenti- 
 ments, but Edward interrupted him, with displeased firm- 
 ness of look and tone, — 
 
 " Come not thou, with thy human reasonings, between 
 my soul and the messenger divine ; but rather nerve and 
 prepare thyself for the dire calamities that lie greeding in 
 the days to come ! Be thine, things temporal All the 
 land is in rebellion. Anlaf, whom thy coming dismissed, 
 hath just wearied me with sad tales of bloodshed and 
 ravage. Go and hear him ; go hear the bodes of thy 
 brother Tostig, who wait without in our hall ; go, take 
 axe, and take shield, and the men of earth's war, and do 
 justice and right ; and on thy return thou shalt see with 
 what rapture sublime a Christian king can soar aloft from 
 his throne ! Go ! " 
 
 More moved, and more softened, than in the former 
 day he had been with Edward's sincere, if fanatical piety, 
 Harold, turning aside to conceal his face, said, — 
 
 1 Ail. " De Vit Edw." — Many other chroniclers mention this 
 legend, of which the stones of Westminster Abbey itself prated, 
 in the statues of Edward and the Pilgrim, placed over the arch in 
 Dean's Yard.
 
 HAROLD. 109 
 
 " Would, royal Edward, that my heart, amidst 
 worldly cares, were as pure and serene as tliine ! But at 
 least, what erring mortal may do to guard this realm, and 
 face the evils thou foreseest in th& far, — that will I do ; 
 and, perchance then, in my dying hour, God's pardon and 
 peace may descend on me ! " He spoke, and went. 
 
 The accounts he received from Aulaf (a veteran Anglo- 
 Dane) were indeed more alarming than he had yet heard. 
 Morcar, the hold son of Algar, was already proclaimed by 
 the rebels earl of Northnmbria ; the shires of Nottingham, 
 Derby, and Lincoln, had poured forth their hardy Dane 
 populations on his behalf. All Mercia was in arms under 
 his brother Edwin ; and many of the Cymrian chiefs had 
 already joined the ally of the butchered Gryffyth. 
 
 Not a moment did the earl lose in proclaiming the 
 Herrbann ; sheaves of arrows were splintered, and the 
 fragments, as announcing the War-Fyrd, were sent from 
 thegn to thegn, and town to town. Fresh messengers 
 were despatched to Gurth to collect the whole force of 
 his own earldom, and haste by quick marches to London ; 
 and, these preparations made, Harold returned to the 
 metropolis, and with a heavy heart sought his motlier, as 
 his next care. 
 
 Githa was already prepared for his news ; for Haco 
 had of his own accord gone to break tlie first shock of dis- 
 appointment. There was in this youth a noiseless sagacity 
 that seemed ever provident for Harold. With his sombre, 
 smileless cheek, and gloom of beauty, bowed as if beneath 
 the weight of some invisible doom, he had already become 
 linked indissolubly with the earl's fate, as its angel, — 
 but as its angel of darkne-ss ! 
 
 To Harold's intense relief, Githa stretched forth her 
 hands as he entered, and said, " Thou hast failed me, but 
 against thy will ! Grieve not ; I am content ! "
 
 110 HAEOLD. 
 
 " Now our Lady be blessed, mother — " 
 
 " I Iiave told her," said Haco, who was standing, with 
 arras folded, by the fire, the blaze of which reddened fit- 
 fully his hueless countenance with its raven hair, — "I 
 have told thy mother that Wolnoth loves his captivity, 
 and enjoys the cage. And the lady hath had comfort in 
 my words." 
 
 " 'Not in thine only, son of Sweyn, Imt in those of fate ; 
 for before thy coming I prayed against the long blind 
 yearning of my heart, prayed that Wolnoth might 7iut 
 cross the sea with his kinsmen." 
 
 " How ! " exclaimed the earl, astonished. 
 
 Githa took his arm, and leil him to the farther end of 
 the ample chamber, as if out of the hearing of Haco, who 
 turned his face towards the fire, and gazed into the fierce 
 blaze with musing, unwinking eyes. 
 
 " Couldst thou think, Harold, that in thy journey, that 
 on the errand of so great fear and hope, I could sit brood- 
 ing in my chair, and count the stitches on the tremulous 
 hangings ? No ; day by day have I sought the lore of 
 Hilda, and at night I have watched with her by the 
 fount, and the elm, and the tomb ; and I know that thou 
 hast gone througli dire peril ; the prison, the war, and 
 the snare ; and I know also that his Fylgia hath saved 
 the life of my Wolnoth ; for had he i^eturned to his 
 native land, he had returned but to a bloody grave ! " 
 
 *' Says Hilda this 1 " said the earl, thoughtfully. 
 
 " So says the Vala, the rune, and the Scin-laeca ! and 
 such is the doom that now darkens the brow of Haco ! 
 Seest thou not that the hand of death is in the hush of 
 the smileless lip, and the glance of the unjoyous eye 1 " 
 
 "Naj, it is but the thought l)orn to captive youth, and 
 nurtured in solitary dreams. Thou hast seen Hilda? — 
 and Edith, my mother? Edith is — "
 
 HAROLD. Ill 
 
 "Well," said Githa, kindl}^ for she sympathized with 
 that love which Godwin would have condemned, " though 
 she grieved deeply after thy departure, and would sit for 
 hours gazing into space, and moaning. But even ere 
 Hilda divined thy safe return, Edith knew it : I was 
 beside her at the time ; she started up and cried, 'Harold 
 is in England ! ' — ' How 1 Why thinkest thou so 1 ' said 
 I. And Edith answered, ' I feel it by the touch of the 
 earth, by the breath of the air.' This is more than love, 
 Harold. I knew two twins who had the same instinct of 
 each other's comings and goings, and were present each to 
 each even when absent : Edith is twin to th}'^ soul. Thou 
 goest to her now, Harold ; thou wilt find there thy sister 
 Thyra. The child hath drooped of late, and I besought 
 Hilda to revive her, with herb and charm. Thou wilt come 
 back ere thou departest to aid Tostig, thy brother, and tell 
 me how Hilda hath prospered with my ailing child?" 
 
 " I will, my mother. Be cheered ! — Hilda is a skilful 
 nurse. And now bless thee, that thou hast not reproached 
 nie that my mission failed to fulfil ray promise. Welcome 
 even our kinswoman's sayings, sith they comfort thee for 
 the loss of thy darling ! " 
 
 Then Harold left the room, mounted his steed, and 
 rode through the town towards the bridge. He was com- 
 pelled to ride slowly through the streets, for he was 
 recognized ; and cheapman and mechanic rushed from 
 bouse and from stall to hail the Man of the Land and the 
 Time. 
 
 " All is safe now in England, for Harold is come back ! " 
 They seemed joyous as the children of the mariner, when, 
 with wet garments, he struggles to shore through the 
 storm. And kind and loving were Harold's looks and 
 brief words, as he rode with veiled bonnet through the 
 swarming streets.
 
 112 HAROLD. 
 
 At length he cleared the town and the bridge ; ami the 
 yellowing boughs of the orchards drooped over the road 
 towards the Roman home, when, as he spurred his steed, 
 he heard behind him hoofs as in pursuit, looked back, 
 and beheld Haco. He drew rein, — " What wantest thou, 
 my nephew ?" 
 
 " Thee ! " answered Haco, briefly, as he gained his side. 
 "Thy companionship." 
 
 " Thanks, Haco ; but I pray thee to stay in my 
 mother's house, for I would fain ride alone." 
 
 " Spurn me not from thee, Harold ! Tliis England is 
 to me the land of the stranger ; in thy mother's house I 
 feel but the more the orphan. Henceforth I have 
 devoted to thee my life ! And my life my dead and 
 dread father hath left to thee, as a doom or a blessing ; 
 wherefore cleave I to thy side, — cleave we in life and in 
 death to each other ! " 
 
 An undefined and cheerless thrill shot through the 
 earl's heart as the youth spoke thus ; and the remem- 
 brance that Haco's counsel had first induced him to 
 abandon his natural hai'dy and gallant manhood, met wile 
 by wile, and thus suddenly entangled him in his own 
 meshes, had already mingled an inexpressible bitterness 
 with his pity and affection for his brother's son. But 
 struggling against that uneasy sentiment, as unjust towards 
 one to whose counsel, — however sinister, and now re- 
 pented, — he probably owed, at least, his safety and 
 deliverance, he replied gently, — 
 
 " I accept thy trust and thy love, Haco ! Ride with 
 me, then ; but pardon a dull comrade, for when the soul 
 communes with itself the lip is silent." 
 
 "True," said Haco, "and I am no babbler. Three 
 things are ever silent : Thought, Destiny, and the Grave." 
 
 Each then, pursuing his own fancies, rode on fast, and
 
 HAROLD. 113 
 
 side by side : the long shadows of declining day struggling 
 with a sky of unusual brightness, and thrown from the 
 dim forest trees and the distant hillocks. Alternately 
 through shade and through light rode they on, — the 
 bulls gazing on them from holt and glade, and tlie boom 
 of the bittern sounding in its peculiar niournfulness of 
 tone as it rose from the dank pools that glistened in the 
 western sun. 
 
 It was always by the rear of the house, where stood 
 the ruined temple, so associated with the romance of his 
 life, that Harold approached the home of the Vala ; and 
 as now the hillock, with its melancholy diadem of stones, 
 came in view, Haco for the first time broke the silence. 
 
 "Again, — ^ as in a dream," he said abruptly. ''Hill, 
 ruin, grave-mound, — but where the tall image of the 
 mighty one?" 
 
 " Hast thou then seen this spot before 1 " asked the earl. 
 
 " Yea, as an infant here was I led by my father Sweyn ; 
 here, too, from thy house yonder, dim seen through the 
 fading leaves, on the eve before I left this land for tlie 
 Norman, here did I wander alone ; and there, by that 
 altar, did the great Vala of the North chant her runes for 
 my future." 
 
 " Alas ! thou too ! " murmured Harold ; and then he 
 asked aloud, " What said she 1 " 
 
 " That thy life and mine crossed each other in the 
 skein ; that I should save thee from a great peril, and 
 share with thee a greater." 
 
 " Ah, youth," answered Harold, bitterly, " these vain 
 prophecies of human wit guard the soul from no danger. 
 They mislead us by riddles which our hot hearts interpret 
 according to their own desires. Keep thou fast to youth's 
 simple wisdom, and trust only to the pure spirit and the 
 watchful God." 
 
 VOL. II. — 8
 
 114 HAROLD. 
 
 He suppressed a groan as he spoke, and, springing from 
 his steed, wliicli he left loose, advanced up the hill. 
 When he had gained the height, he halted, and made 
 sign to Haco, who had also dismounted, to do the same. 
 Half-way down the side of the slope which faced the 
 ruined peristyle, Haco beheld a maiden, still young, and of 
 beauty surpassing all that the court of Normandy boasted 
 of female loveliness. She was seated on the sward ; while 
 a girl, younger, and scarcely indeed grown into woman- 
 hood, reclined at her feet, and, leaning her cheek upon 
 her hand, seemed hushed in listening attention. In the 
 face of the younger girl Haco recognized Thyra, the last- 
 born of Githa, though he had but once seen her before, 
 — the day ere he left England for the Norman court, — 
 for the face of the girl was but little changed, save that 
 the eye was more mournful, and the cheek was jmler. 
 
 And Harold's betrothed was singing, in the still autumn 
 air, to Harold's sister. The song chosen was on that 
 subject the most popular with the Saxon poets, — the 
 mystic life, death, and resurrection of the fabled Phoenix ; 
 and this rhymeless song, in its old native flow, may yet 
 find some grace in the modern ear. 
 
 s"^ 
 
 THE LAY OF THE PHCENIX.i 
 
 Shineth far hence, — so 
 
 Sing the wise elders, — 
 Far to the fire east 
 
 The fairest of lands. 
 
 ^ This ancient Saxon lay, apparently of the date of the tenth or 
 eleventh century, may be found, admirably translated by Mr. 
 George Stephens, in the " Archfeologia,'' vol. xxx. p. 259. In the 
 text the poem is much aliridged, reduced into rhytlim, and in some 
 stanzas wholly altered from the original ; but it is nevertheless 
 greatly indebted to Mr. Stephens's translation, from which several
 
 HAROLD. 115 
 
 Daintily dight is that 
 
 Dearest of joy-fields ; 
 Breezes all balm-y-ftlled 
 
 Glide through its grovea. 
 
 There to the blest, ope 
 
 The high doors of heaven» 
 Sweetly sweep earthward 
 
 Their wavelets of song. 
 
 Frost robes the sward not, 
 
 Rushes no hail-steel ; 
 Wind-cloud ne'er wanders. 
 
 Ne'er falleth the rain. 
 
 Warding the woodholt, 
 
 Girt with gay wonder, 
 Sheen with the plumy shiu6> 
 
 Phcenix abides. 
 
 Lord of the Lleod,^ 
 
 Whose home is the air, 
 Winters a thousand 
 
 Abideth the bird. 
 
 Hapless and heavy then 
 
 Waxeth the hazy wing ; 
 Year»worn and old in the 
 
 Whirl of the earth. 
 
 Then the high holt-top 
 
 Mounting, the bird soars ; 
 There, where the winds sleep. 
 
 He buildeth a nest ; — 
 
 lines are borrowed verbatim. The more careful reader will note 
 the great aid given to a rhymeless metre by alliteration, I am not 
 sure that this old Saxon mode of verse might not be profitably 
 restored to our national muse, 
 i People.
 
 116 HAROLD. 
 
 Gums the most precious, and 
 Balms of the sweetest, 
 
 Spices and odors, he 
 Weaves in the nest. 
 
 There, in that sun-ark, lo, 
 
 Waiteth he wistful ; 
 Summer comes smiling, lo, 
 
 Eays smite the pile ! 
 
 Burdened with eld-years, and 
 Weary with slow time, 
 
 Slow in his odor-nest 
 Burneth the bird. 
 
 Up from those ashes, then 
 Springeth a rare fruit ; 
 
 Deep in the rare fruit 
 There coileth a worm. 
 
 Weaving bliss-meshes 
 Around and around it. 
 
 Silent and blissful, the 
 Worm worketh on. 
 
 Lo, from the airy web, 
 Blooming and brightsome, 
 
 Young and exulting, the 
 Phcenix breaks forth. 
 
 Round him the birds troop, 
 Singing and hailing ; 
 
 Wings of all glories 
 Engarland the king 
 
 Hymning and hailing, 
 
 Through forest and sun-air, 
 
 Hymning and hailing, 
 And speaking him " King."
 
 117 
 
 HAROLD. 
 
 High flies the phoenix, 
 
 Escaped from the worm-web ; 
 
 He soars in the sunlight, 
 He bathes in the dew. 
 
 He visits his old haunts, 
 
 The holt and the sun-hill ; 
 The founts of his youth, and 
 
 The fields of his love. 
 
 The stars in the welkin. 
 
 The blooms on the earth, 
 Are glad in his gladness, 
 
 Are young in his youth. 
 
 While round him the birds troop, the 
 
 Hosts of the Himmelji 
 Blisses of music, and 
 
 Glories of wings ; 
 
 Hymning and hailing, 
 
 And filling the sun-air 
 "With music and glory. 
 
 And praise of the king. 
 
 As the lay ceased, Thyra said, — 
 
 " Ah, Edith, who would not brave tlie funeral-pyre to 
 live again like tlie phoenix! " 
 
 " Sweet sister mine," answered Edith, " the singer doth 
 mean to image out in the phoenix the rising of our Lord 
 in whom we all live again." 
 
 And Thyra said, mournfully, — 
 
 " But the phoenix sees once more the haunts of his 
 youth, — the things and places dear to him in his life 
 before. Shall we do the same, Edith ? " 
 
 " It is the persons we love that make beautiful the 
 
 1 Heaven.
 
 118 HAllOLD. 
 
 haunts we have known," answered the betrothed. " Those 
 persons at least we shall behold again ; and wherever thet/ 
 are, there is heaven." 
 
 Harold could restrain himself no longer. With one 
 bound he was at Edith's side, and with one wild cry of 
 joy he clasped her to his heart. 
 
 " I knew that thou wouldst come to-night, — I knew it, 
 Harold," murmured the betrothed.
 
 HAROLD. 119 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "While, full of themselves, Harold and Edith wandered, 
 hand in hand, through the neighboring glades, — while 
 into that breast which had forestalled, at least, in this 
 pure and sublime union, the wife's privilege to soothe 
 and console, the troubled man poured out the tale of the 
 sole trial from which he had passed with defeat and 
 shame, — Haco drew near to Thyra, and sat down by her 
 side. Each was strangely attracted towards the other ; 
 there was something congenial in the gloom which they 
 shared in common ; though in the girl the sadness was 
 soft and resigned, in the youth it was stern and solemn. 
 They conversed in whispers, and their talk was strange 
 for companions so young ; for, whether suggested by 
 Edith's song, or the neighborhood of the Saxon grave- 
 stone, which gleamed on their eyes, gray and wan, 
 through the crommel, the theme they selected was of 
 death. As if fascinated, as children often are, by the 
 terrors of the Dark King, they dwelt on those images 
 with which the Northern fancy has associated the eter- 
 nal rest : on the shroud and the worm, and the moulder- 
 ing bones, — on the gibbering ghost, and the sorcerer's 
 spell that could call the spectre from the grave. They 
 talked of the pain of the parting soul, parting while earth 
 was yet fair, youth fresh, and joy not yet ripened from 
 the blossom, — of the wistful lingering look which the 
 glazing eyes would give to the latest sunlight it should 
 behold on earth ; and then pictured the shivering and
 
 120 HAROLD. 
 
 naked soul, forced from the reluctant clay, wandering 
 through cheerless space to the intermediate tortures, 
 which the Church taught that none were so pure as not 
 for a while to undergo, and hearing, as it wandered, the 
 knell of the muffled bells and the burst of unavailing 
 prayer. At length Haco paused abruptly, and said, — 
 
 " But thou, cousin, hast before thee love and sweet 
 life, and these discourses are not for thee." 
 
 Thyra shook her head mournfully, — 
 
 " K'ot so, Haco ; for when Hilda consulted the runes, 
 while, last night, she mingled the herbs for my pain, 
 Avhich rests ever hot and sharp here," and the girl laid 
 her hand on her breast, " I saw that her face grew dark 
 and overcast ; and I felt, as I looked, that my doom was 
 set. And when thou didst come so noiselessly to my 
 side, with thy sad, cold eyes, Haco, methought I saw 
 the Messenger of Death. But thou art strong, Haco, and 
 life will be long for thee ; let us talk of life." 
 
 Haco stooped down and pressed his lips upon the girl's 
 pale forehead. 
 
 " Kiss me too, Thyra." 
 
 The child kissed him, and they sat silent and close by 
 each other while the sun set. 
 
 And as the stars rose, Harold and Edith joined them. 
 Harold's face was serene in the starlight, for the pure 
 soul of his betrothed had breathed peace into his own ; 
 and, in his willing superstition, he felt as if, now restored 
 to his guardian angel, the dead men's bones had released 
 their unhallowed hold. 
 
 But suddenly Edith's hand trembled in his, and her form 
 shuddered. — Her eyes were fixed upon those of Haco. 
 
 *' Forgive me, young kinsman, that I forgot thee so 
 long," said the earl. " This is my brother's son, Edith ; 
 thou hast not, that I remember, seen him before "i "
 
 HAROLD. 121 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Edith, falteringly. 
 
 " When, and where ? " 
 
 Edith's soul answered the question, " In a dream ; " 
 but her lips were silent. 
 
 And Haco, rising, took her by the hand, while the 
 earl turned to his sistei', — that sister whom he was 
 pledged to send to the Nornian court ; and Tliyra said 
 plaintively, — 
 
 " Take me in thine arms, Harold, and wrap thy man- 
 tle round me, for the air is cold." 
 
 The, earl lifted the child to his breast, and gazed on 
 her cheek long and wistfully ; then, questioning her ten- 
 derly, he took her within the house ; and Edith followed 
 with Haco. 
 
 " Is Hilda within 1" asked the son of Sweyn. 
 
 "Nay, she hath been in the forest since noon," 
 answered Edith with an effort, for she could not recover 
 her awe of his presence. 
 
 " Then," said Haco, halting at the threshold, " I will 
 go across the woodland to your house, Harold, and pre- 
 pare your ceorls for your coming." 
 
 " I shall tarry here till Hilda returns," answered 
 Harold, " and it may be late in the night ere I reach 
 home ; but Sexwulf already hath my orders. At sun- 
 rise we return to London, and thence we march on the 
 insurgents." 
 
 " All shall be ready. Farewell, noble Edith ; and 
 thou, Thyra my cousin, one kiss more to our meeting 
 again." 
 
 The child fondly held out her arms to him, and as she 
 kissed his cheek, whispered, — 
 
 " In the grave, Haco ! " 
 
 The young man drew his mantle around him, and 
 moved away. But he did not mount his steed, which
 
 122 HAROLD. 
 
 still grazed by the road ; while Harold's, more familiar 
 with the place, had found its way to the stall ; nor did 
 he take his path through the glades to the house of his 
 kinsman. Entering the Druid temple, he stood musing 
 by the Teuton tomb. 
 
 The night grew deep and deeper, the stars more lumi- 
 nous, and the air more hushed, when a voice, close at his 
 side, said clear and abrupt, — 
 
 " What does Youth the restless by Death the still ? " 
 
 It was the peculiarity of Haco that nothing ever 
 seemed to startle or surprise him. In that brooding 
 boyhood, the solemn, quiet, and sad experience, all fore- 
 armed, of age, had something in it terrible and preter- 
 natural ; so, without lifting his eyes from the stone, he 
 answered, — 
 
 " How say est thou, Hilda, that the dead are still ? " 
 
 Hilda placed her hand on his shoulder, and stooped to 
 look into his face. 
 
 " Tliy rebuke is just, son of Sweyn. In Time, and in 
 the Universe, there is no stillness ! Through all eternity 
 the state impossible to the soul is repose ! — So again thou 
 art in thy native land ? " 
 
 " And for what end. Prophetess ? I remember when 
 but an infant, who till then had enjoyed the common air 
 and the daily sun, thou didst rob me evermore of child- 
 hood and youth. For thou didst say to my father, that 
 ' dark was the woof of my fate, and that its most glorious 
 hour should be its last ! ' " 
 
 " But thou wert surely too childlike (I see thee now as 
 thou wert then, stretched on the grass, and playing with 
 thy father's falcon \) — too childlike to heed my words." 
 
 "Does the new ground reject the germs of the soAver, 
 or the young heart the first lessons of Avonder and awe 1 
 Since then. Prophetess, Night hath been my comrade,
 
 HAROLD. 123 
 
 and Death my familiar. Rememberest thou again the 
 hour when, steaHng, a bo}', from Harold's house in his 
 absence, — the night ere I left my land, — I stood on this 
 mound by thy side 1 Then did I tell thee that the sole, 
 soft thought that relieved the bitterness of my soul, when 
 all the rest of my kinsfolk seemed to behold in me but 
 the heir of Sweyn, the outlaw and homicide, was the love 
 that I bore to Harold ; but that that love itself was 
 mournful and bodeful as the hwata ^ of distant sorrow. 
 And thou didst take me, Prophetess, to thy bosom, and 
 thy cold kiss touched my lips and my brow; and there, 
 beside this altar and grave-mound, by leaf and by water, 
 by staff and by song, thou didst bid me take comfort ; for 
 that as the mouse gnawed tlie toils of the lion, so the 
 exile obscure should deliver from peril the pride and the 
 prince of my House, — that from that hour with the skein 
 of his fate should mine be entwined ; and his fate was 
 that of kings and of kingdoms. And then, when the joy 
 flushed my cheek, and methought youth came back in 
 warmth to the night of my soul, — then, Hilda, I asked 
 thee if my life would he spared till I had redeemed the 
 name of my father. Thy seid-staff passed over the leaves 
 that, burning with fire-sparks, symbolled the life of the 
 man, and from the third leaf the flame leaped up and 
 died ; and again a voice from thy breast, hollow, as if 
 borne from a hill-top afar, made answer, 'At thine 
 entrance to manhood life bursts into blaze, and shrivels 
 up into ashes.' So I knew that the doom of the infant 
 still weighed unannealed on the years of the man ; and I 
 come here to my native land as to glory and the grave. 
 But," said the young man, with a wild enthusiasm, 
 " still with mine links the fate which is loftiest in Eng- 
 land ; and the rill and the river shall rush in one to the 
 Terrible Sea." 
 
 ^ Omen.
 
 124 HAROLD. 
 
 " I know not that," answered Hilda, pale, as if in awe 
 of herself ; " for never yet hath the rune, or the fount, 
 or the tomb, revealed to me, clear and distinct, the close 
 of the great course of Harold; only know I through his 
 own stars his glory and greatness ; and where glory is 
 dim, and greatness is menaced, I know it but from the 
 stars of others, the rays of whose influence blend with his 
 own. So long, at least, as the fair and the pure one 
 keeps watch in the still House of Life, the dark and the 
 troubled one cannot wholly prevail. For Edith is given 
 to Harold as the Fylgia, that noiselessly blesses and saves : 
 and thou — " Hilda checked herself, and lowered her hood 
 over her face, so that it suddenly became invisible. 
 
 " And 11" asked Haco, moving near to her side. 
 
 " Away, son of Sweyn ; thy feet trample the grave of 
 the mighty dead ! " 
 
 Then Hilda lingered no longer, but took her way 
 towards the house. Haco's eye followed her in silence. 
 The cattle grazing in the great space of the crumbling 
 peristyle, looked up as she passed ; the watch-dogs, wan- 
 dering through the star-lit columns, came snorting round 
 their mistress. And when she had vanished within the 
 house, Haco turned to his steed, — 
 
 " What matters," he murmured, " the answer which 
 the Vala cannot or dare not give ? To me is not destined 
 the love of woman, nor the ambition of life. All I know 
 of human afi"ection binds me to Harold ; all I know of 
 human ambition is to share in his fate. This love is 
 strong as hate, and terrible as doom, — it is jealous, it 
 admits no rival. As the shell and the seaweed intei'laced 
 together, we are dashed on the rushing surge ; whither 1 — • 
 oh, whither ? "
 
 HAROLD. 125 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " I TELL thee, Hilda," said the earl, impatiently, — "I 
 tell thee that I renounce, henceforth, all faith, save in 
 Him whose ways are concealed from our eyes. Thy seid 
 and thy galdra have not guarded me against peril, nor 
 armed me against sin. Nay, perchance, — but peace : I 
 will no more tempt the dark ark, I will no more seek to 
 disentangle the awful truth from the juggling lie. All so 
 foretold me I will seek to forget, — hope from no pro- 
 phecy, fear from no warning. Let the soul go to the 
 future under the shadow of God ! " 
 
 " Pass on thy way as thou wilt, its goal is the same, 
 whether seen or unmarked. Peradventure thou art 
 wise," said the Vala, gloomily. 
 
 " For my country's sake. Heaven be my witness, not 
 my own," resumed the earl, " I have blotted my con- 
 science and sullied my truth. My country alone can 
 redeem me, by taking my life as a thing hallowed ever- 
 more to her service. Selfish ambition do I lay aside, sel- 
 fish power shall tempt me no more ; lost is the charm that 
 I beheld in a throne, and, save for Edith — " 
 
 " No ! not even for Edith," cried the betrothed, advanc- 
 ing, — " not even for Edith .'^halt thou listen to other voice 
 than that of thy country and thy soul." 
 
 The earl turned round abruptly, and his eyes were 
 moist. 
 
 " Hilda," he cried, " see henceforth my only Vala ; 
 let that noble heart alone interpret to us the oracles of 
 the future.''
 
 126 HAROLD. 
 
 The next day Harold returned with Haco and a numer- 
 ous train of his house-carles to the city. Their ride was 
 as silent as that of the day before ; but on reacliing 
 Southwark, Harold turned away from the bridge towards 
 the left, gained the river-side, and dismounted at the 
 house of one of his lithsmen (a franklin or freed ceorl). 
 Leaving there his horse, he summoned a boat, and with 
 Haco was rowed over towards the fortified palace which 
 then rose towards the west of London, jutting into the 
 Thames, and which seems to have formed the outwork of 
 the old Roman city. The palace, of remotest antiquity, 
 and blending all work and architecture, Roman, Saxon, 
 and Danish, had been repaired by Canute ; and from a 
 high Avindow in the upper story, where were the royal 
 apartments, the body of the traitor Edric Streone (the 
 founder of the house of Godwin) had been thrown into 
 the river. 
 
 " "Whither go we, Harold ? " asked the son of Sweyn. 
 
 " We go to visit the young Atheling, the natural heir 
 to the Saxon throne," replied Harold in a firm voice. 
 " He lodges in the old palace of our kings." 
 
 " They say in i^ormandy that the boy is imbecile." 
 
 " That is not true," returned Harold. " I will present 
 thee to him, — judge." 
 
 Haco mused a moment and said, — 
 
 " Methinks I divine thy purpose ; is it not formed on 
 the sudden, Harold ? " 
 
 " It was the counsel of Edith," answered Harold, with 
 evident emotion. " And yet, if that counsel prevail, I may 
 lose the power to soften the Church and to call her mine." 
 
 " So thou wouldst sacrifice even Edith for thy 
 country ? " 
 
 " Since I have sinned, methinks I could," said the 
 proud man, humbly.
 
 HAROLD. 127 
 
 The boat shot into a little creek, or rather canal, which 
 then ran inland, beside the black and rotting walls of the 
 fort. The two earl-born leaped ashore, passed under a 
 Roman arch, entered a court, the interior of which was 
 rudely filled up by early Saxon habitations of rough tim- 
 ber-work, already, since the time of Canute, falling into 
 decay (as all things did which came under the care of 
 Edward), and, mounting a stair that ran along the out- 
 side of the house, gained a low narrow door, which stood 
 open. In the passage within were one or two of the 
 king's house-carles who had been assigned to the young 
 Atheling, with liveries of blue and Danish axes, and some 
 four or five German servitors, who had attended his 
 father from the emperor's court. One of these last 
 ushered the noble Saxons into a low, forlorn ante-hall ; 
 and there, to Harold's surprise, he found Aired, the Arch- 
 bishop of York, and three thegns of high rank, and of 
 lineage ancient and purely Saxon. 
 
 Aired approached Harold with a faint smile on his 
 benign face : — 
 
 " Methinks — and may I think aright ! — thou comest 
 hither with the same purpose as myself and yon noble 
 thegns." 
 
 " And that purpose ? " 
 
 " Is to see and to judge calmly, if, despite his years, we 
 may find in the descendant of the Ironsides such a prince 
 as we may commend to our decaying king as his heir, and 
 to the Witan as a chief fit to defend the land." 
 
 " Thou speakest the cause of my own coming. With 
 your ears will I hear, with your eyes will I see, as ye 
 judge will judge I," said Harold, drawing the prelate 
 towards the thegns, so that they might hear his answer. 
 
 The chiefs, who belonged to a party that had often 
 opposed Godwin's house, had exchanged looks of fear
 
 128 
 
 HAROLD. 
 
 and trouble when Harold entered ; but at his words their 
 frank faces sliowed equtd surprise and pleasure. 
 
 Harold presented to them his nephew, with whose 
 grave dignity of bearing beyond his years they were 
 favorably impressed, though the good bishop sighed 
 when he saw in his face the sombre beauty of the guilty 
 sire. The group then conversed anxiously on the declin- 
 ing health of the king, the disturbed state of the realm, 
 and the expediency, if possible, of uniting all suifrages in 
 favor of the fittest successor. And in Harold's voice and 
 manner, as in Harold's heart, there was nought that 
 seemed conscious of his own mighty stake and just hopes 
 in that election. But as time wore, the faces of the 
 thegns grew overcast ; proud men and great satraps ^ were 
 they, and they liked it ill that the boy-prince kept them 
 so long in the dismal anteroom. 
 
 At length the German officer who had gone to announce 
 their coming returned, and, in words intelligible indeed 
 from the affinity between Saxon and German, but still 
 disagreeably foreign to English ears, requested them to 
 follow him into the presence of the Atheling. 
 
 In a room yet retaining the rude splendor with which 
 it had been invested by Canute, a handsome boy, about 
 the age of thirteen or fourteen, but seeming much younger, 
 was engaged in the construction of a stuffed bird, a lure 
 for a young hawk that stood blindfold on its perch. The 
 employment made so habitual a part of the serious educa- 
 tion of youth, that the thegns smootlied their brows at 
 the sight, and deemed the boy worthily occupied. At 
 another end of the room a grave ^Norman priest was seated 
 
 1 The Eastern word Satraps (Satrapes) made one of the ordinary 
 and most inappropriate titles (borrowed, no donbt, from the By- 
 zantine Court) by which the Saxons, iu their Latinity, honored 
 their simple nobles.
 
 HAROLD. 129 
 
 at a table, on which were books and writing implements ; 
 he was the tutor commissioned by Edward to teach 
 Norman tongue and saintly lore to the Atheling. A pro- 
 fusion of toys strewed the floor, and some children of 
 Edgar's own age were playing with them. His little 
 sister Margaret ^ was seated sei'iously, apart from all the 
 other children, and employed in needlework. 
 
 When Aired approached the Atheling, with a blending 
 of reverent obeisance and paternal cordiality, the boy 
 carelessly cried, in a barbarous jargon, half German, half 
 Norman-French, — 
 
 " There, come not too near, you scare my hawk. What 
 are you doing 1 You trample my toys, which the good 
 Norman bishop William sent me as a gift from the duke. 
 Art thou blind, man 1" 
 
 "My son," said the prelate, kindly, "these are the 
 things of childhood, — childhood ends sooner with princes 
 than with common men. Leave thy lure and thy toys, 
 and welcome these noble thegns, and address them, so 
 please you, in our own Saxon tongue." 
 
 " Saxon tongue ! — language of villeins ! not I. Little 
 do I know of it, save to scold a ceorl or a nurse. King 
 Edward did not tell me to learn Saxon, but Norman ! and 
 Godfroi yonder says that if I know Norman well, Duke 
 William will make me his knight. But I don't desire to 
 learn anything more to-day." And the child turned 
 peevishly from thegn and prelate. 
 
 The three Saxon lords interclianged looks of profound 
 displeasure and proud disgust. But Harold, with an 
 effort over himself, approached, and said, winningly, — 
 
 " Edgar the Atheling, thou art not so young but thou 
 
 1 Afterwards married to Malcolm of Scotland, through whom, 
 by the female line, the present royal dynasty of England assumes 
 descent from the Anglo-Saxon kings. 
 
 VOL. II. — 9
 
 130 HAROJiD. 
 
 knowest already that the great live for others. Wilt 
 thou not be proud to live for this fair country and these 
 noble men, and to speak the language of Alfred the 
 Great?" 
 
 "Alfred the Great! they always weary me with Alfred 
 the Great," said the boy, pouting. " Alfred the Great, — • 
 he is the plague of my life ! If I am Atheling, men are 
 to live for me, not I for them ; and if you tease me any 
 more, I will run away to Duke William, in Rouen ; 
 Godfroi says I shall never be teased there ! " 
 
 So saying, already tired of hawk and lure, the child 
 threw himself on the floor with the other children, and 
 snatched the toys from their hands. 
 
 The serious Margaret then rose quietly, and went to 
 her brother, and said, in good Saxon, — 
 
 " Fie ! if you behave thus, I shall call you niddering ! " 
 
 At the threat of that word, the vilest in the language : 
 that word which the lowest ceorl would forfeit life rather 
 than endure, — a threat applied to the Atheling of Eng- 
 land, the descendant of Saxon heroes, — the three thegns 
 drew close, and watched the boy, hoping to see that he 
 would start to his feet with wrath and shame. 
 
 "Call me what you will, silly sister," said the child, 
 indifferently ; " I am not so Saxon as to care for your 
 ceorlish Saxon names." 
 
 " Enow," cried the proudest and greatest of the thegns, 
 his very mustache curling with ire. " He who can be 
 called niddering shall never be crowned king ! " 
 
 " I don't want to be crowned king, rude man, with 
 your laidly mustache ; I want to be made knight, and 
 have a banderol and baldric. Go away ! " 
 
 " We go, son," said Aired, mournfully. 
 
 And, with slow and tottering step, he moved to the 
 door ; there he halted, turned back, — and the child was
 
 HAROLD. 131 
 
 pointing at him in mimicry, while Godfroi, tlie Xorman 
 tutor, smiled as in pleasure. The prelate shook his head, 
 and the group gained again the ante-hall. 
 
 *' Fit leader of bearded men ! fit king for the Saxon 
 land ! " cried a thegn. " No more of your Atheling, 
 Aired my father ! " 
 
 " No more of him, indeed ! " said the prelate, mourn- 
 fully. 
 
 " It is but the fault of his nurture and rearing, — a 
 neglected childhood, a Norman tutor, German hirelings. 
 We may remould yet the pliant clay," said Harold. 
 
 " Nay," returned Aired, " no leisure for such hopes, no 
 time to undo Avhat is done by circumstance, and, I fear, 
 by nature. Ere the year is out the throne will stand 
 empty in our halls." 
 
 "Who, then," said Haco, abruptly — " who then (par- 
 don the ignorance of youth wasted in captivity abroad !) 
 — who then, failing the Atheling, will save this realm 
 from the Norman duke, who, I know well, counts on it as 
 the reaper on the harvest ripening to his sickle ] " 
 
 " Alas, who then 1 " murmured Aired. 
 
 " Who then ? " cried the three thegns, with one voice ; 
 " why, the worthiest, the wisest, the bravest ! Stand 
 forth, Harold the Earl, Thou art the man ! " And, with- 
 out waiting his answer, they strode from the hall.
 
 132 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 Around N'orthauipton lay the forces of Morcar, the choice 
 of tlie Anglo-Dane men of Nortlmmbria. Suddenly 
 there was a shout as to arms from the encampment ; and 
 Morcar, the young earl, clad in his link mail, save his 
 helmet, came forth, and cried, — 
 
 " My men are fools to look that way for a foe ; yonder 
 lies Mercia, behind it the hills of Wales. The troops that 
 come hitherward are those which Edwin my brother brings 
 to our aid." 
 
 Morcar's words were carried into the host by his 
 captains and warbodes, and the shout changed from alarm 
 into joy. As the cloud of dust, through whicli gleamed 
 the spears of the coming force, rolled away, and lay lagging 
 behind the march of the host, there rode forth from the 
 van two riders. Fast and far from the rest they rode, and 
 behind them, fast as they could, spurred two others, who 
 bore on high, one the peimon of Mercia, one the red lion 
 of North Wales. Right to the embankment and palisade 
 which begirt Morcar's camp rode the riders ; and the head 
 of the foremost was bare, and the guards knew the face of 
 Edwin tlie Comely, Morcar's brother. Morcar stepped 
 down from the mound on which he stood, and the brothers 
 embraced, amidst the halloos of the forces. 
 
 " And welcome, I pray thee," said Morcar, " our kins- 
 man, Caradoc, son of Gryffyth ^ the bold." 
 
 1 By liis first wife ; Aldj^th was his second.
 
 HAROLD. 133 
 
 So Morcar reached his hand to Caradoc, stepson to his 
 sister Aldyth, and kissed him on the brow, as was the 
 wont of our fathers. The young and crownless prince 
 was scarce out of boyhood, but already his name was sung 
 by the bards, and circled in the halls of Gwynedd with 
 the Hirlas horn ; for he had harried the Saxon borders, and 
 given to fire and sword even the fortress of Harold 
 himself. 
 
 But while these three interchanged salutations, and ere 
 yet the mixed Mercians and Welsh had gained the encamp- 
 ment, from a curve in the opposite road, towards Towcester 
 and Dunstable, broke the flash of mail like a river of 
 light, trumpets and fifes were heard in the distance ; 
 and all in Morcar's host stood hushed, but stern, gazing 
 anxious and afar, as the coming armament swept on. And 
 from the midst were seen the Martlets and Cross of 
 England's king, and the Tiger heads of Harold ; banners 
 which, seen together, had planted victory on every tower, 
 on every field, towards which they had rushed on the 
 winds. 
 
 Retiring, then, to the central mound, the chiefs of the 
 insurgent force held their brief council. 
 
 The two young earls, whatever their ancestral renown, 
 being yet new themselves to fame and to power, were 
 submissive to the Anglo-Dane chiefs, by whom Morcar 
 had been elected. And these, on recognizing the standard 
 of Harold, were unanimous in advice to send a peaceful 
 deputation, setting forth their wrongs under Tostig, and 
 the justice of their cause. "For the earl," said Gamel 
 Beorn (the head and front of that revolution), "is a just 
 man, and one who would shed his own blood rather than 
 that of any other free-born dweller in England ; and he 
 will do us right." 
 
 " What ! against his own brother'? " cried Edwin.
 
 134 HAROLD. 
 
 " Against liis own brother, if we convince but liis rea- 
 son," returned the Anglo-Dane. 
 
 And the other chiefs nodded assent. Caradoc's fierce eyes 
 flashed fire ; but he played with his torque, and spoke not. 
 
 Meanwhile the vanguard of the king's force had defiled 
 under the very walls of Northampton, between the town 
 and the insurgents ; and some of the light-armed scouts 
 who went forth from ]\Iorcar's camp to gaze on the proces- 
 sion, with that singular fearlessness which characterized, at 
 that period, the rival parties in civil war, returned to say 
 that they had seen Harold himself in the foremost line, 
 and that he was not in mail. 
 
 This circumstance the insurgent thegns received as a 
 good omen ; and, having already agreed on the deputation, 
 about a score of the principal thegns of the north went 
 sedately towards the hostile lines. 
 
 By the side of Harold — armed in mail, with his face 
 concealed by the strange Sicilian nose-piece, used tlien 
 by most of the Northern nations — had ridden Tostig, 
 who had joined the earl on his march, with a scanty band 
 of some fifty or sixty of his Danish house-carles. All the 
 men throughout broad England that he could command or 
 bribe to his cause were those fifty or sixty hireling Danes. 
 And it seemed that already tliere was dispute between 
 the brothers, for Harold's face was flushed, and his voice 
 stern, as he said, " Rate me as thou wilt, brother, but I 
 cannot advance at once to the destruction of my fellow- 
 Englishmen without summons and attempt at treaty, — 
 as has ever been the custom of our ancient heroes and our 
 own House." 
 
 " By all the fiends of the North," exclaimed Tostig, 
 " it is foul shame to talk of treaty and summons to robbers 
 and rebels. For what art thou here but for chastisement 
 and revenge 1 "
 
 HAROLD. 135 
 
 " For justice and right, Tostig." 
 
 " Ha ! thou comest not, then, to aid tliy brother 1 " 
 
 " Yes, if justice and right are, as I trust, with him." 
 
 Before Tostig could reply, a line was suddenly cleared 
 through the armed men, and, with bare heads, and a monk 
 lifting the rood on high amidst the procession, advanced 
 the Northumbrian Danes. 
 
 " By the red sword of St. Olave ! " cried Tostig, 
 " yonder come the traitors, Gamel Beorn and Gloneion ! 
 You will not hear them 1 If so, I will not stay to listen. 
 I have but my axe for my answer to such knaves." 
 
 " Brother, brother ! those men are the most valiant 
 and famous chiefs in thine earldom. Go, Tostig, thou art 
 not now in the mood to hear reason. Retire into the city ; 
 summon its gates to open to the king's flag. I will hear 
 the men." 
 
 " Beware how thou judge, save in thy brother's favor ! " 
 growled the fierce warrior ; and, tossing his arm on high 
 with a contemptuous gesture, he spurred away towards the 
 gates. 
 
 Then Harold, dismounting, stood on the ground, under 
 the standard of his king, and round him came several 
 of the Saxon chiefs, who had kept aloof during the 
 conference with Tostig. 
 
 The Northumbrians approached, and saluted the earl 
 with grave courtesy. 
 
 Then Gamel Beorn began. But much as Harold had 
 feared and foreboded as to the causes of complaint which 
 Tostig had given to the Northumbrians, all fear, all 
 foreboding, fell short of the horrors now deliberately 
 unfolded ; not only extortion of tribute the most rapa- 
 cious and illegal, but murder the fiercest and most foul. 
 Thegns of high birth, without offence or suspicion, but 
 who had either excited Tostig's jealousy or resisted hia
 
 136 HAROLD. 
 
 exactions, had been snared under peaceful pretests into 
 his castle,^ and butchered in cold blood by his house-carles. 
 The cruelties of the old heathen Danes seemed revived iu 
 the bloody and barbarous tale. 
 
 " And now," said the thegn, in conclusion, " canst thou 
 condemn us that we rose 1 — no partial rising • — rose all 
 Northumbria ! At first but two hundred thegns ; strong 
 in our cause, we swelled into the might of a people. Our 
 wrongs found sympathy beyond our province, for liberty 
 spreads over human hearts as fire over a heath. Wherever 
 "we march, friends gather round us. Thou warrest not on 
 a handful of rebels, — half England is with us ! " 
 
 " And ye, thegns," answered Harold, " ye have ceased 
 to war against Tostig your earl. Ye war now against the 
 king and the Law. Come with your complaints to your 
 prince and your Witan, and, if they are just, ye are 
 stronger than in yonder palisades and streets of steel." 
 
 " And so," said Gamel Beorn, with marked emphasis, 
 " now thou art in England, noble earl, — so are we 
 ■willing to come. But when thou wert absent from the 
 land, justice seemed to abandon it to force and the 
 battle-axe." 
 
 " I would thank you for your trust," answered Harold, 
 deeply moved. " But justice in England rests not on 
 the presence and life of a single man. And your speech 
 I must not accept as a grace, for it wrongs both my king 
 and his council. These charges ye have made, but ye 
 have not proved them. Armed men are not proofs; and 
 granting that hot blood and mortal infirmity of judg- 
 ment have caused Tostig to err against you and the right, 
 think still of his qualities to reign over men whose lands, 
 and whose rivers, lie ever exposed to the dread Northern 
 sea-kings. Where will ye find a chief with arm as strong 
 
 1 Flor Wig.
 
 HAROLD. 137 
 
 and heart as dauntless ? By his mother's side he is allied 
 to your own lineage. And for the rest, if ye receive him 
 back to his earldom, not only do I, Harold, in whom you 
 profess to trust, pledge full oblivion of the past, but I 
 will undertake, in his name, that he shall rule you well 
 for the future, according to the laws of King Canute." 
 
 " That will we not hear," cried the thegns, with one 
 voice ; while the tones of Gamel Beorn, rough with the 
 rattling Danish burr, rose above all, '' for we were born 
 free. A proud and bad chief is by us not to be endured ; 
 we have learned from our ancestors to live free or die ! " 
 
 A murmur, not of condemnation, at these words, was 
 heard amongst the Saxon chiefs round Harold ; and 
 beloved and revered as he was, he felt that, had he the 
 heart, he had scarce the power, to have coerced those 
 warriors to march at once on their countrymen in such a 
 cause. But foreseeing great evil in the surrender of his 
 brother's interests, whether by lowering the king's dignity 
 to the demands of armed force, or sending abroad in all 
 his fierce passions a man so highly connected with 
 Norman and Dane, so vindictive and so grasping, as 
 Tostig, the earl shunned further parley at tliat time and 
 place. He appointed a meeting in the town with the 
 chiefs ; and requested them, meanwhile, to reconsider 
 their demands, and at least shape them so as that they 
 could be transmitted to the king, who was then on his way 
 to Oxford. 
 
 It is in vain to describe the rage of Tostig when his 
 brother gravely repeated to him the accusations against 
 him, and asked for his justification. Justification he 
 could not give. His idea of law was but force, and by 
 force alone he demanded now to be defended. Harold, 
 then, wishing not alone to be judge in his brother's 
 cause, referred further discussion to the chiefs of the
 
 138 HAROLD. 
 
 various towns and shires, whose troops had swelled the 
 War-Fyrd , and to them he bade Tostig plead his cause. 
 
 Vain as a woman, while fierce as a tiger, Tostig 
 assented, and in that assembly he rose, his gonna all 
 blazing with crimson and gold, his hair all curled and 
 perfumed as for a banquet ; and such, in a half-barbarous 
 day, the eft'ect of person, especially when backed by war- 
 like renown, that the Proceres were half-disposed to 
 forget, in admiration of the earl's surpassing beauty of 
 form, the dark tales of his hideous guilt. But his pas- 
 sions hurrying him away ere he had gained the middle of 
 his discourse, so did his own relation condemn himself; 
 so clear became his own tyrannous misdeeds, that the 
 Englishmen murmured aloud their disgust, and their impa- 
 tience would not suffer him to close. 
 
 " Enough," cried Vebba, the blunt thegn from Saxon 
 Kent; "it is plain that neither king nor Witan can 
 replace thee in thine earldom. Tell us not farther of 
 these atrocities ; or, by 'r Lady, if the Northumbrians 
 had chased tliee not, we would." 
 
 "Take treasure and ship, and go to Baldwin in 
 Flanders," said Thorold, a great Anglo-Dane from 
 Lincolnshire, " for even Harold's name can scarce save 
 thee from outlawry." 
 
 Tostig glared round on the assembly, and met but one 
 common expression in the face of all. 
 
 "These are thy henchmen, Harold ! " he said through 
 his gnashing teeth ; and, without vouchsafing farther 
 word, strode from the council-hall. 
 
 That evening he left the town, and hurried to tell to 
 Edward the tale that had so miscarried with the chiefs. 
 The next day the Northumbrian delegates were heard ; 
 and they made the customary proposition in those cases 
 of civil differences, to refer all matters to the king
 
 HAROLD. 139 
 
 and the Witan — each party remaining under arms 
 meanwhile. 
 
 This was finally acceded to. Harold repaired to Oxford, 
 where the king (persuaded to the journey by Aired, 
 foreseeing what would come to pass) had just arrived.
 
 140 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Witen was summoned in haste. Thither came the 
 young earls Morcar and Edwin, but Caradoc, chating at 
 the thouglit of peace, retired into Wales with his wild 
 band. 
 
 Now, all the great chiefs, spiritual and temporal, 
 assembled in Oxford for the decree of that Witan on 
 which depended the peace of England. The imminence 
 of the time made the concourse of members entitled to 
 vote in the assembly even larger than that which had 
 met for the inlawry of Godwin. There was but one 
 thought uppermost in the minds of men, to which the 
 adjustment of an earldom, however mighty, was compar- 
 atively insignificant, — namely, the succession of the 
 kingdom. That thought turned instinctively and irresist- 
 ibly to Harold. 
 
 The evident and rapid decay of the king; the utter 
 failure of all male heirs in the House of Cerdic, save 
 only the boy Edgar, whose character (which through- 
 out life remained puerile and frivolous) made the minority 
 which excluded him from the throne seem cause rather 
 for rejoicing than grief, and whose rights, even by birth, 
 were not acknowledged by the general tenor of the Saxon 
 laws, which did not recognize as heir to the crown the 
 son of a father who had not himself been crowned ; ^ 
 
 1 This truth has been overlooked by writers, who have main- 
 taiued the Atheliug's right as if incontestable. " An opinion pre- 
 vailed," says Palgrave, " Eng. Commouwealth," pp. 559, 560, " that
 
 HAROLD. 141 
 
 forebodings of coming evil and danger, originating in 
 Edward's perturbed visions ; revivals of obscure and till 
 then forgotten prophecies, ancient as the days of Merlin ; 
 rumors, industriously fomented into certainty by Haco, 
 whose whole soul seemed devoted to Harold's cause, of 
 the intended claim of the Norman count to the throne ; — 
 all concurred to make the election of a man matured in 
 camp and council doubly necessary to the safety of the 
 realm. 
 
 Warm favorers, naturally, of Harold, were the genuine 
 Saxon population, and a large part of the Anglo-Danish, 
 — all the thegns in his vast earldom of Wessex, reaching 
 to the southern and western coasts, from Sandwich and 
 the mouth of the Thames to the Land's End in Cornwall ; 
 and including the free men of Kent, whose inhabitants 
 even from tlie days of Csesar had been considered in 
 advance of the rest of the British population, and from 
 the days of Hengist had exercised an influence that noth- 
 ing save the warlike might of the Anglo-Danes counter- 
 balanced. With Harold, too, were many of the thegns 
 from his earlier earldom of East Anglia, comprising the 
 county of Essex, great part of Hertfordsliire, and so 
 reaching into Cambridge, Huntingdon, Norfolk, and Ely. 
 With him were all the wealth, intelligence, and power of 
 London, and most of the trading towns ; with him all the 
 veterans of the armies he had led; with him, too, gener- 
 ally throughout the empire, was the force, less distinctly 
 demarked, of public and national feeling. 
 
 Even tlie priests, save those immediately about the 
 
 if the Atheling was born before his father and mother were or- 
 dained to the royal dignity, the crown did not descend to the child 
 of uncrowned ancestors." Our great legal historian quotes Ead- 
 mer, " De Vit. Sauct. Dunstan," p. 220, for the objection made to 
 the succession of Edward the Martyr on this score.
 
 142 HAROLD. 
 
 court, forgot in the exigency of the time their ancient 
 and deep-rooted dislike to Godwin's House ; they remem- 
 bered, at least, that Harold had never in foray or feud 
 plundered a single convent ; or in peace, and through plot, 
 appropriated to himself a single hyde of Church land : 
 and that was more than could have been said of any other 
 earl of the age, — even of Leofric the Holy. They caught, 
 as a Church must do, vvhen so intimately, even in its 
 illiterate errors, allied with the people as the old Saxon 
 Church was, the popular enthusiasm. Abbot combined 
 with thegn in zeal for Earl Harold. 
 
 The only party that stood aloof was the one that es- 
 poused the claims of the young sons of Algar. But this 
 party was indeed most formidable ; it united all the old 
 friends of the virtuous Leofric, of the famous Siward ; it 
 had a numerous party even in East Anglia (in whicli 
 earldom Algar had succeeded Harold) ; it comprised 
 nearly all the thegns in Mercia (the heart of the country), 
 and the population of Northumbria ; and it involved in 
 its wide range the terrible Welsh on the one hand, and 
 the Scottish domain of the sub-king Malcolm, himself a 
 Cumbrian, on the other, despite Malcolm's personal predi- 
 lections for Tostig, to whom he was strongly attached. 
 Eut then the chiefs of this party, while at present they 
 stood aloof, were all, with the exception perhaps of the 
 young earls themselves, disposed, on the sliglitest en- 
 couragement, to blend their suffrage with the friends of 
 Harold ; and his praise was as loud on their lips as on 
 those of the Saxons from Kent, or the hurghers from Lon- 
 don. All factions, in short, were willing, in this momen- 
 tous crisis, to lay aside old dissensions ; it depended upon 
 the conciliation of the iN^orthumbrians, upon a fusion 
 between the friends of Harold and the supporters of the 
 young sons of Algar, to form such a concurrence of
 
 HAROLD. 143 
 
 interests as must inevitably bear Harold to the throne of 
 the empire. 
 
 Meanwhile, the earl himself wisely and patriotically 
 deemed it right to remain neuter in the approaching 
 decision between Tostig and the young earls. He could 
 not be so unjust and so mad as to urge to the utmost 
 (and risk in the urging) his part}'' influence on the side 
 of oppression and injustice, solely for the sake of his 
 brother ; nor, on the other, was it decorous or natural to 
 take part himself against Tostig ; nor could he, as a 
 statesman, contemplate without anxiety and alarm the 
 transfer of so large a portion of the realm to the vice- 
 kingship of the sons of his old foe, — rivals to his power, 
 at the very time when, even for the sake of England 
 alone, that power should be the most solid and compact. 
 
 But the final greatness of a fortunate man is rarely 
 made by any violent effort of his own. He has sown the 
 seeds in the time foregone, and the ripe time brings up the 
 harvest. His fate seems takeu out of his own control ; 
 greatness seems thrust upon him. He has made himself, 
 as it were, a want to the nation, a thing necessary to it ; 
 he has identified himself with his age, and in the wreath 
 or the crown on his brow the age itself seems to put forth 
 his flower. 
 
 Tostig, lodging apart from Harold in a fort near the 
 gate of Oxford, took slight pains to conciliate foes or make 
 friends ; trusting rather to his representations to Edward 
 (who was wroth with the rebellious House of Algar), of 
 the danger of compromising the royal dignity by conces- 
 sions to armed insurgents. 
 
 It was but three days before that for which the Witan 
 was summoned : most of its members had already assem- 
 bled in the city ; and Harold, from the window of the 
 monastery in which he lodged, was gazing thoughtfully
 
 144 HAROLD. 
 
 into the streets below, where, with the gay dresses of the 
 thegns and cnehts, blended the grave robes of ecclesiastic 
 and youthful scholar — for to that illustrious university 
 (pillaged and persecuted by the sons of Canute), Edward 
 had, to his honor, restored the schools — when Haco 
 entered, and announced to him that a numerous body of 
 thegns and prelates, headed by Aired, archbishop of York, 
 craved an audience. 
 
 " Knowest thou the cause, Haco 1 " 
 
 The youth's cheek was yet more pale than usual, as he 
 answered slowly, — 
 
 " Hilda's prophecies are ripening into truths." 
 
 The earl started, and his old ambition reviving, flushed 
 on his brow, and sparkled from his eye : he checked the 
 joyous emotion, and bade Haco briefly admit the visitors. 
 
 They came in, two by two, — a body so numerous 
 that they filled the ample chamber ; and Harold, as he 
 greeted each, beheld the most powerful lords of the land, 
 the highest dignitaries of the Church, — and, oft and fre- 
 quent, came old foe by the side of trusty friend. They 
 all paused at the foot of the narrow dais on which Harold 
 stood, and Aired repelled by a gesture his invitation to 
 the foremost to mount the platform. 
 
 Then Aired began a harangue, simple and earnest. He 
 described briefly the condition of the country ; touched 
 with grief and with feeling on the health of the king, and 
 the failure of Cerdic's line. He stated honestly his own 
 strong wish, if possible, to have concentrated the popular 
 suffrages on the young Atheling, and, under the emer- 
 gence of the case, to have waived the objection to his 
 immature years. But as distinctly and emphatically he 
 stated, that that hope and intent he had now formally 
 abandoned, and that there was but one sentiment on tlie 
 subject with all the chiefs and dignitaries of the realm.
 
 HAROLD. 145 
 
 " Wherefore," continued he, " after anxious consulta- 
 tions with each other, those whom you see around have 
 come to you : yea, to you. Earl Harold, we offer our 
 hands and hearts to do our best to prepare for you the 
 throne on the demise of Edward, and to seat you thereon 
 as firmly as ever sat King of England and son of Cerdic ; 
 • — knowing that in you, and in you alone, we find the 
 man who reigns already in the English heart ; to whose 
 strong arm we can trust the defence of our land ; to whose 
 just thoughts, our laws. — As I speak, so think we all ! " 
 
 With downcast eyes Harold heard ; and but by a 
 slight heaving of his breast under his crimson robe could 
 his emotion be seen. But as soon as the approving mur- 
 mur that succeeded the prelate's speech had closed, he 
 lifted his head, and answered, — 
 
 " Holy father, and you, Right Worthy my fellow-thegns, 
 if ye could read my heart at this moment, believe that 
 you would not find there the vain joy of aspiring man, 
 when the greatest of earthly prizes is placed within his 
 reach. There you would see, Avith deep and wordless 
 gratitude for your trust and your love, grave and solemn 
 solicitude, earnest desire to divest my decision of all mean 
 thought of self, and judge only whether indeed, as king 
 or as subject, I can best guard the weal of England. 
 Pardon me, then, if I answer you not as ambition alone 
 would answer ; neither deem me insensible to the glorious 
 lot of presiding, under Heaven, and by the light of our 
 laws, over the destinies of the English realm, — if I pause 
 to weigh well the responsibilities incurred, and the obstacles 
 to be surmounted. There is that on my mind that 1 
 would fain unbosom, not of a nature to discuss in an 
 assembly so numerous, but which I would rather submit to 
 a chosen few whom you yourselves may select to hear me, 
 in whose cool wisdom, apart from personal love to me, ye 
 
 VOL. II. — 10
 
 146 HAROLD. 
 
 may best confide ; — your most veteran thegus, your most 
 honored prelates ; to them will I speak, to them make 
 clean my bosom ; and to their answer, their counsels, will 
 I in all things defer : whether with loyal heart to serve 
 another, whom, hearing me, they may decide to choose ; 
 or to fit my soul to bear, not unworthily, the weight of 
 a kingly crown." 
 
 Aired lifted his mild eyes to Harold, and there were 
 both pity and approval in his gaze, for he divined the earl. 
 
 ** Thou hast chosen the right course, my son ; and we 
 will retire at once, and elect those with whom thou 
 mayst freely confer, and by whose judgment thou mayst 
 righteously abide." 
 
 The prelate turned, and with him went the conclave. 
 
 Left alone with Haco, the last said abruptly, — 
 
 " Thou wilt not be so indiscreet, Harold, as to con- 
 fess thy compelled oath to the fraudful Norman 1 " 
 
 " That is my design," replied Harold, coldly. 
 
 The son of Sweyn began to remonstrate, but the earl 
 cut him short. 
 
 " If the Norman say tliat he has been deceived in 
 Harold, never so shall say the men of England. Leave 
 me. I know not why, Haco, but in thy presence, at 
 times, there is a glamour as strong as in the spells of Hilda. 
 Go, dear boy , the fault is not in thee, but in the super- 
 stitious infirmities of a man who hath once lowered, or, 
 it may be, too highly strained, his reason to the things of 
 a haggard fancy. Go ! and send to me my brother Gurth. 
 I would have him alone of my House present at this 
 solemn crisis of its fate." 
 
 Haco bowed his head, and went. 
 
 In a few moments more, Gurth came in. To this pure 
 and spotless spirit Harold had already related the events of 
 his unhappy visit to the Norman ; and he felt, as the
 
 HAROLD. 147 
 
 young chief pressed his hand, and looked on him with 
 his clear and loving eyes, as if Honor made palpable stood 
 by his side. 
 
 Six of the ecclesiastics, most eminent for Church learn- 
 ing, — small as was that which they could boast, compared 
 with tiie scholars of Normandy and the Papal States, but 
 at least more intelHgent and more free from mere formal 
 monasticism than most of their Saxon contemporaries, — 
 and SIX of the chiefs most renowned for experience in war 
 or council, selected under the sagacious promptings of 
 Aired, accompanied that prelate to the presence of the 
 earl. 
 
 " Close, thou ! close ! close ! Gurth," whispered Harold : 
 " for this is a confession against man's pride, and sorely 
 doth it shame ; — so that I would have thy bold, sinless 
 heart beating near to mine." 
 
 Then, leaning his arm upon his brother's shoulder, and 
 in a voice, the first tones of which, as betraying earnest 
 emotion, irresistibly chained and affected his noble audi- 
 ence, Harold began his tale. 
 
 Various were the emotions, though all more akin to 
 terror than repugnance, with which the listeners heard the 
 earl's plain and candid recital. 
 
 Among the lay chiefs the impression made by the com- 
 pelled oath was coni])aratively slight ; for it was the worst 
 vice of the Saxon laws to entangle all charges, from the 
 smallest to the greatest, in a reckless multiplicity of oatlis,^ 
 to the grievous loosening of the bonds of truth : and 
 oaths then had become almost as much mere matter of 
 legal form, as certain oaths — bad relic of those times ! — 
 still existing m our parliamentary and collegiate pro- 
 
 1 See the judicious remarks of Henry, " Hist, of Britain," on 
 this head. From the lavish abuse of oaths, perjury had come to 
 be reckoned one of the national vices of the Saxon.
 
 148 HAEOLD. 
 
 ceedings, are deemed by men, not otherwise dishonorable 
 even now. And to no kind of oath was more latitude 
 given than to such as related to i'ealty to a chief ; for these, 
 in the constant rebellions which happened year after 
 year, were openly violated, and without reproach. Not a 
 sub-king in Wales who iiarried the border, not an earl who 
 raised banner against the Basileus of Britain, but infringed 
 his oath to be good man and true to the lord paramount ; 
 and even William the Norman himself never found his 
 oath of fealty stand in his way, whenever he deemed it 
 right and expedient to take arms against his suzerain of 
 France. 
 
 On the churchmen the impression was stronger and 
 more serious : not that made by the oath itself, but by the 
 relics on which the hand had been laid. They looked afc 
 each other, doubtful and appalled, when the earl ceased his 
 tale; while only among the laymen circled a murmur of 
 mingled wrath at William's bold design on their native 
 land, and of scorn at the thought that an oath, surprised 
 and compelled, should be made the instrument of treason 
 to a whole people. 
 
 " Thus," said Harold, after a pause, — " thus have I 
 made clear to you my conscience, and revealed to you the 
 only obstacle between your offers and my choice. From 
 the keeping of an oath so extorted, and so deadly to 
 England, this venerable prelate and mine own soul have 
 freed me. Whether as king or as subject, I shall alike 
 revere the living and their long posterity more than the 
 dead men's bones, and, with sword and witli battle-axe, 
 hew out against the invader my best atonement for tiie 
 lips' weakness and the heart's desertion. But whether, 
 knowing what hath passed, ye may not deem it safer for 
 the land to elect another king, — this it is which, free and 
 forethoughtful of every chance, ye should now decide."
 
 HAEOLD. 149 
 
 With these words he stepped from the dais, and retired 
 into the oratory that adjoined the chamber, followed by 
 Gurth. The eyes of the priests then turned to Aired, and 
 to them the prelate spoke as he had done before to 
 Harold ; — he distinguished between the oath and its 
 fultilment, between the lesser sin and the greater, — tlie 
 one which the Church could absolve, the one which no 
 Church had the right to exact, and which, if fulhlled, no 
 penance could expiate. He owned frankly, nevertheless, 
 that it was the difficulties so created that had made him 
 incline to the Atheling : but, convinced of that prince's 
 incapacity, even in the most ordinary times, to rule Eng- 
 land, he shrank yet more from such a choice, when the 
 swords of the Norman were already sharpening for con- 
 test. Finally he said, " If a man as fit to defend us as 
 Harold can be found, let us prefer him : if not — " 
 
 " There is no other man ! " cried the thegns with one 
 voice. " And," said a wise old chief, " had Harold sought 
 to play a trick to secure tlie throne, he could not have 
 devised one more sure than the tale he hath now told us. 
 What ! just when we are most assured that the douglitiest 
 and deadliest foe that our land can brave, waits but for 
 Edward's death to enforce on us a stranger's yoke, — 
 what ! shall we for that very reason deprive ourselves of 
 tlie oul}'^ man able to resist him 1 Harold hath taken an 
 oath ! God wot ! who among us have not taken some 
 uatli at law for which they have deemed it meet afterwards 
 to do a penance or endow a convent 1 The wisest means 
 to strengthen Harold against that oath, is to show the 
 moral impossibility of fullilling it, by placing him on the 
 tln'oue. The best proof we can give to this insolent 
 Norman that England is not for prince to leave, or sub- 
 ject to barter, is to choose solemnly in our Witan the 
 very chief whom his frauds prove to us that he fears the
 
 150 HAROLD. 
 
 most. Wliy, William would laugh in his own sleeve to 
 summon a king to descend from his throne to do him the 
 homage which that king, in tlie different capacity of 
 subject, had (we will grant, even willingly) promised to 
 render." 
 
 This speech spoke all the thoughts of tlie laymen, and, 
 with Alred's previous remarks, reassured all the ecclesias- 
 tics. They were easily induced to believe that tiie usual 
 Church penances, and ample Church gifts, Avould suffice 
 for the insult offered to the relics; and — if they in so 
 grave a case outstripj)ed, in absolution, an authority amply 
 sufficing for all ordinary matters — Harold, as king, might 
 easily gain from the Pope himself that full pardon and 
 shrift, which as mere earl, against the prince of tlie Nor- 
 mans, he would fail of obtaining. 
 
 Tliese or similar reflections soon terminated the suspense 
 of the select council ; and Aired sought the earl in the 
 oratory, to summon him back to the conclave. The two 
 brothers were kneeling side by side before the little altar ; 
 and there was something inexpressibly touching in their 
 humble attitudes, their clasped supplicating hands, in that 
 nKunent when the crown of England rested above tlieir 
 House. 
 
 The brothers rose, and at Alred's sign followed the 
 prelate into the council-room. Aired briefly communi- 
 cated the result of the conference ; and, with an aspect and 
 in a tone free alike from triumph and indecision, Harold 
 replied : — 
 
 "As ye will, so will I. Place me only where I can 
 most serve the common cause. Remain you now, know- 
 ing my secret, a chosen and standing council : too great is 
 my personal stake in this matter to allow ray mind to be 
 unbiassed ; judge ye, then, and decide for me in all things : 
 your minds should be calmer and wiser than mine ; in all
 
 HAROLD. 151 
 
 tilings I will abide by your counsel ; and thus I accept 
 the trust of a nation's freedom." 
 
 Each thegn then put his hand into Harold's, and called 
 himself Harold's man. 
 
 " Now, more tlian ever," said the wise old tliegn who 
 had before spoken " will it be needful to heal all dissen- 
 sion in the kingdom, — to reconcile with us Mercia and 
 Northumbria, and make the kingdom one against the 
 foe. You, as Tostig's brother, have done well to abstain 
 from active interference ; you do well to leave it to us to 
 negotiate the necessary alliance between all brave and good 
 men." 
 
 *' And to that end, as imperative for the public weal, 
 you consent," said Aired, thoughtfully, " to abide by our 
 advice, whatever it be 1 " 
 
 " Whatever it be, so that it serve England," answered 
 the earl. 
 
 A smile, somewhat sad, flitted over the prelate's pale 
 lips, and Harold was once more alone with Gurth.
 
 152 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The soul of all council and cabal on behalf of Harold, 
 which had led to the determination of the principal chiefs 
 and which now succeeded it — was Haco. 
 
 His rank as son of Sweyn, the hrst-born of Godwin's 
 House, — a rank which might have authorized some pre- 
 tensions on his own part, — gave him all field for the 
 exercise of an intellect singularly keen and profound. 
 Accustomed to an atmosphere of practical statecraft in 
 the Norman court, with faculties sliarpened from boy- 
 hood by vigilance and meditation, he exercised an ex- 
 traordinary influence over the simple understandings of 
 the homely clergy and the uncultured thegns. Impressed 
 with the conviction of his early doom, he felt no interest 
 in the objects of others ; but, equally believing that what- 
 ever of bright and brave and glorious in his brief, 
 condemned career, was to be reflected on him from the 
 light of Harold's destiny, the sole desire of a nature 
 "which, under other auspices, would have been intensely 
 daring and ambitious, was to administer to Harold's 
 greatness. No prejudice, no principle, stood in the way 
 of tliis dreary entliusiasm. As a father, himself on the 
 brink of the grave, schemes for the worldly grandeur of the 
 son, in whom he confounds and melts his own life, so this 
 sombre and predestined man, dead to earth and to joy and 
 the emotions of the heart, looked beyond his own tomb to 
 that existence in which he transferred and carried on his 
 ambition.
 
 HAROLD. 15 
 
 o 
 
 If the leading agencies of Harold's memorable career 
 might be, as it were, sj'mbolized and allegorized by the liv- 
 ino- beinsfs with which it was connected, — as Edith was tlie 
 representative of stainless Truth, as Gurth was the type of 
 dauntless Duty, as Hilda embodied aspiring Imagination, — 
 so Haco seemed th(} personation of worldly wisdom ; and, 
 cold in that worldly wisdom, Haco labored on, now con- 
 ferring with Aired and the partisans of Harold ; now 
 closeted with Edwin and Morcar; now gliding from the 
 chamber of the sick king. That wisdom foresaw all 
 obstacles, smoothed all difficulties ; ever calm, never rest- 
 ing ; marshalling and harmonizing the things to be, like 
 the ruthless hand of a tranquil fate. But there was one 
 with whom Haco was more often than with all others, — 
 one whom the presence of Harold had allured to that 
 anxious scene of intrigue, and whose heart leaped high at 
 the hopes whispered from the smileless lips of Haco.
 
 154 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 It was the second day after that which assured him the 
 allegiance of the thegns, that a message was brought to 
 Harold from the Lady Aldyth. She was in Oxford at a 
 convent, with her young daughter by the Welsh king ; 
 she prayed him to visit her. The earl, whose active 
 mind, abstaining from the intrigues around him, was 
 delivered up to the thoughts, restless and feverish, which 
 haunt the repose of all active minds, was not unwilling to 
 escape awhile from himself. He went to Aldyth. The 
 royal widow had laid by the signs of mourning ; she was 
 dressed with the usual stately and loose-robed splendor of 
 Saxon matrons, and all the proud beauty of her youth 
 was restored to her clieek. At her feet was tliat daughter 
 ■who afterwards married the Fleance so familiar to us in 
 Shakespeare, and became the ancestral mother of those 
 Scottish kings who had passed, in pale shadows, across 
 the eyes of Macbeth ; ^ by the side of that child, Harold, 
 to his surprise, saw the ever-ominous face of Haco. 
 
 But, proud as was Aldyth, all pritle seemed humbled 
 into woman's sweeter emotions at the sight of the earl, 
 and she was at first unable to command words to answer 
 his greeting. 
 
 Gradually, however, she warmed into cordial confidence. 
 She touched lightly on her past sorrows ; she permitted it 
 to be seen that her lot with the fierce GryfTyth had been 
 one not more of public calamity than of domestic grief, 
 
 1 And so, from Gryffyth, beheaded by his subjects, descended 
 Charles Stuart.
 
 HAROLD. 155 
 
 and that in tlie natural awe and horror which the murder 
 of lier lord had caused, she felt rather for the ill-starred 
 king than the heloved spouse. She then passed to the 
 differences still existing between her House and Harold's, 
 and spoke well and wisely of the desire of the young earls 
 to conciliate his grace and favor. 
 
 While thus speaking, Morcar and Edwin, as if acci- 
 dentally, entered, and their salutations of Harold were 
 such as became their relative positions ; reserved, not 
 distant, — respectful not servile. With the delicacy of 
 high natures, they avoided touching on the cause before 
 the Witan (fixed for the morrow), on which depended 
 their earldoms or their exile. 
 
 Harold was pleased by their bearing, and attracted 
 towards them by the memory of the affectionate words 
 that had passed between him and Leofric, their illustrious 
 grandsire, over his father's corpse. He thought then of 
 his own prayer, " Let there be peace between thine and 
 mine ! " and looking at their fair and stately youth and 
 nolile carriage, he could not but feel that the men of 
 Northumbria and of Mercia had chosen well. The dis- 
 course, however, was naturally brief, since thus made gene- 
 ral ; the visit soon ceased, and the brothers attended Harold 
 to the door, with the courtesy of the times. Then Haco 
 said, with that faint movement of the lips which was his 
 only approach to a smile, — 
 
 " Will ye not, noble thegns, give your hands to my 
 kinsman 1 " 
 
 " Surely," said Edwin, the handsomer and more gentle 
 of the two, and who, having a poet's nature, felt a poet's 
 enthusiasm for the gallant deeds even of a rival, — 
 "surely, if the earl will accept the hands of those who 
 trust never to be compelled to draw sword against 
 England's hero."
 
 156 HAEOLD. 
 
 Harold stretched forth his hand in reply, and that 
 cordial and immemorial pledge of our national friendships 
 was interchanged. 
 
 Gaining the street, Harold said to his nephew, — 
 
 " Standing as I do towards the young earls, that appeal 
 of thine had been better omitted." 
 
 " Nay," answered Haco ; " their cause is already pre- 
 judged in their favor ; and thou must ally thyself with 
 the heirs of Leofric and the successors of Si ward." 
 
 Harold made no answer. There was something in the 
 positive tone of this beardless youth that displeased him ; 
 but he remembered that Haco was the son of Svveyn, 
 Godwin's first-born, and that, but for Svveyn's crimes, 
 Haco might have lield the place in England he held 
 himself, and looked to the same august destinies beyond. 
 
 In the evening a messenger from the Roman house 
 arrived, with two letters for Harold ; one from Hilda, 
 that contained but these words : " Again peril menaces 
 thee, but in the shape of good. Beware ! and, above all, 
 of the evil that wears the form of wisdom." 
 
 The other letter was from Edith ; it was long for the 
 letters of that age, and every sentence spoke a heart 
 wrapped in his. 
 
 Reading the last, Hilda's warnings were forgotten. 
 The picture of Edith — the prospect of a power that 
 might at last effect their union and reward her long 
 devotion — rose before him, to the exclusion of wilder 
 fancies and loftier hopes ; and his sleep that night was 
 full of youthful and happy dreams. 
 
 The next day the Witan met. The meeting was less 
 stormy than had been expected ; for the minds of most 
 men were made up, and so far as Tostig was interested, 
 the facts were too evident and notorious, the witnesses 
 too numerous, to leave any option to the judges. Edward,
 
 HAKOLD. 157 
 
 on whom alone Tostig had relied, had already, with his 
 ordinary vacillation, been swayed towards a right decision, 
 partly by the counsels of Aired and his other prelates, 
 and especially by the representations of Haco, whose 
 grave bearing and profound dissimulation had gained a 
 singular influence over the formal and melancholy king. 
 
 By some previous compact or understanding between 
 the opposing parties, there was no attempt, however, to 
 push matters against the offending Tostig to vindictive 
 extremes. There was no suggestion of outlawry or pun- 
 ishment beyond the simple deprivation of the earldom he 
 had abused. And in return for tliis moderation on the 
 one side, the other agreed to support and ratify the new 
 election of the Northumbrians. Morcar was thus formally 
 invested with the vice-kingship of that great realm, while 
 Edwin was confirmed in the earldom of the principal part 
 of Mercia. 
 
 On the announcement of these decrees, which were 
 received with loud applause by all the crowd assembled 
 to hear them, Tostig, rallying round him his house-carles, 
 left the town. He went first to Githa, with whom his 
 wife had sought refuge ; and, after a long conference with 
 his mother, he and his haughty countess journeyed to the 
 sea-coast, and took ship for Flanders.
 
 158 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 GuRTH and Harold were seated in close commune in the 
 earl's chamber, at an hour long after the complin (or 
 second vespers), when Aired entered unexpectedly. 
 The old man's face was unusually grave, and Harold's 
 penetrating eye saw that he was gloomy with some 
 matters of great moment. 
 
 " Harold," said the prelate, seating himself, " the hour 
 has come to test thy truth, when thou saidst that thou 
 wert ready to make all sacrifice to thy land ; and further, 
 that thou wouldst abide by the counsel of those free from 
 thy passions, and looking on thee only as the instrument 
 of England's weal." 
 
 " Speak on, father," said Harold, turning somewhat 
 pale at the solemnity of the address ; " I am ready, if the 
 council so desire, to remain a subject, and aid in the 
 choice of a worthier king." 
 
 " Thou divinest me ill," answered Aired : " I do not 
 call on thee to lay aside the crown, but to crucify tlie 
 lieart. The decree of the Witan assigns Mercia and 
 J^orthumbria to the sons of Algar. The old demarcations 
 of the heptarchy, as thou knowest, are scarce worn out ; 
 it is even now less one monarchy, than various states 
 retaining their own laws, and inliabited by different races, 
 who under the sub-kings, called earls, acknowledge a 
 supreme head in the Basileus of Britain. Mercia hath its 
 March law and its prince ; Northumbria its Dane law 
 and its leader. To elect a king without civil war, these
 
 HAROLD. 159 
 
 realms, for so they are, must unite with and sanction the 
 Witans elsewhere held. Only thus can the kingdom be 
 firm against foes without and anarchy within ; and the 
 more so, from the alliance between the new earls of those 
 great provinces and the House of (Jrylfyth, which 
 still lives in Caradoc his son. What if at Edward's death 
 Mercia and Northnmbria refuse to sanction thy accession] 
 What, if, when all our force were needed against the 
 Norman, the Welsh broke loose from their hills, and the 
 Scots from their moors 1 Malcolm of Cumbria, now 
 King of Scotland, is Tostig's dearest friend, while his 
 people side with Morcar. Verily these are dangers enow 
 for a new king, even if William's sword slept in its 
 sheath." 
 
 " Thou speakest tlie words of wisdom," said Harold, 
 " but I knew beforehand that he who wears a crown must 
 abjure repose." 
 
 " Not so ; there is one way, and but one, to reconcile 
 all England to thy dominion, — to win to thee not tlie 
 cold neutrality but the eager zeal of Mercia and North- 
 nmbria ; to make the first guard thee from the Welsh, the 
 last be thy rampart against the Scot. In a word, thou 
 must ally thyself with the blood of these young earls ; 
 thou must wed with Aldyth their sister." 
 
 The earl sprang to his feet aghast. 
 
 " No — no ! " he exclaimed ; " not that ! — any sacri- 
 fice but that ! — rather forfeit the throne than resign the 
 heart that leans on mine ! Thou knowest my pledge to 
 Edith my cousin ; pledge hallowed by the faith of long 
 years. No — no ; have mercy — human mercy ; I can 
 wed no other ! — any sacrifice but that ! " 
 
 The good prelate, though not unprepared for this burst, 
 was much moved by its genuine anguish ; but, steadfast 
 to his purpose, he resumed : —
 
 160 HAROLD. 
 
 " Alds, my son ! so say we all in the hour of trial, — 
 any sacrifice but that which duty and Heaven ordain. 
 Resign the throne thou canst not, or thou leavest the 
 land without a ruler, distracted by rival claims and ambi- 
 tions, an easy prey to the Norman. Eesign thy human 
 affections thou canst and must ; and the more, Harold, 
 that even if duty compelled not this new alliance, the old 
 tie is one of sin, which, as king, and as high example in 
 high place to all men, thy conscience within, and the 
 Church without, summon thee to break. How purify 
 the erring lives of the churclimen, if thyself a rebel to the 
 Church 1 and if thou hast thought that thy power as king 
 might prevail on the Eoman Pontiff to grant dispensation 
 for wedlock within the degrees, and that so thou mightest 
 legally confirm thy now illegal troth, bethink thee well, 
 thou hast a more dread and urgent boon now to ask, — 
 in absolution from thine oath to William. Both prayers, 
 surely, our Roman father will not grant. Wilt thou 
 choose that which absolves from sin, or that which 
 consults but thy carnal affections ] " 
 
 Harold covered his face with his hands, and groaned 
 aloud in his strong agony. 
 
 " Aid me, Gurth," cried Aired, '' thou, sinless and spot- 
 less ; thou, in whose voice a brother's love can blend with 
 a Christian's zeal, — aid me, Gurth, to melt the stubborn, 
 but to comfort the human, heart." 
 
 Then Gurth, with a strong effort over himself, knelt 
 by Harold's side, and in strong simple language backed 
 tlie representations of the priest. In truth, all argument 
 drawn from reason, whether in the state of the land, or the 
 new duties to whicli Harold was committed, were on the one 
 side, and unanswerable ; on the other, was but that mighty 
 resistance which love opposes ever to reason. And Harold 
 continued to murmur, while his liands concealed his face.
 
 HAROLD. 161 
 
 " Impossible ! — she who trusted, who trusts, who so 
 loves, — she whose whole youth hath been consumed in 
 patient faith in me ! — Eesign her ! and for another ! I 
 cannot, I cannot. Take from me the throne ! — Oh vain 
 heart of man, that so long desired its own curse ! — Crown 
 the Atheling ; my manhood shall defend his youth. — 
 But not this otfering ! No, no, — I will not ! " 
 
 It were tedious to relate the rest of that prolonged and 
 agitated conference. All that night, till the last stars 
 waned, aud the bells of prime were heard from church and 
 convent, did the priest and the brother alternately plead 
 and remonstrate, chide and soothe ; and still Harold's 
 heart clung to Edith's with its bleeding roots. At length 
 they, perhaps not unwisely, left him tn himself ; and as, 
 Avhispering low their hopes and tlieir fears of the result 
 of the self-conflict, they went forth from the convent, 
 Haco joined them in the courtyard, and while his cold 
 mournful eye scanned the faces of priest and brother, 
 he asked them how they had sped. 
 
 Aired shook his head and answered, — 
 
 " Man's heart is more strong in the flesh than true to 
 the spirit." 
 
 " Pardon me, father," said Haco, " if I suggest that your 
 most eloquent and persuasive ally in this were Edith her- 
 self. Start not so incredulously ; it is because she loves 
 the earl more than her own life, that — once show her 
 that the earl's safety, greatness, honor, duty, lie in release 
 from his troth to her — that nought save his erring love 
 resists your councils and his country's claims, and Edith's 
 voice will have more power than yours." 
 
 The virtuous prelate, more acquainted with man's 
 selfishness than woman's devotion, oidy replied by an 
 impatient gesture. But Gurth, lately wedded to a woman 
 worthy of him, said gravely, — 
 
 VOL. II. 11
 
 162 HAEOLD. 
 
 "Haco speaks well, my Mlier; and metliinks it is due 
 to both that Edith should not, unconsulted, be abandoned 
 by him for whom she has abjured all others ; to whom 
 she has been as devoted in heart as if sworn wife already. 
 Leave we awhile my brother, never the slave of passion, 
 and with whom England must at last prevail over all 
 seltish thought ; and ride we at once to tell to Edith 
 what we have told to him ; or rather, — woman can best 
 in such a case speak to woman, — let us tell all to our 
 lady, — Edward's wife, Harold's sister, and Edith's holy 
 godmother, — and abide by her counsel. On the third 
 day we shall return." 
 
 " Go we so charged, noble Gurth," said Haco, observing 
 the prelate's reluctant countenance, " and leave we our 
 reverend father to watch over the earl's sharp struggle." 
 
 " Thou speakest well, my son," said the prelate, " and 
 thy mission suits the young and the layman better than 
 the old and the priest." 
 
 " Let us go, Haco," said Gurth, briefly. " Deep, sore, 
 and lasting is the wound I inflict on the brother of my 
 love, and my own heart bleeds in his ; but he himself 
 hath taught me to hold England as a Eoman held Rome."
 
 HAEOLD. 163 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 It is the nature of that happiness which we derive from 
 our affections to be cahii ; its immense influence upon our 
 outward life is not known till it is troubled or withdrawn. 
 By placing his heart at peace, man leaves vent to his 
 energies and passions, and permits their current to flow 
 towards the aims and objects which interest labor or 
 arouse ambition. Tlius absorbed in the occupation with- 
 out, he is lulled into a certain forgetfulness of the value 
 of that internal repose which gives health and vigor to 
 the faculties he employs abroad. But once mar this 
 scarce felt, almost invisible harmony, and the discord 
 extends to tlie remotest chords of our active being. Say 
 to the busiest man whom thou seest in mart, camp, or 
 senate, who seems to thee all intent upon his worldly 
 schemes, " Thy home is reft from thee, thy household gods 
 are shattered, that sweet, noiseless content in the regular 
 mechanism of the springs, wliich set the large Avheels 
 of thy soul into movement, is tliine nevermore ! " — 
 and straightway all exertion seems robbed of its object, 
 — all aim of its alluring charm. "Othello's occupation 
 is gone ! " With a start, that man will awaken from the 
 sunlit visions of noontide ambition, and exclaim in his 
 desolate anguish, " What are all the rewards to my labor, 
 now thou hast robbed me of repose 1 How little are all 
 the gains wrung from strife, in a world of rivals and foes, 
 compared to the smile whose sweetness I knew not till it
 
 164 HAROLD. 
 
 was lost ; and the sense of secui-ity from mortal ill which 
 I took from the trust and sympathy of love ! " 
 
 Tims was it with Harold in that bitter and terrible 
 crisis of his fate. This rare and spiritual love, which had 
 existed on hope, which had never known fruition, had 
 become, the subtlest, the most exquisite part of his being ; 
 this love, to the full and holy possession of which every 
 step in his career seemed to advance him, was it now to be 
 evermore reft from his heart, his existence, at the very 
 moment when he had deemed himself most secure of its re- 
 wards, — when he most needed its consolations 1 Hitherto, 
 in that love he had lived in the future, — he had 
 silenced the voice of the turbulent human passion by the 
 whisper of the patient angel, " A little while yet, and thy 
 bride sits beside thy throne ! " IS^ow what was that 
 future ! how joyless ! how desolate ! The splendor 
 vanished from Ambition, the glow from the face of Fame, 
 the sense of Duty remained alone to counteract the 
 pleadings of Affection ; but Duty, no longer dressed in all 
 the gorgeous colorings it took before from glory and 
 power, — Duty stern and harsh and terrible as tlie iron 
 frown of a Grecian Destiny. 
 
 And thus, front to front with that Duty, he sat alone 
 one evening, while his lips murmured, " Oh, fatal voyage, 
 — oh, lying truth in the hell-born prophecy ! this, then, 
 this was the wife my league with the Norman was to win 
 to my arms'?" In the streets below were heard the 
 tramp of busy feet hurrying homeward, and the con- 
 fused uproar of joyous wassail from the various resorts 
 of entertainment crowded by careless revellers. And the 
 tread of steps mounted the stairs without his door, and 
 there paused ; and there was the murmur of two voices 
 without : one the clear voice of Gurth, — one softer and 
 more troubled. The earl Hfted his head from his bosom, and
 
 HAROLD. 165 
 
 his heart beat quick at the faint and scarce-heard sound 
 of that last voice. The door opened gently, gently : a 
 form entered, and halted on tlie shadow of the threshold ; 
 the door closed again by a hand from without. The earl 
 rose to his feet tremulously, and the next moment Edith 
 was at his knees ; her hood thrown back, her face up- 
 turned to his, bright with un faded beauty, serene with the 
 grandeur of self-martyrdom. 
 
 " Harold ! " she exclaimed, " dost thou remember 
 that in the old time I said, ' Edith had loved thee less, if 
 thou hadst not loved England more than Edith ' 1 Recall, 
 recall those words. And deemest thou now that I, who 
 have gazed for years into thy clear soul, and learned there 
 to sun my woman's heart in the light of all glories native 
 to noblest man, — deemest thou, Harold, that I am 
 weaker now tlian then, when I scarce knew what England 
 and glory were ] " 
 
 " Edith, Edith, what wouldst thou say? — What know- 
 est thou ] — Who hath told thee 1 — What led thee hither, 
 to take part against thyself? " 
 
 " It matters not who told me ; I know all. What led 
 me 1 Mine own soul, and mine own love ! " Springing 
 to her feet, and clasping his hand in both hers, while she 
 looked into his face, she resumed, " I do not say to thee, 
 * Grieve not to part ; ' for I know too well thy faith, thy 
 tenderness, — thy heart, so grand and so soft. But I do 
 say, * Soar above thy grief, and be more than man for tlie 
 sake of men ! ' Yes, Harold, for this last time I behold 
 thee. I clasp thy hand, I lean on thy heart, I hear its 
 Deating, and I shall go hence without a tear." 
 
 " It cannot, it shall not be ! " exclaimed Harold, pas- 
 sionately. " Thou deceivest thyself in the divine passion 
 of the hour : thou canst not foresee the utterness of the 
 desolation to which thou wouldst doom thy life. We
 
 166 HAKOLD. 
 
 were betrothed to each other bv ties strong: as those of 
 the Church, — over the grave of the dead, under the 
 vault of heaven, in the form of ancestral faith ! The 
 bond cannot be broken. If England demands nie, let 
 England take me with the ties it were unholy, even for 
 her sake, to rend ! " 
 
 " Alas, alas ! " faltered Edith, while the flush on her 
 cheek saTik into mournful paleness. " It is not as thou 
 sayest. So has thy love sheltered me from the world, — 
 so utter was my youth's ignorance or my heart's oblivion 
 of the stern laws of man, that when it pleased thee that 
 we should love each other, I could not believe that that 
 love was sin ; and that it was sin hitherto I will not 
 think ; — now, it hath become one." 
 
 " No, no ! " cried Harold ; all the eloquence on which 
 thousands had hung, thrilled and spell-bound, deserting 
 him in that hour of need, and leaving to him onl}'' broken 
 exclamations, — fragments, in each of which his heart 
 itself seemed shivered ; " no, no, not sin ! — sin only to for- 
 sake thee. Hush ! hush ! — this is a dream, — wait till we 
 wake ! True heart ! noble soul ! I will not part from thee ! " 
 
 " But I from thee ! And ratlier than thou shouldst be 
 lost for my sake — the sake of woman — to honor and 
 conscience, and all for which thy sublime life sprang 
 from the hands of Nature, — if not the cloister, may I 
 find the grave ! — Harold, to the last let me be worthy of 
 thee ; and feel, at least, that if not thy wife — that 
 briuht, that blessed fate not mine! — still, rememberine 
 Edith, just men may say, ' She would not have dishonored 
 the hearth of Harold!'" 
 
 " Dost thou know," said the earl, striving to speak 
 calmly, — " dost thou know that it is not only to resign 
 thee that they demand, — that it is to resign thee, and 
 for another ! "
 
 HAROLD. 167 
 
 " I know it," said Edith ; and two burning tears 
 despite her strong and preternatural self-exaltation, 
 swelled from the dark fringe, and rolled slowly down the 
 colorless cheek as she added with proud voice, " I know 
 it : but that other is not Aldyth, it is England ! In her, 
 in Aldyth, behold the dear cause of thy native land ; 
 with her enweave the love which thy native land should 
 command. So thinking, thou art reconciled, and I 
 consoled. It is not for woman that thou desertest Edith." 
 
 " Hear, and take from those lips the strength and the 
 valor that belong to the name of Hero ! " said a deep and 
 clear voice behind ; and Gurth — who, whether distrust- 
 ing the result of an interview so prolonged, or tenderly 
 desirous to terminate its pain, had entered unobserved — ■ 
 approached, and wound liis arm caressingly round his 
 brother. " Harold! " he said, "dear to me as the drops 
 in my heart is my young bride, newly-wed ; but for one 
 tithe of the claims tliat now call thee to the torture and 
 trial, — yea, if but for one hour of good service to free- 
 dom and law, — I would consent without a groan to 
 behold her no more. And if men asked me how I could 
 so conquer man's affections, I would point to thee, and 
 say, ' So Harold taught my youth by his lessons, and my 
 manhood by his life.' Before thee, visible, stand Happi- 
 ness and Love, but with them, Shame ; before thee, 
 invisible, stands Woe, but with Woe are England and 
 eternal Glory ! Choose between them." 
 
 " He hath chosen," said Edith, as Harold turned to 
 the wall, and leaned against it, hiding his face ; tlien, 
 approaching softly, she knelt, lifted to her lips the hem 
 of his robe, and kissed it with devout passion. 
 
 Harold turned suddenly, and opened his arms. Edith 
 resisted not that mute appeal ; she rose, and fell on his 
 breast, sobbing.
 
 168 HAROLD. 
 
 Wild and speecliless was that last embrace. The 
 moon, which had witnessed their union by the heathen 
 grave, now rose above the tower of tlie Christian church, 
 and looked wan and cold upon their parting. 
 
 Solemn and clear paused the orb, a cloud passed over 
 tlie disk, — and Editli was gone. The cloud rolled away, 
 and again the moon shone forth ; and where had knelt 
 the fair form, and looked the last look of Edith, stood the 
 motionless image, and gazed the solemn eye, of the dark 
 son of Sweyn. But Harold leaned on the breast of 
 Gurth, and saw not who had supplanted the soft and lov- 
 ing Fylgia of his life, — saw nought in the universe but 
 the blank of desolation I
 
 U.UIOLD. 169 
 
 BOOK XL 
 
 THE NORMAN SCUEMER, AND THE NORWEGIAN SEA-KING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It was the ore of the 5th of January, — the eve of the 
 day auiiounced to King Edward as that of his deliverance 
 from earth ; and whether or not the prediction had 
 ■wrought its own fultihuent on the fracrile frame and sus- 
 ceptible nerves of the king, the h\st of the hne of Cerdic 
 was fast passing into the solemn shades of eternity. 
 
 Without the walls of the palace, through the whole 
 city of London, the excitement was indescribable. All 
 the river befoi"e the palace W!\s crowded with boats ; all 
 the bi^oad space on the Isle of Thorney itself, thronged 
 with anxious groups. But a few days before, the new- 
 built abbev had been solemnlv consecrated : with the 
 completion of that holy edifice, Edward's life itself seemed 
 done. Like the kings of Egypt, he had built his tomb. 
 
 Within the palace, if possible, still greater was the agi- 
 tation, more divad the suspense. Lobbies, halls, corridore, 
 stiiirs, iuiterooms, were tilled with churchmen and thegns. 
 Nor was it alone for news of the king's state that their 
 brows weiv so knit, that their breath came and went so 
 short. It is not when a great chief is dying that men 
 compose their minds to deplore a loss. That comes long
 
 170 HAROLD. 
 
 after, when the worm is at its work, and comparison 
 between the dead and the livin^ often ricrhts the one to 
 
 O O 
 
 wrong the other. But while the breath is struggling, and 
 the eye glazing, life, busy in the bystanders, murmurs, 
 " Who shall be the heir?" And, in this instance, never 
 had suspense been so keenly wrought up into hope and 
 terror, for the news of Duke William's designs had now 
 spread far and near ; and awful was the doubt, whether 
 the abhorred Norman should receive his sole sanction to 
 so arrogant a claim from the parting assent of Edward. 
 Although, as we have seen, the crown was not absolutely 
 within the bequests of a dying king, but at the will of 
 tlie Witan, still, in circumstances so unparalleled, — tlie 
 utter failure of all natural heirs, save a boy feeble in mind 
 as body, and half foreign by birth and rearing ; the love 
 borne by Edward to the Church ; and the sentiments, 
 half of pity, half of reverence, with which he was 
 regarded throughout the land, — his djnng word would 
 go far to influence the council, and select the successor. 
 Some whispering to each other, with pale lips, all tlie 
 dire predictions then current in men's mouths and breasts ; 
 some in moody silence ; all lifted eager eyes, as, from 
 time to time, a gloomy Benedictine passed in the direction 
 to or fro the king's chamber. 
 
 In that chamber, traversing the past of eight centuries, 
 enter we with hushed and noiseless feet, — a room known 
 to us in many a later scene and legend of England's 
 troubled history, as " The Painted Chamber," long 
 called "The Confessor's." At the farthest end of that 
 long and lofty space, raised upon a regal platform, and 
 roofed witli regal canopy, was the bed of death. 
 
 At the foot stood Harold ; on one side knelt Edith, 
 the king's lady, at the other Aired ; while Stigand stood 
 near, — the holy rood in his hand, — and the abbot of
 
 HAROLD. 171 
 
 the new monastery of Westminster by Stigand's side ; 
 and all the greatest thegns, including Morcar and Edwin, 
 Gurth and Leofvvine, all the more illustrious prelates and 
 abbots, stood also on the dais. 
 
 In the lower end of the hall the king's physician was 
 warming a cordial over the brazier, and some of the sub- 
 ordinate officers of the household were standing in the 
 niches of the deep-set windows ; and they — not great 
 eno' for other emotions than those of human love for their 
 kindly lord — they wept. 
 
 The king, who had already undergone the last holy 
 offices of the Church, was lying quite quiet, his eyes half 
 closed, breathing low but regularly. He had been speech- 
 less the two preceding days ; on this he had uttered a 
 few words, which showed returning consciousness. His 
 hand, reclined on the coverlid, was clasped in his wife's, 
 who was praying fervently. Something in the touch of 
 her hand, or the sound of her murmur, stirred the king 
 from the growing lethargj^, and his eyes opening, fixed on 
 the kneeling lady. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, faintly, " ever good, ever meek ! 
 Think not I did not love thee ; hearts will be read 
 yonder ; we shall have our guerdon." 
 
 The lady looked up through her streaming tears. 
 Edward released his hand, and laid it on her head as in 
 benediction. Then, motioning to the abbot of West- 
 minster, he drew from his finger the ring which the 
 palmers had brought to him,^ and murmured, scarce 
 audibly, — 
 
 " Be this kept in the house of St. Peter in memory oi 
 rae ! " 
 
 " He is alive now to us — speak — " whispered more 
 than one thegn, one abbot, to Aired and to Stigand. 
 1 " Brompt. Chron."
 
 172 HAKOLD. 
 
 And Stigand, as the harder and more worldly man of the 
 two, moved up, and, bending over the pillow, between 
 Aired and the king, said, — 
 
 " royal son, about to win the crown to which that 
 of earth is but an idiot's wreath of withered leaves, not 
 yet may thy soul forsake us. Whom commendest thou 
 to us as shepherd to thy bereaven flock 1 — whom shall 
 we admonish to tread in those traces thy footsteps leave 
 below '? " 
 
 The king made a slight gesture of impatience ; and the 
 queen, forgetful of all but her womanly sorrow, raised her 
 eye and finger in reproof that the dying was thus dis- 
 turbed. But the stake was too weighty, tlie suspense too 
 keen, for that reverend delicacy in those around; and 
 the thegns pressed on each other, and a murmur rose 
 which murmured the name of Harold. 
 
 " Bethink thee, my son," said Aired, in a tender voice, 
 tremulous with emotion ; " the young Atheling is too 
 much an infant yet for these anxious times." 
 
 Eilward signed his head in assent. 
 
 " Then," said the Norman bishop of London, who till 
 that moment had stood in the rear, almost forgotten 
 amongst the crowd of Saxon prelates, but who himself 
 liad been all eyes and ears — " then," said Bishop Wil- 
 liam, advancing, " if thine own royal line so ftiil, who so 
 near to thy love, vidio so worthy to succeed, as William 
 thy cousin, the count of the Normans'?" 
 
 Dark was the scowl on the brow of every thegn, and a 
 muttered " No, no : never the Norman ! " was heard dis- 
 tinctly. Harold's face flushed, and his hand was on the 
 hilt of his ateghar. But no other sign gave he of his 
 interest in the question. 
 
 The king lay for some moments silent, but evidently 
 striving to re-collect his thoughts. Meanwhile, the two
 
 HAROLD. 173 
 
 archprelates bent over him, — Stigand eagerly, Aired 
 fondly. 
 
 Then, raising himself on one arm, while with the other 
 he pointed to Harold at the foot of the bed, the king 
 said, — 
 
 " Your hearts, I see, are with Harold the Earl : so be 
 
 it." 
 
 At those words he fell back on his pillow ; a loud shriek 
 burst from his wife's lips ; all crowded around ; he lay as 
 the dead. 
 
 At the cry, and the indescribable movement of the 
 throng, the physician came quick from tlie lower part of 
 the hall. He made his way abruptly to the bedside, and 
 said, chidingly, "Air, give him air." The throng parted, 
 the leech moistened the king's pale lips with the cordial, 
 but no breath seemed to come forth, no pulse seemed to 
 beat ; and while the two prelates knelt before the human 
 body and by the blessed rood, the rest descended the 
 dais, and hastened to depart. Harold only remained ; but 
 he had passed from the foot to the head of the bed. 
 
 The crowd had gained the centre of the hall, when a 
 sound that startled them, as if it had come from the 
 grave, chained every footstep, — the sound of the king's 
 voice, loud, terribly distinct, and full, as with the vigor 
 of youth restored. All turned their eyes, appalled ; all 
 stood spell-bound. 
 
 There sat the king upright on the bed, his face seen 
 above the kneeling prelates, and his eyes bright and 
 shining down the hall. 
 
 "Yea," he said, deliberately; "yea, as this shall be a 
 real vision or a false illusion, grant me. Almighty One, 
 the power of speech to tell it." 
 
 He paused a moment, and thus resumed : — 
 
 " It was on the banks of the frozen Seine, this day
 
 174 HAEOLD. 
 
 thirty-and-one winters ago, that two holy monks, to whom 
 the gift of prophecy was vouchsafed, told me of direful 
 woes that should fall on England : ' For God,' said they, 
 * after thy death, has delivered England into the hand of 
 the enemy, and fiends shall wander over the land.* Then 
 I asked in my sorrow, 'Can nought avert the doom 1 and 
 may not my people free themselves by repentance, like 
 the jSfinevites of old 1 ' And the Prophets answered, 
 ' Nay, nor shall the calamity cease, and the curse be 
 completed, till a green tree be sundered in twain, and 
 the part cut off be carried away ; yet move, of itself, to 
 the ancient trunk, unite to the stem, bud out with the 
 blossom, and stretch forth its fruit.' So said the monks ; 
 and even now, ere I spoke, I saw them again, there stand- 
 ing mute, and with the paleness of dead men, by the side 
 of my bed ! " 
 
 These words were said so calmly, and as it were so 
 rationally, that their import became doubly awful from 
 the cold precision of the tone. A shudder passed through 
 the assembly, and each man shrank from the king's eye, 
 which seemed to each man to dwell on himself. Sud- 
 denly that eye altered in its cold beam ; suddenly the 
 voice changed its deliberate accent ; the gray hairs seemed 
 to bristle erect, the whole face to work with horror ; the 
 arms stretched forth, the form writhed on the couch, dis- 
 torted fragments from tlni older Testament rushed from 
 the lips : " Sangvelac f Sanguelac / — the Lake of Blood," 
 shrieked forth the dying king ; " the Lord hath bent His 
 bow, — the Lord liath bared His sword. He comes down 
 as a warrior to war, and His wrath is in the steel and the 
 flame. He boweth the mountains, and comes down, and 
 darkness is under His feet ! " 
 
 As if revived but for these tremendous denunciations, 
 while the last word left his lips the frame collapsed,
 
 HAROLD. 175 
 
 the ej'-es set, and the king fell a corpse in the arms of 
 Harold. 
 
 But one smile of the sceptic or the world-man was seen 
 on the paling lips of those present : that smile was not on 
 the lips of warriors and men of mail. It distorted the 
 sharpened features of Stigand, the world-man and the 
 miser, as, passing down and amidst the group, he said, 
 " Tremble ye at the dreams of a sick old man ] "
 
 176 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The time of year customaiy for the National Assembly, 
 the recent consecration of Westminster, for which Edward 
 had convened all his chief spiritual lords, tlie anxiety felt 
 for the infirm state of the king, and the interest as to 
 the impending succession, — all concurred to permit the 
 instantaneous meeting of a Witan worthy, from rank and 
 numbers, to meet the emergency of the time, and proceed 
 to the most momentous election ever yet known in Eng- 
 land. The thegns and prelates met in haste. Harold's 
 marriage with Aldyth, wliich had taken place but a few 
 weeks before, had united all parties with his own ; not a 
 claim counter to the great earl's was advanced, — the 
 choice was unanimous. The necessity of terminating at 
 such a crisis all suspense throughout the kingdom, and 
 extinguishing the danger of all couuter intrigues, forbade 
 to men thus united any delay in solemnizing their deci- 
 sion ; and the august obsequies of Edward were followed 
 on the same day by the coronation of Harold. 
 
 It was in the body of the mighty Abbey Church, not 
 indeed as we see it now, after successive restorations and 
 remodellings, but simple in its long rows of Saxon arch 
 and massive column, blending the first Teuton with the 
 last Roman masonries, that the crowd of the Saxon free- 
 men assembled to honor tire monarch of their choice. 
 First Saxon king, since England had been one monarchy, 
 selected not from the single House of Cerdic ; first Saxon 
 king not led to the throne by the pale siiades of fabled
 
 HAROLD. 177 
 
 ancestors tracing their descent from the Father-god of the 
 Teuton, but by the spirits that never know a grave, the 
 arch-eternal givers of crowns and founders of dynasties, — 
 Valor and Fame. 
 
 Aired and Stigand, the two great prelates of the realm, 
 had conducted Harold to the church,' and up the aisle 
 to the altar, followed by the chiefs of the Witan in their 
 long robes; and the clergy with their abbots and bishops 
 sang the anthems, " Fermetur maims tua" and " Gloria 
 Patrir 
 
 And now the music ceased ; Harold prostrated himself 
 before tlie altar, and the sacred melody burst forth with 
 the great hymn, " Te Deum." 
 
 As it ceased, prelate and thegn raised their chief from 
 the floor, and, in imitation of the old custom of Teuton 
 and Northman, — when the lord of their armaments was 
 borne on shoulder and shield, — Harold mounted a plat- 
 form, and rose in full view of the crowd. 
 
 '•' Thus," said the archprelate, " we choose Harold sou 
 of Godwin for lord and for king." And the thegns drew 
 round, and placed hand on Harold's knee, and cried aloud, 
 " We choose thee, Harold, for lord and for king." And 
 row by row, line by line, all the multitude shouted forth, 
 
 1 It seems by the coronation service of Ethelred II., still extant, 
 that two bishops officiated iu the crowning of the king ; and hence, 
 perhaps, the discrepancy in the chroniclers, some contending that 
 Harold was crowned by Aired, — others, by Stigand. It is notice- 
 able, however, that it is the apologists of the Normans who assign 
 that office to Stigand, who was in disgrace with the Po]ie, and 
 deemed no lawful bisliop. Thus, in the Bayeux tapestry, the 
 label, " Stigand," is significantly affixed to the officiating prelate, 
 as if to convey insinuation that Harold was not lawfully crowned. 
 Florence, by far the best authority, says distinctly, that Harold 
 was crowned by Aired. The ceremonial of the coronation de- 
 scribed in the text is for the most part given on the authority of 
 the "Cotton MS.," quoted by Sharon Turner, vol. iii. p. 151. 
 
 VOL. II. — 12
 
 178 HAROLD. 
 
 " We choose thee, Harold, for lord and king." So 
 there he stood, with his cahu brow, faciug all, Monarch 
 of England, and Basileus of Britain. 
 
 Now, unheeded amidst the throng, and leaning against 
 a column in the arches of the aisle, was a woman with lier 
 veil round her face ; and she lifted the veil for a moment 
 to gaze on that lofty brow, and the tears were streaming 
 fast down her cheek, but her face was not sad. 
 
 " Let the vulgar not see, to pity or scorn thee, daughter 
 of kings as great as he who abandons and forsakes thee ! " 
 murmured a voice in her ear; and the form of Hilda, 
 needing no support from column or wall, rose erect by 
 the side of Edith. Edith bowed her head and lowered 
 the veil, as the king descended tlie platform and stood 
 again by the altar, wliile clear through the hushed assem- 
 bly rang the words of his triple promise to his people : 
 
 " Peace to his Church and the Christian flock. 
 
 *' Interdict of rapacity and injustice. 
 
 "Equity and mercy in his judgments, as God the 
 gracious and just might show mercy to him." 
 
 And deep from the hearts of thousands came the low 
 " Amen." 
 
 Then, after a short prayer, which each prelate repeated, 
 the crowd saw afar the glitter of the crown held over the 
 head of the king. The voice of the consecrator was heard 
 low till it came to the words, " So potently and royally 
 may he rule, against all visible and invisible foes, that the 
 royal throne of the Angles and Saxons may not desert his 
 sceptre." 
 
 As the prayer ceased, came the symbolical rite of anoint- 
 ment. Then pealed the sonorous organ, ^ and solemn 
 along the aisles rose the anthem that closed with the 
 chorus, which the voice of the multitude swelled, " May 
 
 ^ Introduced into our churches in tlie ninth century.
 
 HAROLD. 179 
 
 the king live forever ! " Then the crown that had gleamed 
 in the trembling hand of the prelate, rested firm in its 
 splendor on the front of the king. And the sceptre of 
 rule, and the rod of justice, " to soothe the pious, and 
 terrify the bad," were placed in the royal hands. And 
 the prayer and the blessings were renewed, — till the 
 close ; "Bless, Lord, the courage of this prince, and pros- 
 per the works of his hand. With his horn, as the horn 
 of the rhinoceros, may he blow the waters to the extrem- 
 ities of the earth ; and may He who has ascended to the 
 ekies be his aid forever ! " 
 
 Then Hilda stretched forth her hand to lead Edith from 
 the place. But Edith shook her head, and murmured : 
 
 " But once again, but once ! " and with involuntary 
 step moved on. 
 
 Suddenly, close where she paused, the crowd parted, 
 and down the narrow lane so formed amidst the wedged 
 and breathless crowd came the august procession: — pre- 
 late and thegn swept on from the church to the palace ; 
 and alone, with firm and measured step, the diadem on 
 his brow, the sceptre in his hand, came the king. Edith 
 checked the rushing impulse at her heart, but she bent 
 forward, with veil half drawn aside, and so gazed on that 
 face and form of more than royal majesty, fondly, proudly. 
 The king swept on and saw her not ; love lived no more 
 for him.
 
 180 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The boat shot over the royal Thames. Borne along the 
 waters, the shouts and the hymns of swarming thousands 
 from the land shook, like a blast, the gelid air of the 
 Wolfmonth. All space seemed filled and noisy with the 
 name of Harold the King. Fast rowed the rowers, on shot 
 the boat ; and Hilda's face, stem and ominous, turned to 
 the still towers of the palace, gleaming wide and white 
 in the wintry sun. Suddenly Edith lifted her hand from 
 her bosom, and said passionately, — 
 
 " Oh ! mother of my mother, I cannot live again in the 
 house where the very walls speak to me of him ; all things 
 chain my soul to the earth ; and my soul should be in 
 heaven, that its prayers may be heard by the heedful 
 angels. The day that the holy Lady of England predicted 
 hath come to pass, and tlie silver cord is loosed at last. 
 Ah, why, why did I not believe her then? why did I 
 then reject the cloister ? Yet no, I will not repent ; at 
 least I have been loved ! But now I will go to the 
 nunnery of Waltham, and kneel at the altars he hath 
 hallowed to the mone and the monechyn." 
 
 "Edith," said the Vala, "thou wilt not bury thy life, 
 yet young, in the living grave ! And, despite all that 
 now severs you, — yea, despite Harold's new and loveless 
 ties, — still clearer than ever, it is written in the heavens 
 that a day shall come, in which you are to be evermore 
 united. Many of the shapes I have seen, many of the 
 sounds I have heard, in the trance and the dream, fade in
 
 HAEOLD. 181 
 
 the troubled memory of waking life ! But never yet hath 
 grown doubtful or dim tlie prophecy, that the truth 
 pledged by the grave shall be fulfilled." 
 
 "Oh, tempt not ! Oh, delude not!" cried Edith, while 
 thft blood rushed over her brow. " Tliou knowest this 
 cannot be. Another's ! he is another's ! and in the words 
 thou hast uttered there is deadly sin." 
 
 " There is no sin in the resolves of a fate that rules us 
 in spite of ourselves. Tarry only till the year bring round 
 the birthday of Harold ; for my sayings shall be ripe 
 with the grape, and when the feet of the vine-herd are red 
 in the Month of the Vine,^ the Nomas shall knit ye 
 together again ! " 
 
 Edith clasped her hands mutely, and looked hard into 
 the face of Hilda, — looked and shuddered, she knew not 
 why. 
 
 The boat landed on the eastern shore of the river, 
 beyond the walls of the city, and then Edith bent her 
 way to the holy walls of Waltham. The frost was sharp 
 in the glitter of the unwarining sun ; upon leafless boughs 
 hung the barbed ice-gems ; and the crown was on the 
 brows of Harold ! And at niglit, witliin the walls of the 
 convent, Edith heard the hymns of tlie kneeling monks ; 
 and the blasts howled, and tlie storm arose, and the voices 
 of destroying hurricanes were blent with the swell of the 
 choral hymns. 
 
 1 The Wyn-month: October.
 
 182 KAKOLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TosTiG sat in the halls of Bruges, and with liim sat Judith, 
 his haughty wife. The earl and his countess were playing 
 at chess (or the game resembling it, which amused the 
 idlesso of that age), and the countess had put her lord's 
 game into mortal disorder, when Tostig swept his hand 
 over the board, and the pieces rolled on the floor. 
 
 " That is one way to prevent defeat," said Judith, with 
 a half smile, and half frown. 
 
 " It is the way of the bold and the wise, wife mine," 
 answered Tostig, rising ; " let all be destruction where thou 
 thyself canst win not ! Peace to these trifles ! I cannot 
 keep my mind to the mock fight ; it flies to the real. Our 
 last news sours the taste of the wine, and steals the sleep 
 from my couch. It says that Edward cannot live through 
 the winter, and that all men bruit abroad, there can be no 
 king save Harold my brother." 
 
 " And will thy brother as king give to thee again thy 
 domain as earl 1 " 
 
 "He must ! " answered Tostig, "and, despite all our 
 breaches, with soft message he will. For Harold has the 
 heart of the Saxon, to which the sons of one father are 
 dear ; and Githa, my mother, when we first fled, con- 
 trolled the voice of my revenge, and bade me wait patient 
 and hope yet." 
 
 Scarce had these words fallen from Tostig's lips, when 
 the chief of his Danish house-carles came in, and an- 
 nounced the arrival of a bode from England.
 
 HAKOLD. 183 
 
 V 
 
 " His news 1 his news 1 " cried the earl ; " with his 
 own lips let him speak his news." 
 
 The house-carle withdrew, but to usher in the messenger, 
 an Anglo-Dane. 
 
 " The weight on thy brow shows the load on thy 
 heart," cried Tostig. " Speak, and be brief." 
 
 " Edward is dead." 
 
 " Ha ! and who reigns 1 " 
 
 " Thy brother is chosen and crowned." 
 
 The face of the earl grew red and pale in a breath, and 
 successive emotions of envy and old rivalship, humbled 
 pride and fierce discontent, passed across his turbulent 
 heart ; but these died away as the predominant thought of 
 self-interest, and somewhat of that admiration for success 
 which often seems like magnanimity in grasping minds, 
 and something, too, of haughty exultation, that he stood a 
 king's brother in the halls of his exile, came to chase away 
 the more hostile and menacing feelings. Then Judith 
 approached, with joy on her brow, and said : — 
 
 " We shall no more eat the bread of dependence even 
 at the hand of a father ; and since Harold hath no dame to 
 proclaim to the Church, and to place on the dais, thy wife, 
 O my Tostig, will have state in fair England little less than 
 her sister in Rouen." 
 
 " Methinks so will it be," said Tostig. " How now, 
 nuncius 1 why lookest thou so grim, and why shakest tliou 
 thy head ? " 
 
 " Small chance for thy dame to keep state in the halls of 
 the king ; small hope for thyself to win back thy broad 
 earldom. But a few weeks ere thy brother won the crown, 
 he won also a bride in the house of thy spoiler and foe. 
 Aldyth, the sister of Edwin and Morcar, is Lady of 
 England ; and that union shuts thee out from Northumbria 
 forever."
 
 184 HAROLD. 
 
 At these words, as if stricken by some deadly and 
 inexpressible insult, the earl recoiled, and stood a mo- 
 ment mute with rage and amaze. His singular beauty 
 became distorted into the lineaments of a fiend. He 
 stamped with his foot as he thundered a terrible curse. 
 Then haughtily waving his hand to the bode, in sign 
 of dismissal, he strode to and fro the room in gloomy 
 perturbation. 
 
 Judith, like her sister Matilda, a woman fierce and 
 vindictive, continued, by that sharp venom that lies in 
 the tongue of the sex, to incite still more the intense 
 resentment of her lord. Perhaps some female jealousies 
 of Aldyth might contribute to increase her own indig- 
 nation. But without such frivolous addition to anger, 
 there was cause enow in this marriage thoroughly to 
 complete the alienation between the king and his brother. 
 It was impossible that one so revengeful as Tostig should 
 not cherish the deepest animosity, not only against the 
 people that had rejected, but the new earl that had 
 succeeded him. In wedding the sister of this fortunate 
 rival and despoiler, Harold could not, therefore, but gall 
 him in his most sensitive sores of soul. The king, thus, 
 formally approved and sanctioned his ejection, solemnly 
 took part with liis foe, robbed him of all legal chance of 
 recovering his dominions, and, in the words of the bode, 
 " shut him out from Northumbria forever." Nor was this 
 even all. Grant his return to England, grant a reconcilia- 
 tion with Harold, — still those abhorred and more fortu- 
 nate enemies, necessarily made now the most intimate part 
 of the king's family, must be most in his confidence, 
 would curb and chafe and encounter Tostig in every scheme 
 for liis personal aggrandizement. His foes, in a word* 
 were in the camp of his brother. 
 
 While gnasliing his teeth with a wrath the more deadly
 
 HAROLD. 185 
 
 because he saw not yet his way to retribution, Juditli, 
 pursuing the separate thread of her own cogitations, 
 said, — 
 
 " And if my sister's lord, the count of the Normans, 
 had, as rightly he ought to have, succeeded his cousin the 
 Monk-king, then I should have a sister on the throne, 
 and thou in her husband a brother more tender than 
 Harold, — one who supports his barons with sword and 
 mail, and gives the villeins rebelling against them but the 
 brand and the cord." 
 
 " Ho ! " cried Tostig, stopping suddenly in his dis- 
 ordered strides ; " kiss me, wife, for those words ! They 
 have helped me to power, and lit me to revenge. If thou 
 wouldst send love to thy sister, take graphium and parch- 
 ment, and write fast as a scribe. Ere the sun is an hour 
 older, I am on my road to Count William."
 
 186 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Duke of the Normans was in the forest, or park-land 
 of Rouvray, and his quens and his knights stood around 
 him, expecting some new proof of his strength and his 
 skill with the bow ; for the duke was trying some arrows, 
 a weapon he was ever employed in seeking to improve ; 
 sometimes shortening, sometimes lengthening the shaft, 
 and suiting the wing of the feather, and the weight of the 
 point, to the nicest re6nement iu the law of mechanics. 
 Gay and debonair, in the brisk, fresh air of the frosty 
 •winter, the great count jested and laughed as the squires 
 fastened a live bird by the string to a stake in the distant 
 sward ; and " Pardex" said Duke William, " Conan of 
 Bretagne, and Philip of France, leave us now so unkindly 
 in peace, that I trow we shall never again have larger 
 butt for our arrows than the breast of yon poor plumed 
 trembler." 
 
 As the duke spoke and laughed, all the sere boughs 
 behind him rattled and cranched, and a horse at full 
 speed came rushing over the hard rime of the sward. The 
 duke's smile vanished in the frown of his pride. " Bold 
 rider and graceless," quoth he, " who thus comes in the 
 presence of counts and princes ! " 
 
 Right up to Duke Wilham spurred the rider, and then 
 leaped from his steed : vest and mantle, yet more rich 
 than the duke's, all tattered and soiled. Xo knee bent 
 the rider, no cap did he doff; but, seizing the startled
 
 HAEOLD. 187 
 
 Norman with the gripe of a hand as strong as his own, he 
 led him aside from the courtiers, and said, — 
 
 "Thou knowest me, William 1 though not thus alone 
 should I come to thy court, if I did not bring thee a 
 crown." 
 
 "Welcome, brave Tostig!" said the duke, marvelling. 
 " What meanest thou 1 nought but good, by thy words 
 and thy smile." 
 
 " Eiiward sleeps with the dead ! — and Harold is king 
 of aU England ! " 
 
 " King ! — England ! — King ! " faltered William, stam- 
 mering in his agitation. " Edward dead ! — Saints rest 
 liim ! England then is mine / King ! — /am the king ! 
 Harold hath sworn it : my quens and prelates heard him ! 
 the bones of the saints attest the oath ! " 
 
 "Somewhat of this have I vaguely learned from our 
 beau pere Count Baldwin; more will I learn at thy 
 leisure; but take, meanwhile, my word as miles and 
 Saxon, — never, while there is breath on his lips or one 
 beat in his heart, will my brother, Lord Harold, give an 
 inch of English land to the Norman." 
 
 William turned pale and faint with emotion, and leaned 
 for support against a leafless oak. 
 
 Busy were the rumors and anxious the watch of the 
 quens and knights, as their prince stood long in the dis- 
 tant glade, conferring with the rider, Avhom one or two 
 of them had recognized as Tostig, the spouse of Matilda's 
 sister. 
 
 At length, side by side, still talking earnestly, they 
 regained the group ; and William, summoning the Lord 
 of Tancarville, bade him conduct Tostig to Rouen, the 
 towers of which rose through the forest trees. " Rest and 
 refresh thee, noble kinsman," said the duke; "see and 
 talk with Matilda. I will join thee anon."
 
 188 HAROLD. 
 
 The earl remounted his steed, and, saluting the company 
 with a wild and hasty grace, soon vanished amidst the 
 
 groves, 
 
 Then William, seating himself on the sward, mechan- 
 ically unstrung his how, sighing oft, and oft frowning ; 
 and, without vouchsafing other word to his lords than, 
 " No further sport to-day ! " rose slowly, and went alone 
 through the thickest parts of the forest. But his faithful 
 Fitzoshorne marked his gloom, and fondly followed him. 
 The duke arrived at the borders of the Seine, where his 
 galley waited him. He entered, sat down on the bench, 
 and took no notice of Fitzoshorne, who quietly stepped 
 in after his lord, and placed himself on anotlier bench. 
 
 The little voyage to Rouen was perff)rmed in silence ; 
 and as soon as he had gained his palace, without seeking 
 either Tostig or Matilda, the duke turned into the vast 
 hall, in which he was wont to hold council with his 
 barons ; and walked to and fro, " often," say the chron- 
 icles, " changing posture and attitude, and oft loosening 
 and tightening, and drawing into knots, the strings of 
 his mantle." 
 
 Fitzoshorne, meanwhile, had sought the ex-earl, who 
 was closeted with Matilda ; and now returning, he went 
 bolilly up to the duke, whom no one else dared approach, 
 and said, — 
 
 " Why, my liege, seek to conceal what is already known, 
 — what ere the eve will be in the mouths of all 1 You 
 are troubled that Edward is dead, and that Harold, 
 violating his oath, has seized the English realm." 
 
 " Truly," said the duke, mildly, and with the tone of 
 a meek man much injured, " my dear cousin's death, 
 and the wrongs I have received from Harold, touch me 
 nearly." 
 
 Then said Fitzoshorne, with that philosophy, half grave
 
 HAKOLD. 189 
 
 as became the Scandinavian, half gay as became the 
 Frank : " No man should grieve for what he can help, — 
 still less for what he cannot help. For Edward's death, 
 I trow, remedy there is none ; but for Harold's treason, 
 yea ! Have you not a noble host of knights and war- 
 riors ] What want you to destroy the Saxon and seize his 
 realm 1 What but a bold heart 1 A great deed once well 
 begun is half done. Begin, count of the Normans, and 
 we will complete the rest." 
 
 Starting from his sorely tasked dissimulation, — for all 
 William needed, and all of wliich he doubted, was the 
 aid of his haughty barons, — the duke raised his head, 
 and his eyes shone out. " Ha, sayest thou so ! then, by 
 the splendor of God, we will do this deed. Haste thou, 
 rouse hearts, nerve hands, — promise, menace, win ! 
 Broad are the lands of England, and generous a con- 
 queror's hand. Go and prepare all my faithful lords for 
 a council, nobler than ever yet stirred the hearts and 
 strung the hands of the sons of Eou."
 
 190 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Brief was the sojourn of Tostig at the court of Rouen ; 
 speedily made, the contract between the grasping duke 
 and the revengeful traitor. All that had been promised 
 to Harold was now pledged to Tostig, — if the last would 
 assist the Norman to the English throne. 
 
 At heart, however, Tostig was ill satisfied. His chance 
 conversations with the principal barons, who seemed to 
 look upon the conquest of England as the dream of a 
 madman, showed him how doubtful it was that William 
 could induce his quens to a service, to which the tenure 
 of their fiefs did not appear to compel them ; and at all 
 events, Tostig prognosticated delays that little suited his 
 fiery impatience. He accepted the offer of some two or 
 three ships which William put at his disposal, under pre- 
 tence to reconnoitre the Northumbrian coasts, and there 
 attempt a rising in his own favor. But his discontent 
 was increased by the smallness of the aid afforded him ; 
 for William, ever suspicious, distrusted both his faith 
 and his power. Tostig, with all his vices, was a poor 
 dissimulator, and his sullen spirit betrayed itself when 
 he took leave of his host. 
 
 " Chance what may," said the fierce Saxon, "no stran- 
 ger shall seize the English crown without my aid. I offer 
 it first to thee ; but thou must come to take it in time, 
 or—" 
 
 *' Or what 1 " asked the duke, gnawing his lip.
 
 HAROLD. 191 
 
 " Or the Father race of Rou will be before thee ! My 
 horse paws without. Farewell to thee, Norman ; sharpen 
 thy swords, hew out thy vessels, and goad thy slow 
 barons." 
 
 Scarce had Tostig departed, ere William began to repent 
 that he had so let him depart ; but seeking counsel of 
 Lanfranc, that wise minister reassured him. 
 
 " Fear no rival, son and lord," said he. " The bones 
 of the dead are on thy side, and little thou knowest, as 
 yet, how mighty their fleshless arms ! All Tostig can do 
 is to distract the forces of Harold. Leave him to work 
 out his worst ; nor then be in haste. ]\Iuch hath yet to be 
 done, — cloud must gather and fire must form, ere the 
 bolt can be launched. Send to Harold mildly, and gently 
 remind him of oath and of relics, — of treaty and pledge. 
 Put right on thy side, and then — " 
 
 " Ah, what then 1 " 
 
 " Rome shall curse the foresworn, — Rome shall hallow 
 thy banner ; this be no strife of force against force, but a 
 war of religion ; and thou shalt have on thy side the con- 
 science of man, and the arm of the Church." 
 
 Meanwhile, Tostig embarked at Harfleur ; but instead 
 of sailing to the nothern coasts of England, he made for 
 one of the Flemish ports : and there, under various pre- 
 tences, new manned the Norman vessels with Flemings, 
 Fins, and Northmen. His meditations during his voyage 
 had decided him not to trust to William ; and he now 
 bent his course, with fair wind and favoring weather 
 to the shores of his maternal uncle. King Sweyn of 
 Denmark. 
 
 In truth, to all probable calculation, his change of pur- 
 pose was politic. The fleets of England were numerous, 
 and her seamen renowned. The Normans had neither 
 experience nor fame in naval fights ; their navy itself was
 
 192 HAROLD. 
 
 scarcely formed. Thus, even William's landing in England 
 was an enterprise arduous and dubious. Moreover, even 
 granting the amplest success, would not this Norman 
 prince, so profound and ambitious, be a more troublesome 
 lord to Earl Tostig than his own uncle Swe^'n 1 
 
 So, forgetful of the compact at Rouen, no sooner had 
 the Saxon lord come in presence of the king of the Danes, 
 than he urged on his kinsman the glory of winning again 
 the sceptre of Canute. 
 
 A brave but a cautious and wily veteran was King 
 Sweyn ; and a few days before Tostig arrived, he had 
 received letters from his sister Githa, who, true to God- 
 win's command, had held all that Harold did and coun- 
 selled, as between himself and his brother, wise and just. 
 
 These letters had placed the Dane on his guard, and 
 shown him the true state of affairs in England. So Kinii 
 Sweyn, smiling, thus answered his nephew Tostig : — 
 
 " A great man was Canute, a small man am I : scarce 
 can I keep my Danish dominion from the gripe of the 
 Norwegian, while Canute took Norway without slash 
 and blow ; ^ but, great as he was, England cost him hard 
 fighting to win, and sore peril to keep. Wherefore, best 
 for the small man to rule by the light of his own little 
 sense, nor venture to count on the luck of great Canute ; 
 — for luck but goes with the great." 
 
 "■ Thine answer," said Tostig, with a bitter sneer, " is 
 not what I expected from an uncle and warrior. But other 
 chiefs may be found less afraid of the luck of high deeds." 
 
 " So," saith the Norwegian chronicler, "not just the 
 best friends, the earl left the king," and went on in haste 
 to Harold Hardrada of Norway. 
 
 True Hero of the North, true Darling of War and of 
 Song, was Harold Hardrada ! At the terrible battle of 
 1 Snorro Sturleson. Laing.
 
 HAROLD. 193 
 
 Stiklestad, at which his brother, St. Olave, had fallen, 
 he was but fifteen years of age, but his body was covered 
 with the wounds of a veteran. Escaping from the field, he 
 lay concealed in the house of a Bonder peasant, remote in 
 deep forests, till his wounds were healed. Thence, chanting 
 by the way (for a poet's soul burned right in Hardrada), 
 " that a day would come when his name would be great in 
 the land he now left," he went on into Sweden, thence into 
 Russia, and, after wild adventures in the East, joined with 
 the bold troop he had collected around him, that famous 
 body-guard of the Greek emperors, ^ called the Vsering- 
 ers, and of these he became the chief. Jealousies be- 
 tween himself and the Greek general of the Imperial forces 
 (whom the Norwegian chronicler calls Gyrger), ended in 
 Harold's retirement with his Vseringers into the Saracen 
 land of Africa. Eighty castles stormed and taken, vast 
 plunder in gold and in jewels, and nobler meed in the song 
 of the Scald and the praise of the brave, attested the prowess 
 of the great Scandinavian. New laurels, blood-stained; 
 new treasures, sword-won, awaited him in Sicily ; and 
 thence, rough foretype of the coming Crusader, he passed 
 on to Jerusalem. His sword swept before him Moslem 
 and robber. He batlied in Jordan, and knelt at the 
 Holy Cross. 
 
 Returned to Constantinople, the desire for his nothern 
 home seized Hardrada. There he heard that his nephew 
 
 1 The Vajriugers, or Varangi, mostly Nortlimen ; this redoubt- 
 able force, the Janissaries of the Byzantine empire, afforded 
 brilliant field, both of fortune and war, to the discontented spirits 
 or outlawed heroes of the north. It was joined afterwards by 
 many of the bravest and best born of the Saxon noliles, refusing 
 to dwell under the yoke of the Norman. Scott, in " Count Robert 
 of Paris," which, if not one of his best romances, is yet full of 
 truth and beauty, has described this renowned band with much 
 poetical vigor and historical fidelity. 
 
 VOL. II. — 13
 
 194 HAROLD. 
 
 Magnus, the illegitimate son of St. Olave, had become 
 king of jSTorway, — and he himself asjiired to a throne. 
 So he gave up his command under Zoe the empress ; but, 
 if Scald be believed, Zoe the empress loved the bold chief, 
 whose heart was set on Maria her niece. To detain Har- 
 drada, a charge of malappropriation, whether of pay or of 
 booty, was brought against him. He was cast into prison. 
 But when the brave are in danger, the saints send the fair 
 to their help ! Moved by a holy dream, a Greek lady 
 lowered ropes from the roof of the tower to the dungeon 
 wherein Hardrada was cast. He escaped from the prison, 
 he aroused his Veeringers, they flocked round their chief ; 
 he went to the house of his lady Maria, bore her off to 
 the galley, put out into the Black Sea, reached iS'ovgorod 
 (at the friendly court of whose king he had safely lodged 
 his vast spoils), sailed home to the north ; and, after such 
 feats as became sea-king of old, received half of Norway 
 from Magnus ; and, on the death of his nephew, the 
 whole of that kingdom passed to his sway. A king so 
 wise and so wealthy, so bold and so dread, had never yet 
 been known in the north. And this was the king to 
 whom came Tostig the Earl with the offer of England's 
 crown. 
 
 It was one of the glorious nights of the north, and 
 winter had already begun to melt into early spring, when 
 two men sat under a kind of rustic porch of rough pine- 
 logs, not very unlike those seen now in Switzerland and 
 the Tyrol. This porch was constructed before a private 
 door, to the rear of a long, low, irregular building of 
 wood, which enclosed two or more courtyards, and cover- 
 ing an immense space of ground. This private door 
 seemed placed for the purpose of immediate descent to 
 the sea ; for the ledge of the rock, over which the log- 
 porch spread its rude roof, jutted over the ocean ; and
 
 HAROLD. 195 
 
 from it a rugged stair, cut through the crag, descended 
 to the beach. The shore, with bold, strange, grotesque 
 shib, and peak, and splinter, curved into a large creek ; 
 and close under the cliff were moored seven war-ships, 
 high and tall, with prows and sterns all gorgeous with 
 gilding in the light of the splendid moon. And that 
 rude timber house, which seemed but a chain of barbarian 
 huts linked into one, was a land palace of Hardrada of 
 Norway ; but the true halls of his royalty, the true seats 
 of his empire, were the decks of those lofty war-ships. 
 
 Through the small lattice-work of the windows of the 
 log-house, lights blazed ; from the roof-top smoke curled ; 
 from the hall on the other side of the dwelling came the 
 din of tumultous wassail, but the intense stillness of the 
 outer air, hushed in frost, and luminous with stars, con- 
 trasted and seemed to rebuke the gross sounds of human 
 revel. And that northern night seemed almost as bright 
 as (but how mucli more augustly calm, than) the noon of 
 the golden south ! 
 
 On a table, within the ample porch, was an immense 
 bowl, of Ijirch-wood mounted in silver, and filled with 
 potent drink ; and two huge horns, of size suiting the 
 mighty wassailers of the age. The two men seemed to 
 care nought for the stern air of the cold night, — true 
 that they were wrapped in furs, reft from the polar bear. 
 But each had hot thoughts within, that gave greater 
 warmth to the veins than the bowl or the bear-skin. 
 
 They were host and guest ; and, as if with the restless- 
 ness of his thoughts, the host rose from his seat, and 
 passed through the porch and stood on the bleak rock 
 under the light of the moon ; and, so seen, he seemed 
 scarcel}' human, but some war-chief of the farthest time, 
 — yea, of a time ere the deluge had shivered those rocks, 
 and left beds on the laud for the realm of that icy sea.
 
 196 HAROLD. 
 
 For Harold HarJrada was, in height, above all the chil- 
 dren of modern men. Five ells of IS^orvvay made the 
 height of Harold Hardrada.^ Nov was this stature accom- 
 panied by any of those imperfections in symmetry, nor by 
 that heaviness of aspect, which generally render any 
 remarkable excess above human stature and strength, 
 rather monstrous than commanding. On the contrary, 
 his proportions were just, his appearance noble; and the 
 sole defect that the chronicler remarks in his shape, was 
 " that his hands and feet were large, but these were well 
 made."^ 
 
 His face had all the fair beauty of the Norseman ; his 
 hair, parted in locks of gold over a brow that bespoke the 
 daring of the warrior and the genius of the bard, fell in 
 glittering profusion to his shoulders ; a short beard and 
 long mustache of the same color as the hair, carefully 
 trimmed, added to the grand and masculine beauty of the 
 countenance, in which the only blemish was the pecu- 
 liarity of one eyebrow being somewhat higher than the 
 other,3 which gave something more sinister to his frown, 
 something more arch to his smile. For, quick of impulse, 
 the Poet-Titan smiled and frowned often. 
 
 Harold Hardrada stood in the light of the moon, and 
 gazing thoughtfully on the luminous sea. Tostig marked 
 
 1 Laing's Snorro Sturleson. " The old Norwegian ell was 
 less than the present ell ; and Thorlasius reckons, in a note ou 
 this chapter, tliat Harold's stature would be ahout four Danish 
 ells, — namely, about eight feet." Laing's note to the text. Allow- 
 ing for the exaggeration of the chronicler, it seems probable, at 
 least, that Hardrada exceeded seven feet ; since (as Laiug remarks 
 in the same note, and as we shall see hereafter) " our English 
 Harold offered him, according to both English and Danisli autlior- 
 ity, seven feet of land for a grave, or aft much more as his stature 
 exceeding that of other men might require." 
 
 ^ Snorro Sturleson. 
 
 ^ Snorro Sturleson.
 
 HAROLD. 197 
 
 him for some moments where he sat in the porch, and 
 then rose and joined him. 
 
 " Why should my words so disturb thee, king of the 
 Norseman ? " 
 
 "Is glory, then, a drug that soothes to sleej) ? " re- 
 turned the Norwegian. 
 
 " I like thine answer," said Tostig, smiling, " and I 
 like still more to watch thine eye gazing on the prows of 
 thy war-ships. Strange indeed it were, if thou, who 
 hast been fighting fifteen years for the petty kingdom of 
 Denmark, should hesitate now, when all England lies 
 before thee to seize." 
 
 " I hesitate," replied the king, " because he whom for- 
 tune has befriended so long, should beware how he strain 
 her favors too far. Eighteen pitched battles fought I in 
 the Saracen land, and in every one was a victor, — never, 
 at home or abroad, have I known shame and defeat. 
 Doth the wind always blow from one point? — and is 
 fate less unstable than the wind?" 
 
 "Now out on thee, Harold Hardvada," said Tostig the 
 fierce ; " the good pilot wins his way through all winds, 
 and the brave heart fastens fate to its flag. All men 
 allow that the North never had warrior like thee ; and 
 now, in the mid-day of manhood, wilt thou consent to 
 repose on the mere triumph of youth ?" 
 
 " Nay," said the king, who, like all true poets, had 
 something of the deep sense of a sage, and was indeed 
 regarded as the most prudent as well as the most adven- 
 turous chief in the North land, — " nay, it is not by such 
 words, which my soul seconds too well, that thou canst 
 entrap a ruler of men. Thou must sliow me the chances 
 of success, as thou w^ouldst to a gray-beard. For we 
 should be as old men before we engage, and as youths 
 when we wish to perform."
 
 198 HAROLD. 
 
 Then the traitor succinctly detailed all the weak points 
 in the rule of his brother. A treasury exhausted by the 
 lavish and profitless waste of Edward ; a land without 
 castle or bulwark, even at the mouths of the rivers ; a 
 people grown inert by long peace, and so accustomed to 
 own lord and king in the northern invaders, that a single 
 successful battle might induce half the population to 
 insist on the Saxon coming to terms with the foe ; and 
 yielding, as Ironside did to Canute, one half of the realm. 
 He enlarged on the terror of the j^orsemen that still 
 existed throughout England, and the afhuity between the 
 Northumbrians and East Anglians with the race of Har- 
 drada. That affinity would not prevent them from 
 resisting at the first ; but grant success, and it would 
 reconcile them to the after-sway. And, finally, he 
 aroused Hardrada's emulation by the spur of the news, 
 that the count of the Normans would seize the prize if he 
 himself delayed to forestall him. 
 
 These various representations, and the remembrance of 
 Canute's victory, decided Hardrada ; and, when Tostig 
 ceased, he stretched his hand towards his slumbering war- 
 ships, and exclaimed, — 
 
 " Eno' ; you have whetted the beaks of the ravens, and 
 harnessed the steeds of the sea ! "
 
 HAROLD. 199 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 Meanwhile King Harold of England had made himself 
 dear to his people, and been true to the fame he had won 
 as Harold the Earl. From the moment of his accession 
 "he showed himself pious, humble, and affable,^ and 
 omitted no occasions to show any token of bounteous 
 liberality, gentleness, and courteous behavior." — "The 
 grievous customs also, and taxes which his predecessors 
 had raised, he either abolished or diminished ; the ordi- 
 nary wages of his servants and men of war he increased, 
 and further showed himself very well bent to all virtue 
 and goodness." ^ 
 
 Extracting the pith from these eulogies, it is clear that, 
 as wise statesman no less than as good king, Harold 
 sought to strengthen himself in the three great elements 
 of regal power : conciliation of the Church, which had 
 been opposed to his father; the popular affection, on 
 which his sole claim to the crown reposed ; and the mili- 
 tary force of the land, which had been neglected in the 
 reign of his peaceful predecessor. 
 
 To the young Atheling he accorded a respect not 
 before paid to him ; and while investing the descendant 
 of the ancient line with princely state, and endowing him 
 with large domains, his soul, too great for jealousy, sought 
 to give more substantial power to his own most legitimate 
 
 1 Hoveden. 
 
 2 Holinshed. Nearly all chroniclers (even, with scarce an ex- 
 ception, those most favoring the Normans) concifr in the abilities 
 and merits of Harold as a kiug.
 
 200 HAROLD, 
 
 rival, by tender care and noble counsels, — by efforts to 
 raise a character feeble by nature, and denationalized by 
 foreign rearing. In the same broad and generous policy, 
 Harold encouraged all the merchants from other countries 
 who had settled in England, nor were even such Normans 
 as had escaped the general sentence of banishment on 
 Godwin's return, disturbed in their possessions. " In 
 brief," saith the Anglo-Norman chronicler,-^ " no man was 
 more prudent in the land, more valiant in arms, in the 
 law more sagacious, in all probity more accomplished ; " 
 and " ever active," says more mournfully the Saxon 
 writer, " for tbe good of his country, he spared himself 
 no fatigue by land or by sea." ^ 
 
 From this time Harold's private life ceased. Love and 
 its charms were no more. The glow of romance had 
 vanished. He was not one man ; he was the state, the 
 representative, the incarnation of Saxon England : his 
 sway and the Saxon freedom, to live or fall together ! 
 
 The soul really grand is only tested in its errors. As 
 we know the true might of the intellect by the rich 
 resources and patient strength wath wliich it redeems a 
 failure, so do we prove the elevation of the soul by its 
 courasfeous return into light, its instinctive rebound into 
 higher air, after some error that has darkened its vision 
 and soiled its plumes. A spirit less noble and pure than 
 Harold's, once entering on the dismal world of enchanted 
 superstition, had habituated itself to that nether atmos- 
 phere ; once misled from hardy truth and healthful rea- 
 son, it had plunged deeper and deeper into the maze. But, 
 unlike his contemporary Macbeth, the Man escaped from 
 the lures of the Fiend. Not as Hecate in hell, but as 
 Dian in heaven, did he confront the pale Goddess of 
 Night. Before that hour in which he had deserted the 
 1 " Vit. Harold. Chron. Ang. Norm." ii. 243. 2 Hoveden.
 
 HAROLD. 201 
 
 human judgment for the ghostly flehision ; before that 
 day in which the brave heart, in its sudden desertion, 
 liad humbled his pride, — the man, in his nature, was 
 more strong than the god. Now, purified by the flame 
 that had scorched, and more nerved from the fall that 
 had stunned, that great soul rose sublime through the 
 wrecks of the Past, serene through the clouds of the 
 Future, concentrating in its solitude the destinies of Man- 
 kind, and strong with instinctive Eternity amidst all the 
 terrors of Time. 
 
 King Harold came from York, whither he had gone 
 to cement the new power of Morcar in Northumbria, and 
 personally to confirm the allegiance of the Anglo-Danes .- 
 — King Harold came from York, and in the halls of 
 Westminster he found a monk who awaited him with the 
 messages of William the Korman. 
 
 Barefooted and serge-garbed, the Norman envoy strode 
 to the Saxon's chair of state. His form was worn with 
 mortification and fast, and his face was hueless and livid, 
 with the perpetual struggle between zeal and the flesh. 
 
 " Thus saith AYilliam, Count of the Normans," began 
 Hugues Maigrot the monk. 
 
 " With grief and amaze hath he heard that you, O 
 Harold, his sworn liegeman, have, contrary to oath and to 
 fealty, assumed the crown that belongs to himself. But, 
 confiding in thy conscience, and forgiving a moment's 
 Aveakness, he summons thee, mildly and brother-like, to 
 fulfil thy vow. Send thy sister, that he may give her in 
 marriage to one of his quens. Give him up the strong- 
 hold of Dover ; march to thy coast with thine armies to 
 aid him, — thy liege lord, — and secure him the heritage 
 of Edward his cousin. And thou shalt reign at his right 
 hand, his daughter thy bride, Northumbria thy fief, and 
 the saints thy protectors."
 
 202 HAROLD. 
 
 The king's lip was firm, though pale, as he answered : 
 
 " My young sister, alas ! is no more : seven nights 
 after I ascended the throne, she died : her dust in the 
 grave is all I could send to the arms of the bridegroom. 
 I cannot wed the child of thy count : the wife of Harold 
 sits beside him." And he pointed to the proud beauty 
 of Aldyth, enthroned under the drapery of gold. " For 
 the vow that I took, I deny it not. But from a vow of 
 compulsion, menaced with unworthy captivity, extorted 
 from my lips by the very need of the land whose freedom 
 had been bound in my chains, — from a vow so com- 
 pelled, Church and conscience absolve me. If the vow of 
 a maiden on whom to bestow but her hand, when un- 
 known to her parents, is judged invalid by the Church, how 
 much more invalid the oath that would bestow on a 
 stranger the fates of a nation,^ against its knowledge, and 
 unconsulting its laws ! This royalty of England hath 
 ever rested on the will of the people, declared through its 
 chiefs in their solemn assembly. They alone who could 
 bestow it, have bestowed it on me : — I have no power 
 to resign it to another, — and were I in my grave, the 
 trust of the crown woulil not pass to the Norman, but 
 return to the Saxon people." 
 
 "Is this, then, thy answer, unhappy son? "said the 
 monk, with a sullen and gloomy aspect. 
 
 " Such is my answer." 
 
 "Then, sorrowing for thee, I utter the words of 
 William. ' With sword and with mail will he come to 
 punish the perjurer ; and by the aid of St. Michael, 
 archangel of war, he will conquer his own.' Amen ! " 
 
 " By sea and by land, with sword and with mail, will 
 we meet the invader," answered the king, with a flashing 
 eye. " Thou hast said : — so depart." 
 
 1 Malmesbury.
 
 HAROLD. 203 
 
 The monk turned and withdrew. 
 
 " Let the priest's insolence chafe thee not, sweet lord," 
 said Aldyth. " For the vow which thou mightest take 
 as subject, what matters it now thou art king ? " 
 
 Harold made no answer to Aldyth, but turned to his 
 chamberlain, who stood behind his throne-chair. 
 
 " Are my brothers without ? " 
 
 " They are : and my lord the king's chosen council." 
 
 " Admit them : pardon, Aldyth ; affairs fit only for 
 men claim me now." 
 
 The Lady of England took the hint and rose. 
 
 " But the even-mete will summon thee soon," said 
 she. 
 
 Harold, who had already descended from his chair of 
 state, and was bending over a casket of papers on the 
 table, replied, — 
 
 " There is food here till the morrow ; wait me not." 
 
 Aldyth sighed, and withdrew at the one door, while 
 the thegns most in Harold's confidence entered at the 
 other. But, once surrounded by her maidens, Aldyth 
 forgot all, save that she was again a queen, — forgot all, 
 even to the earlier and less gorgeous diadem which her 
 lord's hand had shattered on tl>e brows of the son of 
 Pendragon. 
 
 Leofwine, still gay and blithe-hearted, entered first; 
 Gurth followed, then Haco, then some half-score of the 
 greater thegns. 
 
 They seated themselves at the table, and Gurth spoke 
 first, — 
 
 " Tostig has been with Count William." 
 
 " I know it," said Harold. 
 
 "It is rumored that he has passed to our uncle 
 Sweyn." 
 
 "I foresaw it," said the king.
 
 204 HAROLD. 
 
 " And that Sweyn will aid him to reconquer England 
 for the Dane." 
 
 " My bode reached Sweyn, with letters from Githa, 
 before Tostig ; my bode has returned this day. Sweyn 
 has dismissed Tostig : Sweyn will send fifty ships, armed 
 with picked men, to the aid of England." 
 
 " Brother," cried Leofwine, admiringly, " thou provid- 
 est against danger ere we but surmise it." 
 
 " Tostig," continued the king, unheeding the compli- 
 ment, " will be the first assailant ; him we must meet. 
 His fast friend is Malcolm of Scotland ; him we must 
 secure. Go thou, Leofwine, with these letters to Mal- 
 colm. — The next fear is from the Welsh. Go thou, 
 Edwin of Mercia, to the princes of Wales. On thy way, 
 strengthen the forts and deepen the dykes of the Marches. 
 These tablets hold thy instructions. The Norman, as 
 doubtless ye know, my thegns, hath sent to demand our 
 crown, and hath announced the coming of his war. With 
 the dawn I depart to our port at Sandwich,^ to muster 
 our fleets. Thou with me, Gurth." 
 
 " These preparations need much treasure," said an old 
 thegn, "and thou hast lessened the taxes at the hour of 
 need." 
 
 " Not yet is it the hour of need. When it comes, our 
 people will the more readily meet it with their gold as 
 with their iron. There was great wealth in the house of 
 Godwin ; that wealth mans the ships of England. What 
 hast thou there, Haco V 
 
 " Thy new-issued coin : it hath on its reverse the word 
 ' Peace.' " ^ 
 
 Who ever saw one of those coins of the Last Saxon 
 
 1 Supposed to be bur first port for shipbuilding. — Fosbrooke, 
 p. 320. 
 
 2 Pax.
 
 HAROLD. 205 
 
 King, the bold, simple head on the one side, that single 
 word " Peace " on the other, and did not feel awed and 
 touched ? What pathos in that word, compared with the 
 fate which it failed to propitiate ! 
 
 " Peace," said Harold : " to all that doth not render 
 peace, slavery. Yea, may I live to leave peace to our 
 children ! Now, peace only rests on our preparation for 
 war. You, Morcar, will return with all speed to York, 
 and look well to the mouth of the Humber." 
 
 Then, turning to each of the thegns successively, he 
 gave to each his post and his duty ; and that done, con- 
 verse grew more general. The many things needful that 
 had been long rotting in neglect under the Monk-king, 
 and now sprung up, craving instant reform, occupied them 
 long and anxiously. But cheered and inspirited by the 
 vigor and foresight of Harold, whose earlier slowness of 
 character seemed winged by the occasion into rapid deci- 
 sion (as is not uncommon with the Englishman), all 
 difficulties seemed light, and hope and courage were in 
 every breast.
 
 206 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Back went Hugues Maigrot, the monk, to William, and 
 told the reply of Harold to the duke, in the presence of 
 Lanfranc. William himself heard it in gloomy silence, 
 for Fitzosborne as yet had been wholly unsuccessful in 
 stirring up the Norman barons to an expedition so haz- 
 ardous, in a cause so doubtful ; and though prepared for 
 the defiance of Harold, the duke was not prepared with 
 the means to enforce his threats and make good his claim. 
 
 So great was his abstraction, that he suffered the Lom- 
 bard to dismiss the monk without a word spoken by him ; 
 and he was first startled from his reverie by Lanfranc's 
 pale hand on his vast shoulder, and Lanfranc's low voice 
 in his dreamy ear, — 
 
 " Up ! hero of Europe ; for thy cause is won ! Up ! 
 and write with thy bold characters — bold as if graved 
 with the point of the sword — my credentials to Rome. 
 Let me depart ere the sun sets : and as I go, look on the 
 sinking orb, and behold the sun of the Saxon that sets 
 evermore on England ! " 
 
 Then, briefly, that ablest statesman of the age (and 
 forgive him, despite our modern lights, we must ; for 
 sincere son of the Church, he regarded the violated oath 
 of Harold as entailing the legitimate forfeiture of his 
 realm, and, ignorant of true political freedom, looked upon 
 Church and learning as the only civilizers of men), then, 
 briefly, Lanfranc detailed to the listening Xorman the 
 outline of the arguments by which he intended to move
 
 HAROLD. 207 
 
 the Pontifical court to the Norman side ; and enlarged 
 upon the vast accession throughout all Eurojoe which the 
 solemn sanction of the Church would bring to his strength. 
 William's re-awaking and ready intellect soon seized upon 
 the importance of the object pressed upon him. He in- 
 terrupted the Lombard, drew pen and parchment towards 
 him, and wrote rapidl}'. Horses were harnessed, horse- 
 men equipped in haste, and with no unfitting retinue 
 Lanfranc departed on the mission, the most important in 
 its consequences that ever passed from potentate to pon- 
 tiff.^ Eebraced to its purpose by Lanfranc's cheering 
 assurances, the resolute, indomitable soul of William now 
 applied itself, night and day, to the difficult task of 
 rousing his haughty vavasours. Yet weeks passed before 
 he could even meet a select council composed of his own 
 kinsmen and most trusted lords. These, however, pri- 
 vately won over, promised to serve him " with body and 
 goods." But one and all they told him, he must gain the 
 consent of the whole principality in a general council. 
 That council was convened : thither came not only lords 
 and knights, but merchants and traders, — all the rising 
 middle class of a thriving state. 
 
 The duke bared his wrongs, his claims, and his 
 schemes. The assembly would not or did not discuss 
 the matter in his presence, — they would not be aAved 
 by its influence ; and AVilliam retired from the hall. 
 Various were the opinions, stormy the debate ; and so 
 great the disorder grew, that Fitzosborne, rising in the 
 midst, exclaimed, — 
 
 "Why this dispute? — why this unduteous discord? 
 
 1 Some of the Norman chroniclers state that Robert, Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, who had been expelled from England at Godwin's 
 return, was Lanfranc's companion in this mission ; but more trust- 
 worthy authorities assure us that Robert had been dead some 
 years before, not long surviving liis return into Normandy.
 
 208 HAROLD. 
 
 Is not "VYilliam your lord 1 Hath he not need of you 1 
 
 Fail him now, — and you know him well, — by G he 
 
 Avill remember it! Aid him, — and you know him well, 
 — larLje are his rewards to service and love ! " 
 
 Up rose at once baron and merchant ; and when 
 at last their spokesman was chosen, that spokesman 
 said, — 
 
 " William is our lord ; is it not enough to pay to our lord 
 his dues? No aid do we owe beyond the seas! Sore 
 harassed and taxed are we already by his wars ! Let him 
 fail in this strange and unparalleled hazard, and our 
 land is undone ! " 
 
 Loud applause followed this speech ; the majority of 
 the council were against the duke. 
 
 " Then," said Fitzosborne, craftily, " I, who know the 
 means of each man present, will, with your leave, repre- 
 sent your necessities to your count, and make such modest 
 offer of assistance as may please ye, yet not chafe your 
 liege." 
 
 Into the trap of this proposal the opponents fell ; 
 and Fitzosborne, at the head of the body returned to 
 William. 
 
 Tlie Lord of Breteul approached the dais, on which 
 William sat alone, his great sword in his hand, and thus 
 spoke, — 
 
 " My liege, I may well say that never prince had peo- 
 ple more leal than yours, nor that have more proved their 
 faith and love by the burdens they have borne and the 
 moneys they liave granted." 
 
 An universal murmur of applause followed these 
 words. "Good! good!" almost shouted the merchants 
 especially. William's brows met, and he looked very 
 terrible. The Lord of Breteul gracefully waved his hand, 
 and resumed, —
 
 HAROLD. 209 
 
 " Yea, my liege, much have they borne for your glory 
 and need ; much more will they bear," 
 
 The faces of the audience fell. 
 
 "Their service does not compel them to aid you 
 beyond the seas." 
 
 The faces of the audience brightened. 
 
 " But now they will aid you, in the land of the Saxon 
 as in that of the Frank." 
 
 " How 1 " cried a stray voice or two. 
 
 " Hush, gentilz amys. Forward then, my liege, and 
 spare them in nought. He who has hitherto supplied you 
 with two good mounted soldiers, will now grant you four ; 
 and he who — " 
 
 " No, no, no ! " roared two-thirds of the assembly ; 
 " we charged you with no such answer ; we said not that, 
 nor that shall it be ! " 
 
 Out stepped a baron. 
 
 " Within this country, to defend it, we will serve our 
 count ; but to aid him to conquer another man's country, 
 no." 
 
 Out stepped a knight. 
 
 " If once we rendered this double service, beyond seas 
 as at home, it would be held a right and a custom here- 
 after ; and we should be as mercenary soldiers, not free- 
 born Normans." 
 
 Out stepped a merchant. 
 
 " And we and our cliildren would be burdened forever 
 to feed one man's ambition, whenever he saw a king to 
 dethrone, or a realm to seize." 
 
 And then cried a general chorus, — 
 
 " It shall not be, — it shall not ! " 
 
 The assembly broke at once into knots of tens, 
 twenties, thirties, gesticulating and speaking aloud, like 
 freemen in anger. And ere William, with all his prompt 
 
 TOL. II. — 14
 
 210 HAROLD. 
 
 dissimulation, could do more than smother his rage, and 
 sit griping his sword-hilt, and setting his teeth, the assem- 
 bly dispersed. 
 
 Such were the free souls of the Normans under the 
 greatest of their chiefs ; and had those souls been less 
 free, England had not been enslaved in one age, to 
 become free again, God grant, to the end of time I
 
 HAROLD. 211 
 
 CHAPTER IX, 
 
 Through the blue skies over England there rushed the 
 bright stranger, — a meteor, a comet, a fiery star 1 ^' such 
 as no man before ever saw ; " it appeared on the 8th, 
 before the kalends of May ; seven nights did it shine/ 
 and the faces of sleepless men were pale under the angry 
 glare. 
 
 The river of Thames rushed blood-red in the beam, the 
 ■winds at play on tlie broad waves of the Humber, broke 
 the surge of the billows into sparkles of fire. With three 
 streamers, sharp and long as the sting of a dragon, the 
 foreboder of wrath rushed through the hosts of the stars. 
 On every ruinous fort, by sea-coast and march, the warder 
 crossed his breast to behold it ; on hill and in thorough* 
 fare, crowds nightly assembled to gaze on the terrible 
 star. Muttering hymns, monks huddled together round 
 the altars, as if to exorcise the land of a demon. The 
 gravestone of the Saxon father-chief was lit up, as with 
 the coil of the lightning ; and the Morthwyrtha looked 
 from the mound, and saw in her visions of awe tlie 
 Valkyrs in the train of the fiery star. 
 
 On the roof of his palace stood Harold the King, and 
 with folded arms he looked on the Rider of Night. And 
 up the stairs of the turret came the soft steps of Haco, 
 and stealing near to the king, he said, — 
 
 " Arm in haste, for the bodes have come breathless 
 to tell thee that Tostig, thy brother, with pirate and 
 ■war-ship, is wasting thy shores and slaughtering thy 
 people ! " 
 
 " Saxon Chronicle."
 
 212 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ToSTiG, with the ships he had gained hoth from Norraan 
 and jNTorwegian, recruited by Flemish adventurers, fled 
 fast from the banners of Harold. After plundering tlie 
 Isle of Wight and the Hampshire coasts, he sailed up the 
 Humber, where his vain heart had counted on friends 
 yet left him in his ancient earldom ; but Harold's soul of 
 vigor was everywhere. Morcar, prepared by the king's 
 bodes, encountered and chased the traitor, and, deserted 
 by most of his ships, with but twelve small craft Tostig 
 gained the shores of Scotland. There, again forestalled 
 by the Saxon king, he failed in succor from Malcolm, 
 and, retreating to the Orkneys, waited the fleets of 
 Hardrada. 
 
 And now Harold, thus at freedom for defence against a 
 foe more formidable and less unnatural, hastened to make 
 secure both the sea and the coast against William the 
 Norman. " So great a ship force, so great a land force, 
 no king in the land had before." All the summer his 
 fleets swept the Channel ; his forces " lay everywhere by 
 the sea." 
 
 But, alas ! now came the time when the improvident 
 waste of Edward began to be felt. Provisions and pay 
 for the armaments failed.-^ On the defective resources at 
 Harold's disposal, no modern historian hath sufficiently 
 dwelt. The last Saxon king, the chosen of the people, 
 
 1 " Saxon Chronicle." — " When it was the nativity of Saint 
 Mary, then were the men's provisions gone, and no man could any 
 longer keep them there."
 
 HAROLD. 213 
 
 had not those levies, and could impose not those burdens, 
 which made his successors mighty in war ; and men 
 began now to think that, after all, there was no fear of 
 tins Norman invasion. The summer was gone ; the 
 autumn was come : was it likely that William would dare 
 to trust himself in an enemy's country as the winter drew 
 near 1 The Saxons, unlike their fiercer kindred of 
 Scandinavia, had no pleasure in war; they fought well 
 in front of a foe, but they loathed the tedious prepara- 
 tions and costly sacrifices which prudence demanded for 
 self-defence. They now revdlted from a strain upon 
 their energies, of the necessity of which they were not 
 convinced ! Joyous at the temporary defeat of Tostig, 
 men said, " Marry, a joke indeed, that the Norman will 
 put his shaven head into the hornet's nest ! Let him 
 come, if he dare ! " 
 
 Still, with desperate effort, and at much risk of popu- 
 larity, Harold held together a force sufficient to repel any 
 single invader. From the time of his accession his sleep- 
 less vigilance had kept watch on the Norman, and his 
 spies brought liim news of all that passed. 
 
 And now, what had passed in the councils of William 1 
 The abrupt disappointment which the Grand Assembly 
 had occasioned him did not last very long. Made aware 
 that he could not trust to the spirit of an assembly, 
 William now artfully summoned merchant, and knight, 
 and baron, one by one. Submitted to the eloquence, the 
 })romises, the craft, of that master intellect, and to the 
 awe of that imposing presence ; unassisted by the courage 
 which inferiors take from numbers, one by one yielded to 
 the will of the count, and subscribed his quota for moneys, 
 fur ships, and for men. And while this went on, Lan- 
 franc was at work in the Vatican. At that time the 
 Archdeacon of the Eonian Church was the famous
 
 214 HAROLD, 
 
 Hildebrand. This extraordinary man, fit fellow-spirit to 
 Lanfranc, nursed one darling project, tlie success of 
 which indeed founded the true temporal power of the 
 Roman pontiffs. It was no less than that of converting 
 the mere religious ascendancy of the Holy See into the 
 actual sovereignty over the states of Christendom. The 
 most immediate agents of this gigantic scheme were 
 the Normans, who had conquered Naples by the arm of the 
 adventurer Robert Guiscard, and under the gonfanon of 
 St. Peter. Most of the new Norman countships and 
 dukedoms thus created in Italy had declared themselves 
 fiefs of the Church ; and the successor of the apostle 
 might well hope, by aid of the Norman priest-kniglits, to 
 extend his sovereignty over Italy, and thence dictate to 
 the kings beyond the Alps. 
 
 The aid of Hildebrand in belialf of William's claims 
 was obtained at once by Lanfranc. The profound Arch- 
 deacon of Rome saw at a glance the immense power that 
 would accrue to the Church by tlie mere act of arrogating 
 to itself the disposition of crowns, subjecting rival princes 
 to abide by its decision, and fixing the men of its choice 
 on the thrones of the North. Despite all its slavish super- 
 stition, the Saxon Church was obnoxious to Rome. Even 
 the pious Edward had offended, by withholding the old 
 levy of Peter Pence ; and simony, a crime peculiarly 
 reprobated by the poiititf, was notorious in England. 
 Therefore there was much to aid Hildebrand in the 
 Assembly of the Cardinals, when he brought before them 
 the oath of Harold, the violation of the sacred relics, and 
 demanded that the pious Normans, true friends to the 
 Roman Church, should be permitted to Christianize the 
 barbarous Saxons,^ and William be nominated as heir to 
 
 1 It is curious to notice how England was represented as a coun- 
 try ahnost heathen ; its conquest was regarded quite as a pious,
 
 HAROLD. 215 
 
 a throne promised to him hy Edward and forfeited hy the 
 perjury of Harold. Nevertheless, to the honor of that 
 assembly, and of man, there was a holy opposition to this 
 wholesale barter of human rights, this sanction of an 
 armed onslaught on a Christian people. " It is infamous," 
 said the good, "to authorize homicide." But Hildebraud 
 was all-powerful, and prevailed. 
 
 William was at high feast with his barons when Lan- 
 franc dismounted at his gates and entered his hall. 
 
 " Hail to thee, King of England ! " he said. " I bring 
 the bull that excommunicates Harold and his adherents ; 
 I bring to thee the gift of the Roman Church, — the land 
 and royalty of England. I bring to thee the gonfanon 
 hallowed by the heir of the apostle, and the very ring that 
 contains the precious relic of the apostle himself! Now, 
 who will shrink from thy side? Publish thy ban, not in 
 Normandy alone, but in every region and realm where 
 the Church is honored. This is the first war of the 
 Cross ! " 
 
 Then indeed was it seen, — that might of the Church ! 
 Soon as were made known the sanction and gifts of the 
 Pope, all the Continent stirred, as to the blast of the 
 trump in the Crusade, of which that war was the herald. 
 From Maine and from Anjou, from Poitou and Bretagne, 
 from France and from Flanders, from Aquitaine and Bur- 
 gundy, flashed the spear, galloped the steed. The robber- 
 chiefs from the castles now gray on the Rhine ; the hunters 
 and bandits from the roots of the Alps ; baron and knight, 
 
 benevolent act of charity, — a sort of mission for converting the 
 savao^es. And all this while England was under the most slavish 
 ecclesiastical domination, and the priesthood possessed a third of 
 its land ! But the heart of England never forgave that league of 
 the Pope with the Conqueror; and the seeds of the Reformed 
 Religion were trampled deep into the Saxou soil by the feet of the 
 invading Norman.
 
 216 HAROLD. 
 
 varlet and vagrant, — all came to the flag of the Church, 
 to the pillage of England. For side by side with the 
 Pope's holy bull was the martial ban : — " Good pay and. 
 broad lands to every one who will serve Count William 
 with spear, and with sword, and with cross-bow." And 
 the duke said to Fitzosborne, as he parcelled, out the fair 
 fields of England into IS^orman fiefs, — 
 
 " Harold hath not the strength of mind to promise the 
 least of those things that belong to me. But I have the 
 right to promise that which is mine, and also that which 
 belongs to him. He must be tlie victor who can give 
 away both his own and what belongs to his foe." ^ 
 
 All on the continent of Europe regarded England's 
 king as accursed ; William's enterprise as holy ; and 
 mothers who had turned pale when their sons went forth 
 to the boar-chase, sent their darlings to enter their names, 
 for the weal of their souls, in the swollen muster-roll of 
 William the Norman. Every port now in Neustria was 
 bu.sy with terrible life ; in every wood was heard the axe 
 felling logs for the ships ; from every anvil flew the sparks 
 from the hammer, as iron took shape into helmet and 
 sword. All things seemed to favor the Church's chosen 
 one. Conan, Count of Bretagne, sent to claim the duchy 
 of Normandy as legitimate heir. A few days afterwards, 
 Conan died, poisoned (as had died his father before him) 
 by the mouth of his horn and the web of his gloves. And 
 the new Count of Bretagne sent his sons to take part 
 against Harold. 
 
 All the armament mustered at the roadstead of St. 
 Valery, at the mouth of the Somme. But the winds were 
 long hostile, and the rains fell in torrents. 
 
 1 William of Poitier.s. — The naive sagacity of this bandit 
 argument, and the Norman's contempt for Harold's deficiency in 
 " strength of mind," are exquisite illustrations of character.
 
 HAROLD. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 And now, \y\n\e war thus hungered for England at the 
 mouth of the Somiue, tlie last and most renowned of the 
 sea-kings, Harold Hardrada, entered his galley, the tallest 
 and strongest of a fleet of three hundred sail that peopled 
 the seas round Solundir. And a man named Gyrdir, on 
 board the king's ship, dreamed a dream. He saw a great 
 witeh-wife standing on an isle of the Sulen, with a fork in 
 one hand and a trough in the other.^ He saw her pass 
 over the whole fleet ; — by each of the three hundred 
 ships he saw her ; and a fowl sat on the stern of each ship, 
 and that fowl was a raven ; and he heard the witch-wife 
 sing this song : — 
 
 " From the East I allure him. 
 At the West I secure him ; 
 In the feast I foresee 
 Kare the relics for me ; 
 
 Eed the drink, white the bones. 
 
 " The ravens sit greeding, 
 And watching, and heeding. 
 There' wind, over water. 
 Comes scent of the slaughter, 
 And ravens sit greeding 
 Their share of the bones. 
 
 ^ Snorro Sturleson. 
 
 2 Does any Scandinavian scholar know ■why the trough was so 
 associated with the images of Scandinavian witchcraft ? A witch 
 was kno^vn, when seen behind, by a kind of trough-like sliape ; 
 there must be some symbol, of very ancient mythology, in this 
 superstition !
 
 218 HAROLD. 
 
 ^ Thoro* wind, thoro' weather. 
 We 're sailing together ; 
 I sail with the ravens ; 
 1 watch with the ravens ; 
 I snatch from the ravens 
 My share of the bones.'* 
 
 There was also a man called Thord,^ in a ship that lay 
 near the king's ; and he too dreamed a dream. He saw 
 the fleet nearing land, and that land was England. And 
 on the land was a battle array two-fold, and many banners 
 were flapping on both sides. And before the army of the 
 land-folk was riding a hnge witch-wife \Tpon a waif; the 
 wolf had a man's carcass in his mouth, and the blood was 
 dripping and dropping from his jaws ; and when tlie 
 wolf had eaten up that carcass,, the witch-wife threw 
 another into his jaws ; and so, one after another ; and the 
 wolf cranched and swallowed them alL And the witch- 
 ■wife sang this song : — 
 
 " The green waving fields 
 Are hidden behind 
 The flash of the shields. 
 
 And the rush of the banners 
 That toss in the wind. 
 
 " But Skade's eagle eyes 
 
 Pierce the wall of the steel. 
 And behold from the skies 
 
 What the earth would conceal j 
 O'er the rush of the banners 
 
 She poises her wing. 
 And marks with a shadow 
 
 The brow of the king. 
 
 * Snorxa Storlesoa.
 
 HAROLD. 219 
 
 ** And, in bode of his doom. 
 Jaw of Wolf, be the tomb 
 Of the bones and the flesh, 
 Gore-bedabbled and fresh. 
 That cranch and that drip 
 Under fang and from lip, 
 As I ride in the van 
 Of the feasters on man. 
 With the king. 
 
 'O' 
 
 " Grim wolf, sate thy maw. 
 Full enow shall there be, 
 Hairy jaw, hungry maw. 
 Both lor ye and for me '. 
 
 " Meaner food be the feast 
 Of the fowl and the beast ; 
 But the witch, for her share, 
 Takes the liest of the fare : 
 And the witch, shall be fed 
 With the king of the dead, 
 When she rides in the van 
 Of the slayers of man 
 With the king." 
 
 And King Harold dreamed a dream. And he saw- 
 before him his brother, St. Olave. And the dead to the 
 Scald-King sang this song : — 
 
 " Bold as thou in the fight. 
 Blithe as thou in the hall, 
 Shone the noon of my might. 
 Ere the night of my fall ! 
 
 " How humble is death. 
 
 And how haughty is life. 
 And how fleeting the breath 
 Between slumber and strife !
 
 220 HAKOLD. 
 
 " All the earth is too narrow, 
 O life, for thy tread ! 
 Two strides o'er the barrow 
 Can measure the dead. 
 
 " Yet mighty that space is 
 Which seemeth so small ; 
 The realm of all races 
 With room lor them all ! " 
 
 But Harold Hardrada scorned witch-wife and dream; 
 and his fleets sailed on. Tostig joined him off the Orkney 
 Isles, and this great armament soon came in sight of the 
 shores of England. They landed at Cleveland,^ and at the 
 dread of the terrible Norsemen, the coastmen fled or sub- 
 mitted. With booty and plunder they sailed on to Scar- 
 borough, but there the townsfolk Avere brave, and the 
 walls were strong. The Norsemen ascended a hill above 
 the town, lit a huge pile of wood, and tossed the burning 
 piles down on the roofs. House after house caught the 
 flame, and through the glare and the crash rushed the 
 men of Hardrada. Great was the slaughter, and ample 
 the plunder; and the town, awed and depeopled, sub- 
 mitted to flame and to sword. 
 
 Then the fleet sailed up the Humber and Ouse, and 
 landed at Richall, not far from York ; but Morcar, the 
 earl of Northurabria, came out with all his forces, — all the 
 stout men and tall of the great race of the Anglo-Dane. 
 
 Then Hardrada advanced his flag, called Land-Eyda, 
 the " Ravager of the World," ^ and, chanting a war-stave, 
 led his men to the onslaught. 
 
 1 Snorro Sturleson. 
 
 2 So Thierry translates the word ; otliers, the Land-ravager. In 
 Danish the word is Laud-ode ; in Icelandic, Land-eydo. — Note to 
 Thierry's " Hist, of the Conq. of England," book iii. vol. vi. p. 169, 
 (of Hazlitt's translation).
 
 HAKOLD. 221 
 
 The battle was fierce, but short. The English troops 
 were defeated, — they fled into York ; and the Ravager 
 of the World was borne in triumph to the gates of the 
 town. An exiled chief, however tyrannous and hateful, 
 liath ever some friends among the desperate and lawless ; 
 and success ever linds allies among the weak and the 
 craven, — so, many Northumbrians now came to the side 
 of Tostig. Dissension and mutiny broke out amidst the 
 garrison within ; — Morcar, unable to control the towns- 
 folk, was driven forth with those still true to their country 
 and king, and York agreed to open its gates to the con- 
 quering invader. 
 
 At the news of this foe on the north side of the land, 
 King Harold was compelled to withdraw all the forces 
 at watch in the south against the tardy invasion of 
 William. It was the middle of September; eight months 
 had elapsed since the Norman had launched forth his 
 vaunting threat. Would he now dare to come 1 — Come 
 or not, that foe was afar, and this was in the heart of the 
 country ! 
 
 Now, York having thus capitulated, all the land round 
 was humbled and awed, and Hardrada and Tostig were 
 blithe and gay ; and many days, thought they, must 
 pass ere Harold the King can come from the south to the 
 north. 
 
 The camp of the Norsemen was at Stanford Bridge, 
 and that day it was settled that they should formally 
 enter York. Their ships lay in the river beyond ; a large 
 portion of the armament was with the ships. The day 
 was warm, and the men with Hardrada had laid aside 
 their heavy mail and were ''making merry," talking of 
 the plunder of York, jeering at Saxon valor, and gloating 
 over thoughts of the Saxon, maids, whom Saxon men had 
 failed to protect, — when suddenly between them and the
 
 222 HAROLD. 
 
 town rose and rolled a great cloud of dust. High it rose, 
 and fast it rolled, and from the heart of the cloud shone 
 the spear and the shield. 
 
 '' What army comes yonder ] " said Harold Hardrada. 
 
 "Surely," answered Tostig, "it comes from the town 
 that we are to enter as con(|uerors, and can be but the 
 friendly Northumbrians who have deserted Morcar for me." 
 
 Nearer and nearer came the force, and the shine of the 
 arms was like the glancing of ice. 
 
 " Advance the World-Ravager ! " cried Harold Hardrada ; 
 " draw up, and to arms ! " 
 
 Then, picking out three of his briskest youths, he 
 despatched them to the force on the river, vfith orders to 
 come up quick to the aid. For already, througli the cloud 
 and amidst the spears, was seen the flag of the English 
 king. On the previous night King Harold had entered 
 York unknown to the invaders, appeased the mutiny, 
 cheered the townsfolks, and novv came like the thunder- 
 bolt borne by the winds to clear the air of England from 
 the clouds of the North. 
 
 Both armaments drew up in haste, and Hardrada formed 
 his array in the furm of a circle, — the line long but not 
 deep, the wings curving round till they met,^ shield to shield. 
 Those who stood in tlie hrst rank set their spear-shafts on 
 the ground, the points level with the breast of a horse- 
 man ; tliose in the second, with spears yet lower, level 
 with the breast of a horse, thus forming a double palisade 
 against the charge of cavaliy. In the centre of this 
 circle was placed the Ravager of the World, and round it 
 a rampart of shields. Beliind that rampart was the 
 accustomed post at the onset of battle for the king and his 
 body-guard ; but Tostig was in front, with his own North- 
 umbrian Lion banner and his chosen men. 
 
 ^ Snorro Sturleson.
 
 HAROLD. 223 
 
 Wliile tliis army was thus being forrued, tlie Englisli 
 king was marsiialling liis force in the far more formidable 
 tactics, which his military science had perfected from the 
 warfare of the Danes. That form of battalion, invincible 
 hitherto under his leadership, was in the manner of a 
 wedge or triangle, thus A. So that, in attack, the men 
 inarched on the foe presenting the smallest possible snrface 
 to the missives, and, in defence, all three lines faced the 
 assailants. King Harold cast his eye over the closing 
 lines, and then, turning to Gurth, who rode by his side, 
 said, — 
 
 " Take one man from yon hostile army, and with what 
 joy should we charge on the Nortlimen ! " 
 
 '■'■ I conceive thee," answered Gurth, mournfully, " and 
 the same thought of that one man makes my arm feel 
 palsied." 
 
 The king mused and drew down the nasal bar of his 
 helmet. 
 
 " Thegns," said he suddenly to the score of riders who 
 grouped round him, " follow." And, shaking the rein of 
 liis horse, King Harold rode straiglit to that part of the 
 liostile front from wliich rose, above the spears, the North- 
 umbrian banner of Tostig. Wondering, but mute, the 
 twenty thegns followed liim. Before the grim array, and 
 hard by Tostig's banner, the king checked his steed and 
 cried, — 
 
 " Is Tostig, the son of Godwin and Githa, by the flag 
 of the Northumbrian earldom % " 
 
 With his helmet raised, and his Norwegian mantle 
 flowing over his mail. Earl Tostig rode forth at that voice, 
 and came up to the speaker.^ 
 
 1 See Snorro Sturleson for this parley between Harold in 
 person and Tostig. The account differs from the Saxon chroni- 
 clers, but in this particular instance is likely to be as accurate.
 
 224 HAROLD. 
 
 " What wouklst thou with me, daring foe ] " 
 The Saxon liorsemau paused, and his deep voice trembled 
 tenderly as he answered slowly, — 
 
 " Thy brother, King Harold, sends to salute thee. Let 
 not the sons from the same womb wage unnatural war in 
 the soil of their fathers." 
 
 "What will Harold the King give to his brother ]" 
 answered Tostig. " Northumbria already he hath bestowed 
 on the son of his House's foe." 
 
 The Saxon hesitated, and a rider by his side took up 
 the word. 
 
 " If the Northumbrians will receive thee again, North- 
 umbria shalt thou have, and the king will bestow his late 
 earldom of Wessex on Morcar ; if the Northumbrians 
 reject thee, thou shalt have all the lordships which King 
 Harold hath promised to Gurth." 
 
 " This is well," answered Tostig ; and he seemed to 
 pause as in doubt ; — when, made aware of this parley. 
 King Harold Hardrada, on his coal-black steed, with his 
 helm all shining with gold, rode from the lines, and came 
 into hearing. 
 
 " Ha ! " said Tostig, then turning round, as the giant 
 form of the Norse king threw its vast shadow over the 
 ground. 
 
 " And if I take the offer, what will Harold son of God- 
 win give to my friend and ally Hardrada of Norway 1 " 
 
 The Saxon rider reared his head at these words, and 
 gazed on the large front of Hardrada, as he answered loud 
 and distinct, — 
 
 '' Seven feet of land for a grave, or, seeing that he is 
 taller than other men, as much more as his corse may 
 demand ! " 
 
 " Then go back, and tell Harold my brother to get 
 ready for battle ; for never shall the Scalds and the war-
 
 HAROLD. 225 
 
 riors of Norway say that Tostig lured their king in his 
 cause to betray him to his foe. Here did he come, and 
 here came I, to win as the brave win, or die as the brave 
 die ! " 
 
 A rider of younger and slighter form than the rest here 
 whispered the Saxon king, — 
 
 " Delay no more, or thy men's hearts will fear treason." 
 
 " The tie is rent from my heart, Haco," answered 
 the king, "and the heart flies back to our England." 
 
 He waved his hand, turned his steed, and rode oflf. 
 The eye of Hardrada followed the horsemen. 
 
 " And who," he asked, calmly, " is that man who spoke 
 so welH"^ 
 
 " King Harold ! " answered Tostig, briefly. 
 
 " How ! " cried the Norseman, reddening, " how was 
 not that made know^n to me before 1 Never should he 
 have gone back, — never told hereafter the doom of this 
 day!" 
 
 With all his ferocity, his envy, his grudge to Harold, 
 and his treason to England, some rude notions of honor 
 still lay confused in the breast of the Saxon ; and he 
 answered stoutly, — 
 
 " Imprudent was Harold's coming, and great his 
 danger : but he came to offer me peace and dominion. 
 Had I betrayed him, I had not been his foe, but his 
 murderer ! " 
 
 The Norse king smiled approvingly, and, turning to 
 his chiefs, said drily, — 
 
 " That man was shorter than some of us, but he rode 
 firm in his stirrups." 
 
 And then this extraordinary person, who united in 
 himself all the types of an age that vanished forever in 
 his grave, and who is the more interesting, as in him we 
 
 1 Snorro Sturleson. 
 VOL. II. — 15
 
 226 HAROLD. 
 
 see the race from wliich the Norman sprang, began, in the 
 rich full voice that pealed deep as an organ, to chant his 
 impromptu war-song. He halted in the midst, and with 
 great composure said, — 
 
 " That verse is but ill-tuned : I must try a better." ^ 
 
 He passed his hand over his brow, mused an instant, 
 and then, with his fair face all illumined, he burst forth 
 as inspired. 
 
 This time, air, rhythm, words, all so chimed in with 
 his own enthusiasm and that of his men, that the effect 
 was inexpressible. It was, indeed, like the charm of 
 those runes which are said to have maddened the Berserker 
 with the frenzy of war. 
 
 Meanwhile the Saxon phalanx came on, slow and firm, 
 and in a few minutes the battle began. It commenced 
 first with the charge of the English cavalry (never nu- 
 merous), led by Leofwine and Haco, but the double pali- 
 sade of the Norman spears formed an impassable barrier ; 
 and the horseman, recoiling from the frieze, rode round 
 the iron circle without otlier damage than the spear and 
 javelin could effect. Meanwhile, King Harold, who had 
 dismounted, marched, as was his wont, with the body of 
 footmen. He kept his post in the hollow of the triangular 
 wedge, whence he could best issue his orders. Avoiding 
 the side over which Tostig presided, he halted his array 
 in full centre of the enemy where the Eavager of the 
 World, streaming high above the inner rampart of shields, 
 showed the presence of the giant Hardrada. 
 
 The air was now literally dai'kened with the flights of 
 arrows and spears ; and in a war of missives, the Saxons 
 were less skilled than the Norsemen. Still King Harold 
 restrained the ardor of his men, who, sore harassed by the 
 darts, yearned to close on the foe. He himself, standing 
 
 1 Snorro Sturleson.
 
 HAP.OLD. 227 
 
 on a little eminence, more exposed than his meanest 
 soldier, deliberately eyed the sallies of the horse, and 
 watched the moment he foresaw, when, encouraged by 
 his own suspense, and the feeble attacks of the cavalry, 
 the jSTorsemen would lift their spears from the ground, 
 and advance themselves to the assault. That moment 
 came ; unable to withhold their own fiery zeal, stimulated 
 by the tromp and the clash, and the war-hymns of their 
 king, and his choral Scalds, the Norsemen broke ground 
 and came on. 
 
 " To your axes, and charge ! " cried Harold ; and pass- 
 ing at once from the centre to the front, he led on the 
 array. 
 
 The impetus of that artful phalanx was tremendous ; it 
 pierced through the ring of the Norwegians ; it clove into 
 the rampart of shields; and King Harold's battle-axe was 
 the first that shivered that wall of steel ; his step the first 
 that strode into the innermost circle that guarded the 
 Ravager of the World. 
 
 Then forth, from under the shade of that great flag, 
 came, himself also on foot, Harold Hardrada : sliouting 
 and chanting, he leaped with long strides into the thick 
 of the onslaught. He had flung away his shield, and 
 swaying with both hands his enormous sword, he hewed 
 down man after man, till space grew clear before him ; and 
 the English, recoiling in awe before an image of height 
 and strength that seemed superhuman, left but one form 
 standing firm, and in front, to oppose his way. 
 
 At that moment the whole strife seemed not to belong 
 to an age comparatively modern : it took a character of 
 remotest eld ; and Thor and Odin seemed to have returned 
 to the earth. Behind this towering and Titan warrior, 
 their wild hair streaming long under their helms, came 
 his Scalds, all singing their hymns, drunk with the mad-
 
 228 HAROLD. 
 
 ness of battle. And the Ravager of the World tossed and 
 flapped as it followed, so that the vast raven depicted on 
 its folds seemed horrid with life. And calm and alone, 
 his eye watchful, his axe lifted, his foot ready for rush or 
 for spring, — but tirm as an oak against flight, — stood 
 the last of the Saxon kings. 
 
 Down bounded Hardrada, and down shore his sword ; 
 King Harold's shield was cloven in two, and the force of 
 the blow brought himself to his knee. But, as swift as 
 the flash of that sword, he sprang to his feet ; and while 
 Hardrada still bowed his head, not recovered from the 
 force of his blow, the axe of the Saxon came so full on 
 his helmet, that the giant reeled, dropped his sword, and 
 staggered back. His Scalds and his chiefs rushed around 
 him. That gallant stand of King Harold saved his 
 English from flight ; and now, as they saw him almost 
 lost in the throng, yet still cleaving his way — on, on — 
 to the raven standard, they rallied with one heart, and 
 shouting forth, " Out, out ! Holy crosse ! " forced their 
 way to his side, and the fight now waged hot and equal, 
 hand to hand. Meanwhile, Hardrada, borne a little 
 apart, and relieved from his dinted helmet, recovered the 
 shock of the weightiest blow that had ever dimmed his 
 eye and numbed his hand. Tossing the helmet on the 
 ground, his bright locks glittering like sunbeams, he 
 rushed back to the melee. Again, helm and mail went 
 down before him ; again, through the crowd he saw the 
 arm that had smitten him ; again, he sprang forwards to 
 finish the war with a blow, — when a shaft from some 
 distant bow p)ierced the throat which the casque now left 
 bare ; a sound like the wail of a death-song murmured 
 brokenly from his lips, which then gushed out with 
 blood, and tossing up his arras wildly, he fell to the 
 ground, a corpse. At that sight a yell of such terror and
 
 HAROLD. 229 
 
 ■woe and wrath, all commingled, broke from the Norsemen, 
 that it hushed the very war for the moment. 
 
 " On ! " cried the Saxon king, " let our earth take its 
 spoiler ! On to the standard, and the day is our own ! " 
 
 " On to the standard ! " cried Haco, who, his horse 
 slain ;inder him, all bloody with wounds not his own, 
 now came to the king's side. Grim and tall rose the 
 standard, and the streamer shrieked and flapped in tlie 
 wind as if the raven had voice, when right before Harold, 
 right between him and the banner, stood Tostig his 
 brother, known by the splendor of his mail, the gold 
 work on his mantle, — known by the fierce laugh and 
 defying voice. 
 
 " What matters ! " cried Haco ; " strike, king, for 
 thy crown ! " 
 
 Harold's hand griped Haco's arm convulsively ; he 
 lowered his axe, turned round, and passed shudderingly 
 away. 
 
 Both armies now paused from the attack ; for both 
 were thrown into great disorder, and each gladly gave 
 respite to the other, to re-form its own shattered array. 
 
 The Norsemen were not the soldiers to yield because 
 their leader was slain, — rather the more resolute to fight, 
 since revenge was now added to valor ; yet, but for the 
 daring and promptness with wliich Tostig had cut his 
 way to the standard, the day had been already decided. 
 
 During the pause, Harold, summoning Gurth, said to 
 him in great emotion : " For the sake of Nature, for the 
 love of God, go, Gurth, — go to Tostig ; urge him, now 
 Hardrada is dead, urge him to peace. All that we can 
 proffer with honor, proffer, — quarter and free retreat to 
 every Norseman. Oh, save me, save us from a brother's 
 blood ! " 
 
 1 Sharon Turner's " Anglo Saxons," vol. ii. p. 396. Snorro 
 Sturleson.
 
 230 HAROLD. 
 
 Gurth lifted his helmet, and kissed the mailed hand 
 that grasped his own. 
 
 " I go," said he. And so, bareheaded, and with a 
 single trumpeter, he went to the hostile lines. 
 
 Harold awaited him in great agitation ; nor could any 
 man have guessed what bitter and awful thoughts lay in 
 that heart, from which, in the way to power, tie after 
 tie had been wrenched away. He did not wait long ; 
 and even before Gurth rejoined him, he knew, by an 
 xmanimous shout of fury, to which the clash of countless 
 shields chimed in, that the mission had been in vain. 
 
 Tostig had refused to hear Gurth, save in presence of 
 the I^orwegian chiefs ; and when the message had been 
 delivered, they all cried, " We would rather fall one across 
 the corpse of the other,^ than leave a field in which our 
 king was slain." 
 
 "Ye hear them," said Tostig; "as they speak, speak 
 I." 
 
 " Not mine this guilt, too, God ! " said Harold, 
 solemnly lifting his hand on high. " Now, then, to 
 duty." 
 
 By this time the Norwegian reinforcements had ar- 
 rived from the ships, and this for a short time rendered 
 the conflict that immediately ensued uncertain and 
 critical. But Harold's generalship was now as consum- 
 mate as his valor had been daring. He kept his men true 
 to their irrefragable line. Even if fragments splintered 
 off, each fragment threw itself into the form of the resist- 
 less wedge. One Norwegian, standing on the bridge of 
 Stanford, long guarded that pass ; and no less than forty 
 Saxons are said to have perished by his arm. To him 
 the English king sent a generous pledge, not only of 
 safety for the life, but honor for the valor. The viking 
 ^ Suorro Sturleson.
 
 HAROLD. 231 
 
 refused to surrender, and fell at last by a javelin from the 
 hand of Haco. As if in him had been embodied the 
 unyielding war-god of the Norsemen, in that death died 
 the last hope of the vikings. They fell literally where 
 they stood ; many, from sheer exhaustion and the weiglit 
 of their mail, died without a blow.^ And in the shades 
 of nightfall, Harold stood amidst the shattered rampart of 
 shields, his foot on the corpse of the standard-bearer, his 
 hand on the Ravager of the World. 
 
 *' Thy brother's corpse is borne yonder," said Haco, in 
 the ear of the king, as, wiping the blood from his sword, 
 he plunged it back into the sheath. 
 
 1 The quick succession of events allowed the Saxon army no 
 time to bury the slain ; and the bones of the invaders whitened 
 the field of battle for many years afterwards.
 
 232 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Young Olave, the son of Hardrada, had happily escaped 
 the slaughter. A strong detachment of the Norwegians 
 had still remained with the vessels ; and amongst them 
 some prudent old chiefs, who, foreseeing the probable 
 results of the day, and knowing that Hardrada would 
 never quit, save as a conqueror or a corpse, the field ou 
 which he had planted the Ravager of the World, had 
 detained the prince almost by force from sharing the fate 
 of his father. But ere those vessels could put out to sea, 
 the vigorous measures of the Saxon king had already 
 intercepted the retreat of the vessels. And then, ranging 
 their shields as a wall round their masts, the bold vikings 
 at least determined to die as men. But with the morning 
 came King Harold himself to the banks of the river, and 
 behind him, with trailed lances, a solemn procession that 
 bore the body of the Scald king. They halted on the 
 margin, and a boat was launched towards the Norwegian 
 fleet, bearing a monk who demanded the chiefs to send a 
 deputation, headed by the young prince himself, to receive 
 the corpse of their king, and hear the proposals of the 
 Saxon. 
 
 The vikings, wlio had anticipated no preliminaries to 
 the massacre they awaited, did not hesitate to accept these 
 overtures. Twelve of the most famous chiefs still surviv- 
 ing, and Olave himself, entered the boat ; and, standing 
 between his brothers Leofwine and Gurth, Harold thus 
 accosted them : —
 
 HAROLD. 
 
 233 
 
 " Your king invaded a people that had given hiui no 
 offence : he has paid the forfeit, — we war not with the 
 dead ! Give to his remains the honors due to the brave. 
 Without ransom or condition, we yield to you what can 
 no longer harm us. And for thee, young prince," con- 
 tinued the king, with a tone of pity in his voice, as he 
 contemplated the stately boyhood and proud but deep 
 grief in the face of Olave, — " for thee, wilt thou not 
 live to learn that the wars of Odin are treason to the 
 Faith of the Cross] We have conquered, — we dare not 
 butcher. Take such ships as ye need for those that sur- 
 vive. Three-and-twenty I offer for your transport. Eeturn 
 to your native shores, and guard them as we have guarded 
 ours. Are ye contented ? " 
 
 Amongst those chiefs was a stern priest, — the Bishop 
 of the Orcades : he advanced, and bent his knee to the 
 king. 
 
 •' Lord of England," said he, " yesterday thou didst 
 conquer the form, — to-day, the soul. And never more 
 may generous Norsemen invade the coast of him wlio 
 honors the dead and spares the living." 
 
 " Amen ! " cried the chiefs, and they all knelt to 
 Harold. The young prince stood a moment irresolute, 
 for his dead father was on the bier before him, and revenge 
 was yet a virtue in the heart of a sea-king. But lifting 
 his eyes to Harold's, the mild and gentle majesty of the 
 Saxon's brow was irresistible in its benign command ; and 
 stretching his right hand to the king, he raised on high 
 the other, and said aloud, " Faith and friendship with 
 thee and England evermore." 
 
 Then all the cliiefs rising, they gathered round the bier, 
 but no hand, in the sight of the conquering foe, lifted the 
 cloth of gold that covered the corpse of the famous king. 
 The bearers of the bier moved on slowly towards the boat ;
 
 234 HAROLD, 
 
 the Norwegians followed with measured funereal steps. 
 And not till the bier was placed on board the royal galley 
 was there heard the wail of woe ; but then it came loud, 
 and deep, and dismal, and was followed by a burst of 
 wild song from a surviving Scald. 
 
 The Norwegian preparations for departure were soon 
 made, and the ships vouchsafed to their convoy raised 
 anchor, and sailed down the stream. Harold's eye 
 watched the ships from the river banks. 
 
 " And there," said he, at last, " there glide the last 
 jsails that shall ever bear the devastating raven to the 
 shores of England." 
 
 Truly, in that field had been the most signal defeat 
 those warriors, hitherto almost invincible, had known. 
 Ou that bier lay the last son of Berserker and sea-king ; 
 and be it, O Harold, remembered in thine honor, that not 
 by the Norman, but by thee, true-hearted Saxon, was 
 trampled on the English soil the Ravager of the World ! ^ 
 
 "So be it," said Haco, "and so, methinks, will it be. 
 But forget not the descendant of the Norsemen, the Count 
 of Rouen ! " 
 
 Harold started, and turned to his chiefs. " Sound 
 trumpet, and fall in. To York we march. There, re- 
 settle the earldom, collect the spoil, and then back, my men, 
 to the southern shores. Yet first kneel thou, Haco, son 
 of my brother Sweyn : thy deeds were done in the light of 
 heaven, in the siglit of w^arriors in the open field : so 
 should thine honors find thee! Not with the vain 
 fripperies of Norman knighthood do I deck thee, but make 
 thee one of the elder brotherhood of Minister and Miles. I 
 
 1 It may lie said indeed, that, in the followins; reif^n, the Panes, 
 under Osbiorn (brother of King Sweyn), sailed up the Humher : 
 but it was to assist the English, not to invade them. They were 
 bmKjht off"by the Norman, — not conquered.
 
 HAROLD. 235 
 
 gird round thy loins mine own baldric of pure silver ; I 
 place in thy hand mine own sword of plain steel, and bid 
 thee rise to take place in council and camps amongst the 
 proceres of England, — earl of Hertford and Essex, Boy," 
 whispered the king, as he bent over the pale cheek of his 
 nephew, " thank not me. From me the thanks should 
 come. On the day that saw Tostig's crime and his death, 
 thou didst purify the name of my brother Sweyn ! On 
 to our city of York ! " 
 
 High banquet was held in York ; and, according to 
 the customs of the Saxon monarchs, the king could not 
 absent himself from the Victory Feast of his thegns. 
 He sat at the head of the board, between his brothers. 
 Morcar, whose departure from the city had deprived him 
 of a share in the battle, had arrived that day with his 
 brother Edwin, whom he had gone to summon to his aid. 
 And though the young earls envied the fame they had not 
 shared, the envy was noble. 
 
 Gay and boisterous was the wassail ; and lively song, 
 long neglected in England, woke, as its wakes ever, at 
 the breath of Joy and Fame. As if in the days of Alfred, 
 the harp passed from hand to hand : martial and rough the 
 strain beneath the touch of the Anglo-Dane, more refined 
 and thoughtful the lay when it chimed to the voice of the 
 Anglo-Saxon. But the memory of Tostig, — all guilty 
 though he was, — a brother slain in war with a brother, 
 lay heavy on Harold's soul. Still, so had he schooled and 
 trained himself to live but for England — know no joy 
 and no woe not hers — that by degrees and strong efforts 
 he shook off his gloom. And music, and song, and wine, 
 and blazing lights, and the proud sight of those long lines 
 of valiant men, whose hearts had beat and whose hands 
 had triumphed in the same cause, all aided to link his 
 senses with the gladness of the hour.
 
 236 HAROLD. 
 
 And uow, as night advanced, Leofvvine, who was ever a 
 favorite in the banquet, as Gurth in the council, rose to 
 propose the drink-heel, which carries the most characteris- 
 tic of our modern social customs to an antiquity so remote. 
 And the roar was hushed at the sight of the young earl's 
 winsome face. With due decorum he uncovered his head,i 
 composed his countenance, and began, — 
 
 " Craving forgiveness of my lord the king, and this 
 noble assembly," said Leofwine, " in which are so many 
 from Avhom what I intend to propose would come with 
 better grace, I would remind you that William, Count of 
 the Normans, meditates a pleasure excursion, of the same 
 nature as our late visitor Harold Hardrada's." 
 
 A scornful laugh ran through the hall. 
 
 " And as we English are hospitable folk, and give any 
 man, who asks, meat and board for one night, so one day's 
 welcome, methinks, will be all that the Count of the 
 Normans will need at our English hands." 
 
 Flushed with the joyous insolence of wine, the wassail- 
 ers roared applause. 
 
 " Wherefore, this drink-lmd to William of Rouen ! 
 And, to borrow a saying now in every man's lips, and 
 which, I think, our good scops will take care that our 
 children's children shall learn by heart, — since he covets 
 our Saxon soil, ' seven feet of land ' in frank pledge to 
 him forever ! " 
 
 " Drink-heel to William the Norman ! " shouted the 
 revellers ; and each man, with mocking formality, took 
 off his cap, kissed his hand, and bowed.^ " Drmk-hcel to 
 William the Norman ! " and tlie shout rolled from floor to 
 roof, — when, in the midst of the uproar, a man, all bedab- 
 bled with dust and mire, rushed into the hall, rushed through 
 
 1 The Saxons sat at meals with their heads covered. 
 
 2 Henry.
 
 HAROLD. 237 
 
 the rows of the banqueters, rushed to the throne-chair 
 of Harold, and cried aloud, " William the Norman is en- 
 camped on the shores of Sussex ; and, with the miglitiest 
 armament ever yet seen in England, is ravaging the land 
 far and near ! "
 
 BOOK XII. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 In the heart of the forest-land in which Hilda's abode 
 was situated, a gloomy pool reflected upon its stagnant 
 waters the still shadows of the autumnal foliage. As 
 is common in ancient forests in the neighborhood of 
 men's wants, the trees were dwarfed in height by re- 
 peated loppings, and the boughs sprang from the 
 hollow, gnarled boles of pollard oaks and beeches; the 
 trunks, vast in girth, and covered with mosses and 
 whitening canker-stains or wreaths of ivy, spoke of 
 the most remote antiquity ; but the boughs which 
 their lingering and mutilated life put forth, were 
 either thin and feeble with innumerable branchlets, 
 or were centred on some solitary, distorted limb which 
 the woodman's axe had spared. The trees tlius assumed 
 all manner of crooked, deformed, fantastic shapes: all 
 betokening age, and all decay ; all, in despite of the noise- 
 less solitude around, proclaiming the waste and ravages 
 of man. 
 
 The time was that of tlie first watches of night, when 
 the autumnal moon was brightest and broadest. You 
 might see, on the opposite side of the pool, the antlers 
 of the deer every now and then moving restlessly above
 
 240 HAROLD. 
 
 the fern in which they had made their couch, and, through 
 the nearer glades, the hares and conies stealing forth to 
 sport or to feed ; or the bat, wheeling low, in chase of the 
 forest moth. From the thickest part of the copse came a 
 slow, human foot, and Hilda, emerging, paused by the 
 waters of the pool. That serene and stony calm habitual 
 to her features was gone; sorrow and passion had seized 
 the soul of the Vala, in the midst of its fancied security 
 from the troubles it presumed to foresee for others. The 
 lines of the face were deep and careworn, — age had come 
 on with rapid strides, — and the light of the eye Avas 
 vague and unsettled, as if the lofty reason shook, terrified 
 in its pride, at last. 
 
 " Alone, alone ! " she murmured, half aloud : " yea, 
 evermore alone ! And the grandchild I had reared to 
 be the mother of kings, — whose fate, from the cradle, 
 seemed linked with royalty and love ; in whom, watch- 
 ing and hoping for, in whom loving and heeding, me- 
 thought I lived again the sweet human life — hath gone 
 from my hearth, forsaken, broken-hearted, withering 
 down to the grave under the shade of the barren cloister ! 
 Is mine heart, then, all a lie 1 Are the gods who led 
 Odin from the Scythian East but the juggling fiends 
 whom the craven Christian abhors 1 Lo ! the Wine 
 Month has come; a few nights more, and the sun 
 which all prophecy foretold should go down on the 
 union of the -king and the maid, shall bring round the 
 appointed day : yet Aldyth still lives, and Edith still 
 withers; and War stands side by side with the Church, 
 between the betrothed and the altar. Verily, verily, my 
 spirit hath lost its power, and leaves me bowed, in the 
 awe of night, a feeble, aged, hopeless, childless woman ! " 
 
 Tears of human weakness rolled down the Vala's 
 cheeks. At that moment a laugh came from a thing
 
 HAROLD. 241 
 
 that had seemed like the fallen trunk of a tree, or a 
 trough in which the herdsman waters his cattle, so still 
 and shapeless and undefined it had lain amongst the 
 rank weeds and nightshade and trailing creepers on the 
 marge of the pool. The laugh was low, yet fearful to 
 hear. 
 
 Slowly the thing moved, and rose, and took the out- 
 line of a human form; and the Prophetess heheld the 
 witch whose sleep she had disturbed by the Saxon's 
 grave. 
 
 " Where is the banner 1 " said the witch, laying her 
 hand on Hilda's arm, and looking into her face with 
 bleared and rheumy eyes, — " where is the banner thy 
 handmaids were weaving for Harold the Earl ? Why 
 didst thou lay aside that labor of love for Harold the 
 King? Hie thee home, and bid thy maidens ply all 
 night at the work ; make it potent with rune and with 
 spell, and with gums of the seid. Take the banner to 
 Harold the King as a marriage-gift; for the day of liis 
 birth shall be still the day of his nuptials with Edith the 
 Eair! " 
 
 Hilda gazed on the hideous form before her; and so 
 had her soul fallen from its arrogant pride of place, that 
 instead of the scorn with which so foul a pretender to tlie 
 Great Art had before inspired the King-born Prophetess, 
 her veins tingled with credulous awe. 
 
 " Art thou a mortal like myself, " she said, after a 
 pause, " or one of those beings often seen by the shep- 
 herd in mist and rain, driving before them their shadowy 
 flocks? one of those of Avhom no man knoweth whether 
 they are of earth or of Helheim ? whether they have ever 
 known the lot and conditions of flesh, or are but some 
 dismal race between body and spirit, hateful alike to gods 
 and to men 1 " 
 
 VOL. II. — 16
 
 242 HAROLD. 
 
 The dreadful hag shook her head, as if refusing to 
 answer the question, and said, — 
 
 " Sit we down, sit we down by the dead, dull pool, 
 and if thou wouldst be wise as I am, wake up all thy 
 wrongs, fill thyself with hate, and let thy thoughts be 
 curses. Nothing is strong on earth but the Will; and 
 hate to the will is as the iron in the hands of the 
 war-man. " 
 
 " Ha ! " answered Hilda, " then, thou art indeed 
 one of the loathsome brood whose magic is born, not 
 of the aspiring soul, but the fiend-like heart. And 
 between us there is no union. I am of the race of 
 those whom priests and kings reverenced and honored 
 as the oracles of Heaven; and rather let my lore be 
 dimmed and weakened, in admitting the humanities 
 of hope and love, than be lightened by the glare of 
 the wrath that Lok and Rana bear the children of 
 men. " 
 
 " What ! art thou so base and so doting, " said the 
 hag, with fierce contempt, " as to know that another 
 has supplanted thine Edith, that all the schemes of thy 
 life are undone, and yet feel no hate for the man who 
 hath wronged her and thee ? — the man who had never 
 been king if thou hadst not breathed into him the 
 ambition of rule? Think, and curse! " 
 
 " My curse would wither the heart that is entwined 
 within his, " answered Hilda; "and, "she added abruptly, 
 as if eager to escape from her own impulses, " didst 
 thou not tell me, even now, that the wrong would be 
 redressed, and his betrothed yet be his bride on the 
 appointed day ? " 
 
 " Ha ! home, then ! — home ! and weave the charmed 
 woof of the banner, broider it with zimmes and with 
 gold worthy the standard of a king ; for I tell thee, that
 
 HAROLD. 243 
 
 where that banner is planted shall Edith clasp with 
 bridal arms her adored. And the hivata thou hast 
 read by the baiitastein, and in the temple of the Briton's 
 revengeful gods, shall be fulfilled." 
 
 "Dark daughter of Hela," said the Prophetess, 
 " whether demon or god hath inspired thee, I hear in 
 my spirit a voice that tells me thou hast pierced to a 
 truth that my lore could not reach. Thou art house- 
 less and poor; I will give wealth to thine age if thou 
 wilt stand with me by the altar of Thor, and let thy 
 galdra unriddle the secrets that have baffled mine own. 
 All foreshown to me hath ever come to pass, but in a 
 sense other than that in which my soul read the rune 
 and the dream, the leaf and the fount, the star and the 
 Scin-l;eca. My husband slain in his youth ; my daugh- 
 ter maddened with woe; her lord murdered on his 
 hearthstone ; Sweyn, whom I loved as my child " — 
 the Vala, paused, contending against her own emotions 
 — "I loved them all, " she faltered, clasping her hands ; 
 "for them I tasked the future. The future promised 
 fair; I lured them to their doom, and when the doom 
 came, lo ! the promise was kept ! but how 1 — and now, 
 Edith, the last of my race; Harold, the pride of my 
 pride ! — speak, thing of Horror and Night, — canst thou 
 disentangle the web in which my soul struggles, weak 
 as the fly in the spider's mesh? " 
 
 " On the third night from this will I stand with 
 thee by the altar of Thor, and unriddle the rede of 
 my masters, unknown and unguessed, whom thou hadst 
 duteously served. And ere the sun rise, the greatest 
 mystery earth knows shall be bare to thy soul! " 
 
 As the witch spoke, a cloud passed over the moon; 
 and before the light broke forth again the hag had 
 vanished. There was only seen in the dull pool, the
 
 244 HAROLD. 
 
 water-rat swimming through the rank sedges; only in 
 the forest, the gray wings of the owl, fluttering heavily 
 across the glades; only in the grass, the red eyes of 
 the bloated toad. 
 
 Then Hilda went slowly home, and the maids worked 
 all night at the charmed banner. All that night, too, 
 the watch-dogs howled in the yard, through the ruined 
 peristyle, — howled in rage and in fear. And under the 
 lattice of the room in which the maids broidered the 
 banner, and the Prophetess muttered her charm, there 
 couched, muttering also, a dark, shapeless thing, at 
 which those dogs howled in rage and in fear.
 
 HAROLD. 245 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 All within the palace of Westminster shoAved the con- 
 fusion and dismay of the awful time; — all, at least, 
 save the council-chamber, in which Harold, who had 
 arrived the night before, conferred with his thegns. 
 It was evening: the courtyards and the halls were 
 filled with armed men, and almost with every hour 
 came rider and bode from the Sussex shores. In the 
 corridors the churchmen grouped and whispered, as 
 they had whispered and grouped in the day of King 
 Edward's death. Stigand passed among them, pale 
 and thoughtful. The serge gowns came rustling round 
 the archprelate for counsel or courage. 
 
 " Shall we go forth with the king's army, " asked 
 a young monk, bolder than tlie rest, " to animate the 
 host Avith prayer and hymn 1 " 
 
 " Eool ! " said the miserly prelate — " fool ! if we do 
 so, and the Norman conquer, what become of our 
 abbacies and convent lands? The duke wars against 
 Harold, not England. If he slay Harold — " 
 
 "What then f" 
 
 " The Atheling is left us yet. Stay we here and 
 guard the last prince of the house of Cerdic," whispered 
 Stigand, and he swept on. 
 
 In the chamber in which Edward had breathed his 
 last, his widowed queen, with Aldyth her successor, 
 and Githa and some other ladies, waited the decision 
 of the council. By one of the windows stood, clasping 
 each other by the hand, the fair young bride of Gurth,
 
 246 HAEOLD. 
 
 and the betrothed of the gay Leofwine, Githa sat alone, 
 bowing lier face over her hands, — desolate, mourning 
 for the fate of her traitor son; and the wounds tliat the 
 recent and holier death of Thyra had inflicted bled afresh. 
 And the holy lady of Edw^ard attempted in vain, by 
 pious adjurations, to comfort Aldyth, who, scarcely heed- 
 ing her, started ever and anon with impatient terror, 
 muttering to herself, " Shall I lose this crown too? " 
 
 In the coimcil-hall debate waxed warm, — which was 
 the wiser, to meet William at once in the battle-field, 
 or to delay till all the forces Harcld might expect (and 
 which he had ordered to be levied, in his rapid march 
 from York) could swell his host ? 
 
 " If we retire before the enemy, " said Gurth, " leav- 
 ing him in a strange land, winter approaching, his forage 
 will fail. He will scarce dare to march upon London: 
 if he does, we shall be better prepared to encounter him. 
 My voice is against resting all on a single battle." 
 
 " Is that thy choice 1 " said Vebba, indignantly. " Not 
 so, I am sure, Avould have chosen thy fatlier; not so 
 think the Saxons of Kent. The Korman is laying waste 
 all the lands of thy subjects. Lord Harold ; living on 
 plunder, as a robber, in the realm of King Alfred. 
 Dost thou think that men will get better heart to fight 
 for their country by hearing that their king shrinks from 
 the danger? " 
 
 " Thou speakest well and wisely, " said Haco ; and all 
 eyes turned to the young son of Sweyn, as to one who 
 best knew the character of the hostile army and the skill 
 of its chief. " We have now with us a force flushed 
 with conquest over a foe hitherto deemed invincible. 
 Men who have conquered the Norwegian will not shrink 
 from the Norman. Victory depends upon ardor more 
 than numbers. Every hour of delay damps the ardor.
 
 HAROLD. 247 
 
 Are we sure that it will swell the numhers 1 What I 
 dread most is not the sword of the Norman Duke, — it is 
 his craft. Rely upon it, that if we meet him not soon, 
 he will march straight to London. He will proclaim by 
 the way, that he comes not to seize the throne, hut to 
 punish Harold, and abide by the Witan, or perchance by 
 the word of the Roman pontiff. The terror of his arma- 
 ment unresisted will spread like a panic through the land. 
 Many will be decoyed by his false pretexts, many awed 
 by a force that the king dare not meet. If he come 
 in sight of the city, think you that merchants and 
 cheapmen will not be daunted by the thought of pillage 
 and sack? They will be the first to capitulate at the 
 first house which is fired. The city is weak to guard 
 against siege ; its walls long neglected ; and in sieges the 
 Normans are famous. Are we so united (the king's rule 
 thus fresh), but what no cabals, no dissensions will 
 break out amongst ourselves ? If the duke come, as 
 come he will, in the name of the Church, may not the 
 churchmen set up some new pretender to the crown, — • 
 perchance the child Edgar? And, divided against our- 
 selves, how ingloriously should we fall! Besides, this 
 land, though never before have the links between prov- 
 ince and province been drawn so close, hath yet 
 demarcations that make the people selfish. The North- 
 umbrians, I fear, will not stir to aid London, and 
 Mercia will hold aloof from our peril. Grant that 
 William once seize London, all England is broken up 
 and dispirited ; each shire, nay, each town, looking only 
 to itself. Talk of delay as wearing out the strength of 
 the foe! No, it would wear out our own. Little 
 eno', I fear, is yet left in our treasury. If William 
 seize London, that treasury is his, with all the wealth 
 of our burgesses. How should we maintain an army,
 
 248 HAROLD. 
 
 except by preying on the people, and thus discontent- 
 ing them? Where guard that army? Where are our 
 forts? where our mountains? The war of delay suits 
 only a land of rock and defile, or of castle and breast- 
 work. Thegns and warriors, ye have no castles but 
 your breasts of mail. Abandon these, and you are 
 lost." 
 
 A general murmur of applause closed this speech of 
 Haco, which, while wise in arguments our historians 
 have overlooked, came home to that noblest reason of 
 brave men which urges prompt resistance to foul 
 invasion. 
 
 Up, then, rose King Harold. 
 
 " I thank you, fellow-Englishmen, for that applause 
 with which ye have greeted mine own thoughts on the 
 lips of Haco. Shall it be said that your king rushed 
 to chase his own brother from the soil of outraged 
 England, yet shrunk from the sword of the Norman 
 stranger? Well, indeed, might my brave subjects 
 desert my banner if it floated idly over these palace 
 walls, while the armed invader pitched his camp in 
 the heart of England. By delay, William's force, 
 whatever it might be, cannot grow less; his cause grows 
 more strong in our craven fears. What his armament 
 may be, Ave rightly know not; the report varies with 
 every messenger, swelling and lessening with the rumors 
 of every hour. Have we not around us now our most 
 stalwart veterans, — the flower of our armies, the most 
 eager spirits, the vanquishers of Hardrada ? Thou say- 
 est, Gurth, that all should not be perilled on a single 
 battle. True. Harold should be perilled, but where- 
 fore England ? Grant that we win the day ; the quicker 
 our despatch, the greater our fame, the more lasting that 
 peace at home and abroad, which rests ever its best
 
 HAROLD. 249 
 
 foundation on the sense of the power, which wrong can- 
 not provoke, unchastised. Grant that we lose; a loss 
 can be made gain by a king's brave death. Why should 
 not our example rouse and unite all who survive us? 
 Which the nobler example, the one best fitted to protect 
 our country, — the recreant backs of living chiefs, or the 
 glorious dead with their fronts to the foe 1 Come what 
 may, life or death, at least we will thin the Norman 
 numbers, and heap the barriers of our corpses on the 
 Norman march. At least, we can show to the rest of 
 England how men should defend their native land! 
 And if, as I believe and pray, in every English breast 
 beats a heart like Harold's, what matters though a king 
 should fall 1 — Freedom is iiumortal. " 
 
 He spoke, and forth from his baldric he drew his 
 sword. Every blade at that signal leaped from the sheath ; 
 and in that council-hall at least, in every breast beat the 
 heart of Harold.
 
 250 HAROIJ). 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The chiefs dispersed to array their troops for the 
 morrow's march ; but Harold and his kinsmen entered 
 the chamber where the women waited the decision of 
 the council, for that, in truth, was to them the parting 
 interview. The king had resolved, after completing 
 all his martial preparations, to pass the night in the 
 Abbey of Waltham; and his brothers lodged, with the 
 troops they commanded, in the city or its suburbs. 
 Haco alone remained with that portion of the army 
 quartered in and around the palace. 
 
 They entered the chamber, and in a moment each 
 heart had sought its mate; in the mixed assembly each 
 only conscious of the other. There, Gurth bowed his 
 noble head over the weeping face of the young bride 
 that for the last time nestled to his bosom. There, 
 with a smiling lip, but tremulous voice, the gay Leof- 
 wine soothed and chided in a breath the maiden he had 
 wooed as the partner for a life that his mirthful spirit 
 made one holiday; snatching kisses from a cheek no 
 longer coy. 
 
 But cold was the kiss which Harold pressed on the 
 brow of Aldyth ; and with something of disdain, and 
 of bitter remembrance of a nobler love, he comforted 
 a terror which sprang from the thought of self. 
 
 " Oh, Harold! " sobbed Aldyth, " be not rashly brave: 
 guard thy life for my sake. Without thee, what am I ? 
 Is it even safe for me to rest here ? Were it not better 
 to fly to York, or seek refuge with Malcolm the Scoti "
 
 HAROLD. 251 
 
 " Within tlirefi days at the farthest," answered Harold, 
 " thy brothers will be in London. Abide by their 
 counsel ; act as they advise at the news of ray victory 
 or my fall." 
 
 He paused abruptly, for he heard close beside him the 
 broken voice of Garth's bride, in answer to her lord. 
 
 " Think not of me, beloved; thy whole heart now be 
 England's. And if — if — " Her voice failed a mo- 
 ment, but resumed proudly, "why, even then thy wife 
 is safe, for she survives not her lord and her land!" 
 
 The king left his wife's side, and kissed his brother's 
 bride. 
 
 " Noble heart! " he said; " with women like thee for 
 our wives and mothers, England could survive the 
 slaugliter of a thousand kings." 
 
 He turned, and knelt to Gfitha. She threw her arms 
 over his broad breast, and wept bitterly. 
 
 " Say — say, Harold, that I have not reproached thee 
 for Tostig's death. I have obeyed the last commands 
 of Godwin my lord. I have deemed thee ever right and 
 just; now let me not lose thee, too. They go with thee, 
 all my surviving sons, save the exile Wolnoth, — hira 
 whom now I shall never behold again. Oh, Harold! 
 let not mine old age be childless! " 
 
 " Mother — dear, dear mother, with these arms round 
 my neck I take new life and new heart. No! never 
 hast thou reproached me for my brother's death, — 
 never for aught which man's first duty enjoined. 
 Murmur not that that duty commands us still. We 
 are the sons, tlirough thee, of royal heroes; through 
 my father, of Saxon freemen. Rejoice that thou hast 
 three sons left, Avhose arms thou mayest pray God and 
 his saints to prosper, and over whose graves, if they 
 fall, thou shalt shed no tears of shame!"
 
 252 HAKOLD. 
 
 Then the widow of King Edward, who (the crucifix 
 clasped in her hands) had listened to Harold with lips 
 apart and marble cheeks, could keep down no longer her 
 human, woman's heart; she rushed to Harold as he still 
 knelt to Githa, — knelt by his side, and clasped him in 
 her arms with despairing fondness : — 
 
 " brother, brother, whom I have so dearly loved 
 when all other love seemed forbidden me ; — when he 
 who gave me a throne refused me his heart; when, 
 looking at thy fair promise, listening to thy tender 
 comfort; when, remembering the days of old, in which 
 thou wert my docile pupil, and we dreamed bright 
 dreams together of happiness and fame to come; Avhen, 
 loving thee, methought too well, too much as weak 
 mothers may love a mortal son, I prayed God to detach 
 my heart from earth; — oh, Harold! now forgive me all 
 my coldness. I shudder at thy resolve. I dread that 
 thou should meet this man, whom an oath hath bound 
 thee to obey. Nay, frown not, — I bow to thy will, 
 my brother and my king. I know that thou hast chosen 
 as thy conscience sanctions, as thy duty ordains. But 
 come back — oh, come back, — thou who, like me" 
 (her voice whispered), "hast sacrificed the household 
 hearth to thy country's altars, — and I will never pray 
 to Heaven to love thee less, — my brother, my 
 brother!" 
 
 In all the room were then heard but the low sounds 
 of sobs and broken exclamations. All clustered to 
 one spot, — Leofwine and his betrothed, Gurth and 
 his bride, even the selfish Aldyth, ennobled by the 
 contagion of the sublime emotion, — all clustered round 
 Githa, the mother of the three guardians of the fated 
 land, and all knelt before her by the side of Harold. 
 Suddenly the widowed queen, the virgin wife of the
 
 HAEOLD. 253 
 
 last heir of Cerdic, rose, and holding on high the 
 sacred rood over those bended heads, said, with devout 
 passion, — 
 
 " Lord of hosts, we children of Doubt and Time, 
 trembling in the dark, dare not take to ourselves to 
 question thine unerring will. Sorrow and death, as 
 joy and life, are at the breath of a mercy divine and 
 a wisdom all-seeing ; and out of the hours of evil thou 
 drawest, in mystic circle, the eternity of Good. ' Thy 
 will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' If, Dis- 
 poser of events, our human prayers are not adverse to 
 thy prejudged decrees, protect these lives, the bulwarks 
 of our homes and altars, sons whom tlie land offers as 
 a sacrifice. May thine angel turn aside the blade, — as 
 of old from the heart of Isaac! But if, Ruler of 
 Nations, in whose sight the ages are as moments, and 
 generations but as sands in the sea, these lives are 
 doomed, may the death expiate their sins, and, shrived 
 on the battle-field, absolve and receive the souls!"
 
 254 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 By the altar of the abbey cliurcli of Waltliam that night 
 knelt Edith in prayer for Harold. 
 
 She had taken up her abode in a small convent of 
 nuns that adjoined the more famous monastery of Wal- 
 tham; but she had promised Hilda not to enter on the 
 novitiate until the birthday of Harold had passed. She 
 herself had no longer faith in the omens and prophecies 
 that had deceived her youth and darkened her life; and, 
 in the more congenial air of our holy Church, the spirit 
 ever so chastened grew calm and resigned. Biit the 
 tidings of the Norman's coming, and the king's victo- 
 rious return to his capital, had reached even that still 
 retreat; and love, which had blended itself with relig- 
 ion, led her steps to that lonely altar. And suddenly, 
 as she there knelt, only lighted by the moon through 
 the high casements, she was startled by the sound of 
 approaching feet and murmuring voices. She rose in 
 alarm: the door of the church was thrown open, — 
 torches advanced, and amongst the monks, between 
 Osgood and Ailred, came the king. He had come, 
 that last night before his march, to invoke the prayers 
 of that pious brotherhood; and by the altar he had 
 founded, to pray himself that his one sin of faith for- 
 feited and oath abjured might not palsy his arm and 
 weigh on his soul in the hour of his country's need. 
 
 Edith stifled the cry that rose to her lips, as the 
 torches fell on the pale and hushed and melancholy 
 face of Harold; and she crept away under the arch of
 
 HAROLD. 255 
 
 the vast Saxon columns, and into the shade of abutting 
 walls. The monks and the king, intent on their holy 
 office, beheld not that solitary and shrinking form. 
 They approached the altar; and there the king knelt 
 down lowlily, and none heard the prayer. But as 
 Osgood held the sacred rood over the bended head of 
 the royal suppliant, the image on the crucifix (whicli 
 had been a gift from Aired the prelate, and was sup- 
 posed to have belonged of old to Augustine, the first 
 founder of the Saxon Church, — so that, by the super- 
 stition of the age, it was invested with miraculous 
 virtues) bowed itself visibly. Visibly the pale and 
 ghastly image of the suffering God bowed over the 
 head of the kneeling man; whether the fastenings of 
 the rood were loosened, or from what cause soever, — 
 in tlie eyes of all the brotherhood the image bowed. ^ 
 
 A thrill of terror froze every heart, save Edith's, too 
 remote to perceive the portent, and save the king's, 
 whom the omen seemed to doom, for his face was buried 
 in his clasped hands. Heavy was his heart, nor needed 
 it other warnings than its own gloom. 
 
 Long and silently prayed the king; and when at last 
 he rose, and the monks, tliough with altered and tremu- 
 lous voices, began their closing hymn, Edith passed 
 noiselessly along the wall; and, stealing through one 
 of the smaller doors which communicated to the nun- 
 nery annexed, gained the solitude of her own chamber. 
 There she stood, benumbed with the strength of her 
 emotions at the sight of Harold, thus abruptly pre- 
 sented. How had the fond human heart leaped to 
 meet him! Twice thus, in the august ceremonials ol 
 religion, secret, shrinking, unwitnessed, had she, his 
 betrothed, — she, the partner of his soul, — stood 
 
 ^ Palgkave : " Hist, of Anglo-Saxons."
 
 256 HAROLD. 
 
 aloof to beliold him. She had seen him in the hour 
 of his pomp, the crown upon his brow, — seen him in 
 the hour of his peril and agony, that anointed head 
 bowed to the earth. And in the pomp that she could 
 not share she had exulted; but, oh, now — now — oh 
 now that she could have knelt beside that humbled 
 form and prayed with that voiceless prayer ! 
 
 The torclies flashed in the court below ; the church 
 was again deserted ; the monks passed in mute proces- 
 sion back to their cloister; but a single man paused, 
 turned aside, and stopped at the gate of the humbler 
 convent: a knocking was heard at the great oaken door, 
 and the watch-dog barked. Edith started, pressed her 
 hand on her heart, and trembled. Steps approached 
 her door, — and the abbess, entering, summoned her 
 below, to hear the farewell greeting of her cousin the 
 king. 
 
 Harold stood in the simple hall of the cloister: a 
 single taper, tall and wan, burned on the oak board. 
 The abbess led Edith by the hand; and, at a sign from 
 the king, withdrew. So, once more upon earth, the 
 betrothed and divided were alone. 
 
 " Edith," said the king, in a voice in which no ear 
 but hers could have detected the struggle, " do not think 
 I have come to disturb thy holy calm, or sinfully revive 
 the memories of the irrevocable past: where once on my 
 breast, in the old fashion of our fathers, I wrote thy 
 name, is written now the name of the mistress that 
 supplants thee. Into Eternity melts the Past; but I 
 could not depart to a field from which there is no retreat 
 — in which, against odds that men say are fearful, I 
 have resolved to set my crown and my life — without 
 once more beholding thee, pure guardian of my happier 
 days! Thy forgiveness for all the sorrow that, in the
 
 HAROLD. 257 
 
 darkness wliich svirrounds man's hopes and dreams, I 
 have brought on thee (dread return for love so endur- 
 ing, so generous and divine !), — thy forgiveness I will 
 not ask. Thou alone, perhaps, on earth knowest the 
 soul of Harold; and if he hath wronged thee, thou seest 
 alike in the wronger and the wronged but the children 
 of iron Duty, the servants of imperial Heaven. Not 
 thy forgiveness I ask — but — but — Edith, holy maid! 
 angel soul ! — thy — thy blessing ! " His voice faltered, 
 and he inclined his lofty head as to a saint. 
 
 " Oh that I had the power to bless ! " exclaimed 
 Edith, mastering her rush of tears with a heroic effort; 
 " and methinks I have the power, — not from virtues of 
 my own, but from all that I owe to thee ! The grateful 
 have the power to bless. For what do I not owe to 
 thee, — owe to that very love, of which even the grief 
 is sacred? Poor child in the house of the heathen, thy 
 love descended upon me, and in it the smile of God ! 
 In that love my spirit awoke, and was baptized: every 
 thought that has risen from earth, and lost itself in 
 heaven, was breathed into my heart by thee ! Thy 
 creature and thy slave, hadst thou tempted me to sin, 
 sin had seemed hallowed by thy voice ; but thou saidst, 
 ' True love is virtue,' and so I worshipped virtue in 
 loving thee. Strengthened, purified by thy bright 
 companionship, from thee came the strength to resign 
 thee, — from thee the refuge under the wings of God, 
 from thee the firm assurance that our union yet shall 
 be: not as our poor Hilda dreams, on the perishable 
 earth, — but there ! oh, there ! yonder, by the celestial 
 altars, in the land in which all spirits are filled with 
 love. Yes, soul of Harold ! there are might and holi- 
 ness in the blessing the soul thou hast redeemed and 
 reared sheds on thee ! " 
 
 VOL. II. — 17
 
 2o8 HAROLD. 
 
 And so beautiful, so unlike the Beautiful of the 
 common earth, looked the maid as she thus spoke, and 
 laid hands, trembling with no hiiman passion, on that 
 royal head, — that could a soul from paradise be made 
 visible, such might be the shape it would wear to a 
 mortal's eye ! Thus, for some moments both were 
 silent; and in the silence the gloom vanished from the 
 heart of Harold, and, through a deep and sublime 
 serenity, it rose undaunted to front the future. 
 
 No embrace — no farewell kiss — profaned the part- 
 ing of those pure and noble spirits, parting on the 
 threshold of the grave. It was only the spirit that 
 clasped the spirit, looking forth from the clay into 
 measureless eternity. Not till the air of night came 
 once more on his brow, and the moonlight rested on 
 the roofs and fanes of the land intrusted to his charge, 
 was the man once more the human hero; not till she 
 Avas alone in her desolate chamber, and the terrors of 
 the coming battle-field chased the angel from her 
 thoughts, was the maid inspired once more the weep- 
 ing woman. 
 
 A little after sunrise, the abbess, who was distantly 
 akin to the house of Godwin, sought Edith, so agitated 
 by her own fear that she did not remark the trouble of 
 her visitor. The supposed miracle of the sacred image 
 bowing over the kneeling king had spread dismay 
 through the cloisters of both nunnery and abbey ; and 
 so intense was the disquietude of the two brothers, 
 Osgood and Ailred, in the simple and grateful affec- 
 tion they bore their royal benefactor, that they had 
 obeyed the impulse of their tender, credulous hearts, 
 and left the monastery with the dawn, intending to 
 follow the king's march, ^ and watch and pray near the 
 1 Palgrave : " Hist, of Anglo-Saxons."
 
 HAEOLD. 259 
 
 awful battle-field. Edith listened, and made no reply; 
 the terrors of the abbess infected her; the example of 
 the two monks woke the sole thought which stirred 
 through the nightmare dream that suspended reason 
 itself; and when, at noon, the abbess again sought the 
 chamber, Edith was gone: gone, and alone, — none 
 knew wherefore, none guessed whither. 
 
 All the pomp of the English army burst upon Harold's 
 view, as, in tlie rising sun, he approached the bridge of 
 the capital. Over that bridge came the stately march, 
 — battle-axe and spear and banner glittering in the ray. 
 And as he drew aside, and the forces defiled before him, 
 the cry of " God save King Harold ! " rose with loud 
 acclaim and lusty joy, borne over the waves of the 
 river, startling the echoes in the ruined keep of the 
 Eoman, heard in the halls restored by Canute, and 
 chiming, like a chorus, with the chants of the monks 
 by the tomb of Sebba in St. Paul's, — by the tomb of 
 Edward at St. Peter's. 
 
 With a brightened face and a kindling eye the king 
 saluted his lines, and then fell into the ranks towards 
 the rear, where, among the burghers of London and the 
 lithsmen of Middlesex, the immemorial custom of Saxon 
 monarchs placed the kingly banner. And, looking up, 
 he beheld, not his old standard with the Tiger heads 
 and the Cross, but a banner both strange and gorgeous. 
 On a field of gold was the effigies of a Fighting War- 
 rior; and the arms were bedecked in orient pearls, and 
 the borders blazed in the rising sun with ruby, amethyst, 
 and emerald. While he gazed, wondering, on this daz- 
 zling ensign, Haco, who rode beside the standard-bearer, 
 advanced and gave him a letter. 
 
 "Last night," said he, "after thou hadst left the 
 palace, many recruits, chiefly from Hertfordshire and
 
 260 HAEOLD. 
 
 Essex, came in ; but the most gallant and stalwart of 
 all, in arms and in stature, were the lithsmen of Hilda. 
 With them came this banner, on which she has lavished 
 the gems that have passed to her hand through long 
 lines of northern ancestors, from Odin, the founder of 
 all northern thrones. So, at least, said the bode of our 
 kinswoman." 
 
 Harold had already cut the silk round the letter, and 
 •was reading its contents. They ran thus : — 
 
 " King of England, I forgive thee the broken heart of my 
 grandchild. They whom the land feeds should defend the 
 land. I send to thee, in tribute, the best fruits that grow in the 
 field and the forest, round the house which my husband took 
 from the bounty of Canute, — stout hearts and strong hands ! 
 Descending alike, as do Hilda and Harold (through Githa, 
 thy mother), from the Warrior God of the North, whose race 
 never shall fail, — take, O defender of the Saxon children of 
 Odin, the banner I have broidered with the gems that the 
 Chief of the Asas bore from the East. Firm as love be thy 
 foot, strong as death be thy hand, under the shade which the 
 banner of Hilda — under the gleam which the jewels of Odin 
 — cast on the brows of the king ! So Hilda, the daughter of 
 monarchs, greets Harold, the leader of men." 
 
 Harold looked up from the letter, and Haco resumed : — 
 " Thou canst guess not the cheering effect which this 
 banner, supposed to be charmed, and which the name 
 of Odin alone would suffice to make holy, at least, with 
 thy fierce Anglo-Danes, hath already produced through 
 the army." 
 
 " It is well, Haco," said Harold, with a smile. " Let 
 priest add his blessing to Hilda's charm, and Heaven 
 will pardon any magic that makes more brave the hearts 
 that defend its altars. Now fall we back, for the army 
 must pass beside the hill with the crommell and grave
 
 HAROLD. 261 
 
 stone; there, be sure, Hilda will be at watch for our 
 march, and we will linger a few moments to thank her 
 somewhat for her banner, yet more justly, methinks, 
 for her men. Are not yon stout fellows all in mail, so 
 tall and so orderly, in advance of the London burghers, 
 Hilda's aid to our Fyrd?" 
 
 " They are," answered Haco. 
 
 The king backed his steed to accost them with his 
 kingly greeting; and then, with Haco, falling yet far- 
 ther to the rear, seemed engaged in inspecting the 
 numerous wains, bearing missiles and forage, that 
 always accompanied the march of a Saxon array, and 
 served to strengthen its encampment. But when they 
 came in sight of the hillock by which the great body 
 of the army had preceded them, the king and the son 
 of Sweyn dismounted, and on foot entered the large 
 circle of the Celtic ruin. 
 
 By the side of the Teuton altar the}'' beheld two 
 forms, both perfectly motionless : but one was extended 
 on the ground, as in sleep or in death; the other sat 
 beside it, as if watching the corpse or guarding the 
 slumber. The face of the last was not visible, propped 
 upon the arms which rested on the knees, and hidden 
 by the hands. But in the face of the other, as the two 
 men drew near, they recognized the Danish prophetess. 
 Death in its dreadest characters was written on that 
 ghastly face : woe and terror, beyond all words to 
 describe, spoke in the haggard brow, the distorted 
 lips, and the wild glazed stare of the open eyes. At 
 the startled cry of the intruders on that dreary silence, 
 the living form moved ; and though still leaning its 
 face on its hands, it raised its head; and never coun- 
 tenance of northern vampire, cowering by the rifled 
 grave, was more fiend-like and appalling.
 
 2G2 HAUOLD. 
 
 "Who and what art thou?" said the king; "and 
 how, thus unhonored in the air of heaven, lies the 
 corpse of the noble Hilda 1 Is this the hand of nature 1 
 Haco, Haco, so look the eyes, so set the features, of 
 those whom the horror of ruthless murder slays even 
 before the steel strikes. Speak, hag; art thou dumb? " 
 
 " Search the body," answered the witch, " there is no 
 wound! Look to the throat, — no mark of the deadly 
 gripe f I have seen such in my day. There are none 
 on this corpse, I trow; yet thou sayest rightly, horror 
 slew her! Ha, ha! she would know, and she hath 
 known; she would raise the dead and the demon, — 
 she hath raised them; she would read the riddle, — she 
 hath read it. Pale king and dark youth, would ye learn 
 what Hilda saw, eh? eh? Ask her in the Shadow- 
 World where she awaits ye! Ha! ye too would be 
 wise in the future; ye too would climb to heaven 
 through the mysteries of hell. Worms! worms! crawl 
 back to the clay, — to the earth! One such night as 
 the hag ye despise enjoys as her sport and her glee 
 would freeze your veins and sear the life in your eye- 
 balls, and leave your corpses to terror and wonder, like 
 the carcass that lies at your feet!" 
 
 "Ho!" cried the king, stamping his foot, — "hence, 
 Haco; rouse the household; summon hither the hand- 
 maids; call henchman and ceorl to guard this foul 
 raven." 
 
 Haco obeyed; but when he returned with the sluul- 
 dering and amazed attendants, the witch was gone, and 
 the king was leaning against the altar with downcast 
 eyes, and a face troubled and dark with thought. 
 
 The body of the Vala was borne into the house ; and 
 the king, waking from his reverie, bade them send for 
 the priests, and ordered masses for the parted soul.
 
 HAROLD. 263 
 
 Then kneeling, with pious hand he closed the eyes and 
 smoothed the features, and left his mournful kiss on 
 the icy brow. These offices fulfilled, he took Haco's 
 arm, and, leaning on it, returned to the spot on which 
 they had left their steeds. Not evincing surprise or 
 awe, — emotions that seemed unknown to his gloomy, 
 settled, impassible nature, — Haco said calmly, as they 
 descended the knoll, — 
 
 " What evil did the hag predict to thee ? " 
 
 " Haco, " answered the king, " yonder, by the shores 
 of Sussex, lies all the future which our eyes now should 
 scan and our hearts should be firm to meet. These 
 omens and apparitions are but the ghosts of a dead 
 Eeligion, — spectres sent from the grave of the fearful 
 Heathenesse ; they may appall but to lure us from our 
 duty. Lo, as we gaze around, the ruins of all the 
 creeds that have made the hearts of men quake with 
 unsubstantial awe ; lo, the temple of the Briton ! — lo, 
 the fane of the Koman ! — lo, the mouldering altar of 
 our ancestral Thor ! Ages past lie wrecked around us 
 in these shattered symbols. A new age hath risen, and 
 a new creed. Keep we to the broad trutlis before us; 
 duty here ; knowledge comes alone in the Hereafter. " 
 
 " That Hereafter ! — is it not near ? " murmured Haco. 
 
 They mounted in silence; and, ere they regained the 
 army, paused, by a common impulse, and looked behind. 
 Awful in their desolation rose the temple and the altar! 
 And in Hilda's mysterious death it seemed that their 
 last and lingering Genius — the Genius of the dark and 
 fierce, the warlike and the wizard North — had expired 
 forever. Yet on the outskirt of the forest, dusk and 
 shapeless, that witch without a name stood in the 
 shadow, pointing towards them, with outstretched arm, 
 in vague and denouncing menace ; — as if, come what
 
 264 HAROLD. 
 
 may, all change of creed, — be the faith ever so simple, 
 the truth ever so bright and clear, — there is a super- 
 stition native to that Border-land between the Visible 
 and the Unseen, which will find its priest and its vota- 
 ries, till the full and crowning splendor of Heaven shall 
 melt every shadow from the world !
 
 HAROLD. 265 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 On the broad plain between Pevensey and Hastings 
 Duke William had arrayed his armaments. In the 
 rear he had built a castle of wood, all the framework 
 of which he had brought with him, and which was to 
 serve as a refuge in case of retreat. His ships he had 
 run into deep water and scuttled, so that the thought 
 of return without victory might be banished from his 
 miscellaneous and multitudinous force. His outposts 
 stretched for miles, keeping watch night and day agaitist 
 surprise. The ground chosen was adapted for all the 
 manoeuvres of a cavalry never before paralleled in Eng- 
 land, nor perhaps in the world, — almost every horseman 
 a knight, almost every knight fit to be a chief. And on 
 this space William reviewed his army, and there planned 
 and schemed, rehearsed and reformed, all tlie stratagems 
 the great day might call forth. But most careful and 
 laborious and minute was he in the manoeuvre of a 
 feigned retreat. Not, ere the acting of some modern 
 play, does the anxious manager more elaborately marshal 
 each man, each look, each gesture, that are to form a 
 picture on which the curtain shall fall amidst deafening 
 plaudits, than did the laborious captain appoint each man 
 and each movement in his lure to a valiant foe : tlie 
 attack of the foot, their recoil, their affected panic, their 
 broken exclamations of despair ; their retreat, first partial 
 and reluctant, next seemingly hurried and complete, — 
 flying, but in flight care/ifZ/y confused ; — then the settled 
 watchword, the lightning rally, the rush of the cavalry
 
 266 HAROLD. 
 
 from the ambusli; the sweep and hem round the pur- 
 suing foe, the detachment of levelled spears to cut off 
 the Saxon return to the main force, and the lost ground, 
 — were all directed by the most consummate master- 
 ship in the stage-play or upokrlsis of war, and seized 
 by the adroitness of practised veterans. 
 
 Not now, Harold! hast thou to contend against 
 the rude heroes of the Norse, with their ancestral 
 strategy unimproved! The Civilization of Battle meets 
 thee now ! and all the craft of the Eoman guides the 
 manhood of the North. 
 
 It was in the midst of such lessons to his foot and 
 his horsemen — spears gleaming, pennons tossing, lines 
 re-forming, steeds backing, wheeling, flj'ing, circling — 
 that William's eye blazed, and his deep voice thun- 
 dered the thrilling word; when Mallet de Graville, 
 wlio was in command at one of the outposts, rode up 
 to him at full speed, and said in gasps, as he drew 
 breath, — 
 
 " King Harold and his army are advancing furiously. 
 Their object is clearly to come on us unawares." 
 
 "Hold!" said the duke, lifting his hand; and the 
 knights around him halted in their perfect discipline; 
 then, after a few brief but distinct orders to Odo, Fitz- 
 osborne, and some other of his leading chiefs, he headed 
 a numerous cavalcade of his knights, and rode fast to 
 the outpost which Mallet had left, to catch sight of 
 the coming foe. 
 
 The horsemen cleared the plain, passed through a 
 wood mournfully fading into autumnal hues, and, on 
 emerging, they saw the gleam of the Saxon spears rising 
 on the brows of the gentle hills beyond. But even the 
 time, short as it was, that had sufficed to bring William 
 in view of the enemy, had sufficed also, under the
 
 HAROLD. 267 
 
 orders of his generals, to give to the wide plain of his 
 encampment all the order of a host prepared. And 
 William, having now mounted on a rising ground, 
 turned from the spears on the hill-tops to his own fast- 
 forming lines on the plam, and said, with a stern 
 smile, — 
 
 " Methinks the Saxon usurper, if he he among those 
 on the height of yon hills, will vouchsafe us time to 
 hreathe. St. Michael gives his crown to our hands, and 
 his corpse to the crow, if he dare to descend. " 
 
 Arid so, indeed, as the duke with a soldier's eye 
 foresaw from a soldier's skill, so it proved. The spears 
 rested on the summits. It soon became evident that 
 the English general perceived that here there was no 
 Hardrada to surprise, that the news brought to his ear 
 had exaggerated neither the numbers, nor the arms, nor 
 the discipline of the Norman, and that the battle was 
 not to the bold, but to the wary. 
 
 " He doth right," said William, musingly; " nor think, 
 O my quens, that we shall find a fool's hot brain under 
 Harold's helmet of iron. How is this broken ground of 
 hillock and valley named in our chart? It is strange 
 that we should have overlooked its strength, and suff"ered 
 it thus to fall into the hands of the foe. How is it 
 named 1 Can any of ye remember 1 " 
 
 " A Saxon peasant, " said De Graville, " told me that 
 the ground was called Senlac,^ or Sanglac, or some such 
 name, in their musicless jargon." 
 
 " Gramercy ! " quoth Grantmesnil, " methinks the 
 name will be familiar eno' hereafter; no jargon seemeth 
 the sound to my ear: a significant name, and ominous, — ■ 
 Sanglac, Sanguelac, the Lake of Blood. " 
 
 1 The battle-field of Hastings seems to have been called Seulac 
 before the Conquest, — Sanguelac after it.
 
 268 HAROLD. 
 
 " Sanguelac ! " said the duke, startled : " where have 
 I heard that name hefore 1 it must have been between 
 sleeping and waking, — Sanguelac, Sanguelac! — truly 
 sayest thou, through a lake of blood we must wade 
 indeed!" 
 
 " Yet, " said De Graville, " thine astrologer foretold 
 that thou wouldst win the realm without a battle." 
 
 " Poor astrologer ! " said William, " the ship he 
 sailed in was lost. Ass indeed is he who pretends to 
 warn others, nor sees an inch before his eyes what his 
 own fate will be! Battle shall we have, but not yet. 
 Hark thee, Guillaume, thou hast been guest with this 
 usurper; thou hast seemed to me to have some love 
 for him, — a love natural, since thou didst once fight by 
 his side : wilt thou go from me to the Saxon host with 
 Hugues Maigrot the monk, and back the message I shall 
 send 1 " 
 
 The proud and punctilious Norman thrice crossed 
 himself ere he answered, — 
 
 " There was a time. Count William, when I should 
 have deemed it honor to hold parle with Harold the 
 brave earl ; but now, with the crown on his head, I hold 
 it shame and disgrace to barter words with a knight 
 unleal and a man forsworn." 
 
 " Nathless, thou shalt do me this favor, " said 
 William ; " for " (and he took the knight somewhat 
 aside) " I cannot disguise from thee that I look anxiously 
 on the chance of battle. Yon men are flushed with new 
 triumph over the greatest warrior Norway ever knew ; 
 they will fight on their own soil, and under a chief 
 whom I have studied and read with more care than the 
 Comments of CiEsar, and in whom the guilt of perjury 
 cannot blind me to the wit of a great general. If we 
 can yet get our end without battle, large shall be my
 
 HAROLD. 269 
 
 tlianks to thee, and I will hold thine astrologer a man 
 wise, though unhappy." 
 
 " Cartes, " said De Graville, gravely, " it were dis- 
 courteous to the memory of the star-seer not to make 
 some effort to prove his science a just one. And the 
 Chaldeans — " 
 
 " Plague seize the Chaldeans ! " muttered the duke. 
 " Eide with me hack to the camp, that I may give thee 
 my message, and instruct also the monk." 
 
 "De G-raville, " resumed the duke, as they rode 
 towards the lines, " my meaning is briefly this. I do 
 not think that Harold will accept my offers and resign 
 his crown, but I design to spread dismay, and perhaps 
 revolt, amongst his captains; I wish that they may 
 know that the Church lays its curse on those who fight 
 against my consecrated banner, I do not ask thee, there- 
 fore, to demean thy knighthood by seeking to cajole the 
 usurper, — no, but rather boldly to denounce his perjury, 
 and startle his liegemen. Perchance they may compel 
 him to terms, — perchance they may desert his banner ; 
 at the Avorst they shall be daunted with full sense of the 
 guilt of his cause. " 
 
 " Ha, now I comprehend thee, noble count ; and 
 trust me I will speak as Norman and knight should 
 speak." 
 
 Meanwhile Harold, seeing the utter hopelessness of 
 all sudden assault, had seized a general's advantage of 
 the ground he had gained. Occupying the line of hills, 
 he began forthwith to intrench himself behind deep 
 ditches and artful palisades. It is impossible now to 
 stand on that spot without recognizing the military skill 
 with which the Saxon had taken his post and formed his 
 precautions. He surrounded the main body of his troops 
 with a perfect breastwork against the charge of the horse.
 
 270 HAROLD. 
 
 Stakes and strong hurdles, interwoven with osier plaits, 
 and protected by deep dykes, served at once to neutralize 
 the effect of that arm in which William was most power- 
 ful, and in which Harold almost entirely failed; while 
 the possession of the ground must compel the foe to 
 march and to charge up hill, against all the missiles which 
 the Saxons could pour down from their intrenchments. 
 
 Aiding, animating, cheering, directing all, while the 
 dykes were fast hollowed and the breastworks fast rose, 
 the King of England rode his palfrey from line to line 
 and work to work, when, looking up, he saw Haco 
 leading towards him, up the slopes, a monk, and a 
 warrior whom, by the banderol on his spear and the 
 cross on his shield, he knew to be one of the Norman 
 knighthood. 
 
 At that moment Gurth and Leofwine, and those 
 thegns who commanded counties, were thronging round 
 their chief for instructions. The king dismounted, and, 
 beckoning them to follow, strode towards the spot on 
 which had just been planted his royal standard. There 
 halting, he said with a grave smile, — 
 
 " I perceive that the Norman count hath sent us his 
 bodes; it is meet that with me, you, the defenders of 
 England, should hear what the Norman saith. " 
 
 " If he saith aught but prayer for his men to return to 
 Rouen, needless his message, and short our answer," said 
 Vebba, the bluff thegn of Kent. 
 
 Meanwhile the monk and the Norman knight drew 
 near, and paused at some short distance, while Haco, 
 advancing, said briefly, — 
 
 " These men I found at our outposts; they demand to 
 speak with the king." 
 
 " Under his standard the king will hear the Norman 
 invader," replied Harold; " bid them speak."
 
 HAROLD. 271 
 
 The same sallow, mournful, ominous countenance, 
 which Harold had before seen in the halls of West- 
 minster, rising deathlike above the serge garb of the 
 Benedict of Caen, now presented itself, and the monk 
 thus spoke : — 
 
 " In the name of William, duke of the, Normans in the 
 field, count of Rouen in the hall, claimant of all the 
 realms of Anglia, Scotland, and the Walloons, held under 
 Edward his cousin, I come to thee, Harold, his liege and 
 earl." 
 
 " Cliange thy titles, or depart, " said Harold, fiercely, 
 his brow no longer mild in its majesty, but dark as 
 midnight. " What says William, the count of the 
 foreigners, to Harold, king of the Angles and Basileus 
 of Britain 1 " 
 
 " Protesting against thy assumption, I answer thee 
 thus, " said Hugues Maigrot. " First, again he offers thee 
 all jSTorthumbria, up to the realm of the Scottish suWcing, 
 if thou wilt fulfil thy vow and cede him the crown. " 
 
 " Already have I answered, — the crown is not mine 
 to give; and my people stand round me in arms to de- 
 fend the king of their choice. What next 1 " 
 
 " Next offers William to withdraw his troops from the 
 land, if thou and thy council and chiefs will submit to 
 the arbitrament of our most holy Pontiff, Alexander the 
 Second, and abide by his decision whether thou or my 
 liege have the best right to the throne." 
 
 " This, as churchman, " said the abbot of the great 
 convent of Peterborough (who, with the abbot of Hide, 
 had joined the march of Harold, deeming as one the 
 cause of altar and throne) — " this, as churchman, may 
 / take leave to answer. Never yet hath it been heard in 
 England that the spiritual suzerain of Rome should give 
 us our kings. "
 
 272 HAKOLD. 
 
 " And," said Harold, with a bitter smile, " the Pope 
 hath already summoned me to this trial, as if the laws 
 of England were kept in the rolls of the Vatican! 
 Already, if rightly informed, the Pope hath been 
 pleased to decide that our Saxon land is the Norman's. 
 I reject a judge witliout a right to decide; and I mock 
 at a sentence that profanes Heaven in its insult to men. 
 Is this all ? " 
 
 " One last offer yet remains, " replied the monk, 
 sternly. " This knight shall deliver its import. But 
 ere I depart, and thou and thine are rendered up to 
 Vengeance Divine, I speak the word of a mightier 
 chief than William of Rouen. Thus saith his holiness, 
 with whom rests the power to bind and to loose, to 
 bless and to curse : ' Harold the Perjurer, thou art 
 accursed ! On thee, and on all who lift hand in thy 
 cause, rests the interdict of the Church. Thou art 
 excommunicated from the family of Christ. On thy 
 land, with its peers and its people, — yea, to the beast in 
 the field and the bird in the air, to the seed as the 
 sower, the harvest as the reaper, — rests God's anathema ! 
 The bull of the Vatican is in the tent of the Norman ; 
 the gonfanon of St. Peter hallows you armies to the 
 service of Heaven. March on, then : ye march as the 
 Assyrian; and the angel of the Lord awaits ye on 
 the way.' " 
 
 At these words, which for the first time apprised the 
 English leaders that their king and kingdom were under 
 the awful ban of excommunication, the thegns and abbots 
 gazed on each other aghast. A visible shudder passed 
 over the whole warlike conclave, save only three, Harold, 
 and Gurth, and Haco. 
 
 The king himself was so moved by indignation at the 
 insolence of the monk, and by scorn at the fulmen,
 
 HAROLD. 273 
 
 which, resting not alone on his own head, presumed to 
 hlast the liberties of a nation, that he strode towards 
 the speaker, and it is even said of him by the IvTorman 
 chroniclers that he raised his hand as if to strike the 
 denouncer to the earth. 
 
 But Gurth interposed, and with his clear eye serenely 
 shining with virtuous passion, he stood betwixt monk 
 and king. 
 
 " thou, " he exclaimed, " with the words of religion 
 on thy lips, and the devices of fraud in thy heart, hide 
 thy front in thy cowl, and slink back to thy master. 
 Heard ye not, thegns and abbots, heard ye not this 
 bad, false man offer, as if for peace, and as with the 
 desire of justice, that the pope should arbitrate between 
 your king and the Norman 1 yet all the while the 
 monk knew that the pope had already predetermined 
 the cause; and had ye fallen into the wile, ye would 
 but have cowered under the verdict of a judgment 
 that has presumed, even before it invoked ye to 
 the trial, to dispose of a free people and an ancient 
 kingdom ! " 
 
 " It is true, it is true, " cried the thegns, rallying from 
 their first superstitious terror, and, with their plain 
 English sense of justice, revolted at the perfidy which 
 the priest's overtures had concealed. " We will hear no 
 more ; away with the Swikebode. " ^ 
 
 The pale cheek of the monk turned yet paler; he 
 seemed abashed by the storm of resentment he had 
 provoked ; and in some fear, perhaps, at the dark faces 
 bent on him, he slunk behind his comrade the kniglit, 
 who as yet had said nothing, but, his face concealed by 
 his helmet, stood motionless like a steel statue. And, 
 in fact, these tAvo ambassadors — the one in his monk 
 
 1 Traitor messenger. 
 
 VOL. II. — 18
 
 274 HAROLD. 
 
 garb, the other in his iron array — were types and repre- 
 sentatives of the two forces now brought to bear upon 
 Harold and England, — Chivalry and the Church. 
 
 At the momentary discomfiture of the priest, now 
 stood forth the warrior ; and throwing back his helmet, 
 so that the whole steel cap rested on the nape of the 
 neck, leaving the hauglity face and half-shaven head 
 bare, Mallet de Graville thus spoke : — 
 
 " The ban of the Church is against ye, warriors and 
 chiefs of England, but for the crime of one man! 
 Remove it from yourselves: on his single head be the 
 curse and the consequence. Harold, called King of 
 England, failing the two milder offers of my comrade, 
 thus saith from the lips of his knight (once thy guest, 
 thy admirer, and friend), thus saith William the Nor- 
 man : — ' Though sixty thousand warriors under the 
 banner of the Apostle wait at his beck (and from what 
 I see of thy force, thou canst marshal to thy guilty side 
 scarce a third of the number), yet will Count William 
 lay aside all advantage, save what dwells in strong arm 
 and good cause; and here, in presence of thy thegns, 
 I challenge thee in his name to decide the sway of this 
 realm by single battle. On horse and in mail, with 
 sword and with spear, knight to knight, man to man, 
 wilt thou meet William the Norman 1 ' " 
 
 Before Harold could reply, and listen to the first 
 impulse of a valor, which his worst Norman maligner, 
 in the after-day of triumphant calumny, never so lied 
 as to impugn, the thegns themselves, almost with one 
 voice, took tip the reply. 
 
 " No strife between a man and a man shall decide 
 the liberties of thousands ! " 
 
 " Never ! " exclaimed Gurth. " It were an insult 
 to the whole people to regard this as a strife between
 
 HAKOLD. 275 
 
 two chiefs, wliich should wear a crown. When the 
 invader is in our land, the war is with a nation, not a 
 king. And, by the very offer, this Norman count 
 (who cannot even speak our tongue) shows how little 
 he knows of the laws by which, under our native 
 kings, we have all as great an interest as a king himself 
 in our fatherland." 
 
 " Thou hast heard the answer of England from those 
 lips. Sire de G-raville, " said Harold ; " mine but repeat 
 and sanction it. I will not give the crown to William 
 in lieu for disgrace and an earldom. I will not abide 
 by the arbitrament of a pope who has dared to affix a 
 curse upon freedom. I will not so violate the principle 
 which in these realms knits king and people as to arrogate 
 to my single arm the right to dispose of the birthright 
 of the living, and their races unborn ; nor will I deprive 
 the meanest soldier under my banner of the joy and the 
 glory to fight for his native land. If William seek me, 
 he shall find me where war is the fiercest, where the 
 corpses of his men lie the thickest on the plains, defend- 
 ing this standard or rushing on his own. And so, 
 not monk and pope, but God in his wisdom, adjudge 
 between us ! " 
 
 " So be it ! " said Mallet de Graville, solemnly, and 
 his helmet reclosed over his face. " Look to it, recreant 
 knight, perjured Christian, and usurping king! The 
 bones of the dead fight against thee." 
 
 " And the fleshless hands of the saints marshal the 
 hosts of the living, " said the monk. 
 
 And so the messengers turned, without obeisance or 
 salute, and strode silently away.
 
 276 HAROLD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The rest of that day and the whole of the next were 
 consumed by both armaments in the completion of 
 their preparations. 
 
 William was willing to delay the engagement as 
 long as he could; for he was not without hope that 
 Harold might abandon his formidable position and 
 become the assailing party; and, moreover, he wished 
 to have full time for his prelates and priests to inflame 
 to the utmost, by their representations of William's 
 moderation in his embassy and Harold's presumptuous 
 guilt in rejection, the fiery fanaticism of all enlisted 
 under the gonfanon of the Church. 
 
 On the other hand, every delay was of advantage to 
 Harold, in giving him leisure to render his intrench- 
 ments yet more eifectual, and to allow time for such 
 reinforcements as his orders had enjoined or the pa- 
 triotism of the country might arouse; but, alas! those 
 reinforcements were scanty and insignificant: a few 
 stragglers in the immediate neighborhood arrived, but 
 no aid came from London, no indignant country poured 
 forth a swarming population. In fact, the very fame 
 of Harold, and the good fortune that had hitherto 
 attended his arms, contributed to the stupid lethargy 
 of tlie people. That he who had just subdued the 
 terrible Norsemen, with the mighty Hardrada at their 
 head, should succumb to those dainty " rrenchraen, " 
 as they chose to call the Normans, — of whom, in their 
 insular ignorance of the Continent, they knew but little,
 
 HAROLD. 277 
 
 and whom they had seen flying in all directions at the 
 return of Godwin, — was a preposterous demand on the 
 imagination. 
 
 ^STor was this all : in London there had already formed 
 a cabal in favor of the Atheling. The claims of birth 
 can never be so wholly set aside but what, even for the 
 most unworthy heir of an ancient line, some adherents 
 will be found. The prudent traders thought it best not 
 to engage actively on behalf of the reigning king in his 
 present combat with the ISTorman pretender; a large 
 number of would-be statesmen thought it best for the 
 country to remain for the present neutral. Grant tlie 
 worst, — grant that Harold were defeated or slain, — 
 would it not be wise to reserve their strength to support 
 the Atheling 1 William might have some personal cause 
 of quarrel against Harold, but he could have none against 
 Edgar; he might depose the son of Godwin, but could 
 he dare to depose the descendant of Cerdic, the natural 
 heir of Edward 1 There is reason to tliink that Stigand 
 and a large party of the Saxon churchmen headed this 
 faction. 
 
 But the main causes for defection were not in adher- 
 ence to one chief or to another. They were to be found 
 in selfish inertness, in stubborn conceit, in the long 
 peace, and the enervate superstition which had relaxed 
 the sinews of the old Saxon manhood; in that indif- 
 ference to things ancient which contempt for old names 
 and races engendered; that timorous spirit of calcula- 
 tion which the over-regard for wealth had fostered, 
 Avhicli made men averse to leave trade and farm for the 
 perils of the field, and jeopardize their possessions if the 
 foreigner should prevail. 
 
 Accustomed already to kings of a foreign race, and 
 having fared well under Canute, there were many who
 
 278 HAROLD. 
 
 said, " What matters who sits on the throne 1 the Icing 
 must be equally bound by our laws." Then, too, was 
 heard the favorite argument of all slothful minds: 
 " Time enough yet ; one battle lost is not England won. 
 Marry, we shall turn out fast eno' if Harold be beaten." 
 Add to all these causes for apathy and desertion the 
 haughty jealousies of tlie several populations not yet 
 wholly fused into one empire. The Northumi)rian 
 Danes, untaught even by their recent escape from the 
 Norwegian, regarded with ungrateful coldness a war 
 limited at present to the southern coasts; and the 
 vast territory under Mercia was, with more excuse, 
 equally supine ; while their two young earls, too new 
 in their command to have much sway with their suliject 
 populations had they been in their capitals, had now 
 arrived in London; and there lingered, making head, 
 doubtless, against the intrigues in favor of the Atheling : 
 
 — so little had Harold's marriage with Aldyth brought 
 him, at the hour of his dreadest need, the power for 
 which happiness had been resigned! 
 
 Nor must we put out of account, in summing the 
 causes which at this awful crisis weakened the arm of 
 England, the curse of slavery amongst the theowes, 
 which left the lowest part of the population wholly 
 "without interest in the defence of the land. Too late 
 
 — too late for all but unavailable slaughter, the spirit 
 of the country rose amidst the violated pledges, but 
 imder the iron heel of the Norman master ! Had that 
 spirit put forth all its might for one day with Harold, 
 where had been the centuries of bondage ! Oh, shame 
 to the absent! All blessed those present! There was 
 no hope for England out of the scanty lines of the im- 
 mortal army encamped on the field of Hastings. There, 
 long on earth, and vain vaunts of poor pride, shall be
 
 HAROLD. 279 
 
 kept the roll of tlie robber invaders. In what roll are 
 your names, holy heroes of the soil? Yes, may the 
 prayer of the virgin queen be registered on high ; and, 
 assoiled of all sin, O ghosts of the glorious dead, may 
 ye rise from your graves at the trump of the angel ; and 
 your names, lost on earth, shine radiant and stainless 
 amidst the hierarchy of heaven ! 
 
 Dull came the shades of evening, and pale through the 
 rolling clouds glimmered the rising stars, when — all pre- 
 pared, all arrayed — Harold sat with Haco and Gurth 
 in his tent; and before them stood a man, half French 
 by origin, who had just returned from the Norman 
 camp. 
 
 " So thou didst mingle with the men undiscovered 1 " 
 said the king. 
 
 " No, not undiscovered, my lord. I fell in with a 
 knicht, whose name I have since heard as that of Mallet 
 de Graville, who wilily seemed to believe in what I 
 stated, and who gave me meat and drink, with debonair 
 courtesy. Then said he abruptly, ' Spy from Harold, 
 thou hast come to see the strength of the Norman. 
 Thou shalt have thy will, — follow me.' Therewith he 
 led me, all startled, I own, through the lines; and, O 
 king, I should deem them indeed countless as the sands, 
 and resistless as the waves, but that, strange as it may 
 seem to thee, I saw more monks than warriors." 
 
 " How! thou jestest! " said Gurth surprised. 
 
 " No ; for, thousands by thousands, they were praying 
 and kneeling ; and their heads were all shaven with the 
 tonsure of priests. " 
 
 " Priests are they not, " cried Harold, with his calm 
 smile, " but doughty warriors and dauntless knights. " 
 
 Then he continued his questions to the spy ; and his 
 smile vanished at the accounts, not only of the numbers
 
 280 HAROLD. 
 
 of the force, but their vast provision of missiles, and the 
 ahnost incredible proportion of their cavalry. 
 
 As soon as the spy had been dismissed, the king turned 
 to his kinsmen. 
 
 "What think you?" he said; "shall we judge our- 
 selves of the foe 1 Tlie night will be dark anon ; our 
 steeds are fleet, — and not shod with iron like the Nor- 
 mans ; the sward noiseless, — what think you ? " 
 
 " A merry conceit, " cried the blithe Leofwine. " I 
 should like much to see the boar in his den, ere he 
 taste of my spear-point." 
 
 " And I," said Gurth, " do feel so restless a fever in 
 my veins, that I would fain cool it by the night air. 
 Let us go : I know all the ways of the country ; for 
 hither have I come often with hawk and hound. But 
 let us wait yet till the night is more hushed and deep." 
 
 The clouds had gathered over the whole surface of 
 the skies, and there hung sullen ; and the mists were 
 cold and gray on the lower grounds, when the four 
 Saxon chiefs set forth on their secret and perilous 
 enterprise. 
 
 " Knights and riders took they none. 
 Squires and varlets ol' foot not one; 
 All unarmed of weapon and weed, 
 Save the shield, and spear, and the sword at need." ^ 
 
 Passing their own sentinels, they entered a Avood, 
 Gurth leading the way, and catching glimpses, through 
 the irregular path, of the blazing lights, that shone red 
 over the pause of the Norman war. 
 
 1 " Ne nieineut od els chevalier, 
 Varlet a pie ue eskuier 
 Ne nul d'els u'a amies portee, 
 Forz sol escu, lauce, et espee." 
 
 " Roniau de llou," Second Part, v. 12, 126.
 
 HAROLD. 281 
 
 William had moved on his army t-o within about 
 two miles from the farthest outposts of the Saxon, and 
 contracted his lines into compact space; the reconnoit- 
 erers were thus enabled, by the light of the links and 
 watchfires, to form no inaccurate notion of the formid- 
 able foe whom the morrow was to meet. The ground ^ 
 on which they stood was high, and in the deep shadow 
 of the wood; with one of the large dykes common to 
 the Saxon boundaries in front, so that, even if discov- 
 ered, a barrier not easily passed lay between them and 
 the foe. 
 
 In regular lines and streets extended huts of branches 
 for the meaner soldiers, leading up, in serried rows but 
 broad vistas, to the tents of the knights, and the gaudier 
 pavilions of the counts and prelates. There were to be 
 seen the flags of Bretagne and Anjou, of Burgundy, of 
 Flanders, even the ensign of France, which the volun- 
 teers from that country had assumed; and, right in 
 the midst of this Capital of War, the gorgeous pavilion 
 of William himself, with a dragon of gold before it, 
 surmounting the staff, from which blazed the Papal 
 gonfanon. In every division they heard the anvils of 
 the armorers, the measured tread of the sentries, the 
 neigh and snort of innumerable steeds. And along the 
 lines, between hut and tent, they saw tall shapes pass- 
 ing to and from the forge and smithy, bearing mail 
 and swords and shafts. No sound of revel, no laugh 
 of wassail was heard in the consecrated camp ; all was 
 astir, but with the grave and earnest preparations of 
 
 1 " Ke d'une angarde " u ils 'estuient 
 Cols de Tost vireut, ki pres furent. " 
 
 " Roman de Rou," Second Part, v. 12, 126. 
 
 a Angarde, eminence.
 
 282 HAROLD. 
 
 thoughtful men. As the four Saxons halted silent, 
 each might have heard, through the remoter din, the 
 other's })ainful breathing. 
 
 At length, from two tents, placed to the right and 
 left of the duke's pavilion, there came a sweet tinkling 
 sound, as of deep silver bells. At that note there was 
 an evident and universal commotion throughout tlie 
 armament. The roar of the hammers ceased ; and from 
 every green hut and every gray tent, swarmed the host. 
 Now rows of living men lined the camp-streets, leaving 
 still a free, though narrow passage in the midst. And, 
 by the blaze of more than a thousand torches, the Saxons 
 saw processions of priests, in their robes and aubes, with 
 censer and rood, couiing down the various avenues. As 
 the priests paused, the warriors knelt; and there was 
 a low mttrmur as if of confession, and the sign of lifted 
 hands, as if in absolution and blessing. Suddenly, from 
 the outskirts of the camp, and full in sight, emerged 
 from one of the cross lanes, Odo of Bayeux himself, in 
 his white surplice, and the cross in his right hand. 
 Yea, even to the meanest and lowliest soldiers of the 
 armament, whether taken from honest craft and peace- 
 ful calling, or the outpourings of Europe's sinks and 
 sewers, catamarans from the Alps, and cut-throats from 
 the Rhine, — yea, even among the vilest and the mean- 
 est, came the anointed brother of the great duke, the 
 haughtiest prelate in Christendom, whose heart even 
 then was fixed on the Pontiff's throne, — there he came, 
 to absolve, and to shrive, and to bless. And the red 
 watch-fires streamed on his proud face and spotless 
 robes, as the Children of Wrath knelt around the 
 Delegate of Peace. 
 
 Harold's hand clinched firm on the arm of Gurth, 
 and his old scorn of the monk broke forth in his bitter
 
 HAROLD. 283 
 
 smile and his muttered words. But Gurtli's face was 
 sad and awed. 
 
 And now, as the huts and the canvas thus gave up 
 the living, they could indeed behold the enormous 
 disparity of numbers with which it was their doom to 
 contend, and, over those numbers, that dread intensity 
 of zeal, that sublimity of fanaticism, which from one 
 end of that war-town to the other, consecrated injustice, 
 gave the heroism of the martyr to ambition, and blended 
 the whisper of lusting avarice with the self-applauses 
 of the saint! 
 
 jSot a word said the four Saxons. But as the priestly 
 procession glided to the farther quarters of the arma- 
 ment, as the soldiers in their neighborhood disappeared 
 within their lodgements, and the torches moved from 
 them to the more distant vistas of the camp, like lines 
 of retreating stars, Gurth heaved a heavy sigh, and 
 turned his horse's head from the scene. 
 
 But scarce had they gained the centre of the wood, 
 than there rose, as from the heart of the armament, 
 a swell of solemn voices. For the night had now come 
 to the third watch ,^ in which, according to the belief 
 of the age, angel and fiend Avere alike astir, and that 
 church division of time was marked and hallowed by 
 a monastic hymn. 
 
 Inexpressibly grave, solemn, and mournful came the 
 strain through the drooping boughs, and the heavy 
 darkness of the air; and it continued to thrill in the 
 ears of the riders till they had passed the wood, and 
 the cheerful watchfires from their own heights broke 
 upon them to guide their way. They rode rapidly, but 
 still in silence, past their sentries; and, ascending the 
 slopes where the forces lay thick, how different were 
 
 1 Miduiglit.
 
 284 HAROLD. 
 
 the sounds that smote them ! Hound the larrje fires the 
 men grouped in great circles, with tlie ale-horns and 
 flagons passing merrily from hand to hand, shouts of 
 drink-heel and was-hael, bursts of gay laughter, snatches 
 of old songs, old as the days of Athelstaa, — varying, 
 where the Anglo-Danes lay, into the far more animated 
 and kindly poetry of the Pirate North, — still spoke of 
 the heathen time when War was a joy, and Valhalla 
 was the heaven. 
 
 " By my faith," said Leofwine, brightening, " these 
 are sounds and sights that do a man's heart good, after 
 those doleful ditties, and the long faces of the shave- 
 lings. I vow by St. Alban that I felt my veins curdling 
 into icebolts when that dirge came through the woodholt. 
 Hollo, Sexwolf, my tall man, lift vas up that full horn 
 of thine, and keep thyself within the pins. Master 
 Wassailer; we must have steady feet and cool heads 
 to-morrow. " 
 
 Sexwolf, who, with a band of Harold's veterans, was 
 at full carousal, started up at the young earl's greetings, 
 and looked lovingly into his smiling face as he reached 
 him the horn. 
 
 " Heed what my brother bids thee, Sexwolf," said 
 Harold, severely ; " the hands that draw shafts against 
 us to-morrow will not tremble with the night's wassail." 
 
 " Nor ours either, my lord the king," said Sexwolf, 
 boldly; "our heads can bear both drink and blows, — 
 and " (sinking his voice into a whisper) " the rumor runs 
 that the odds are so against us, that I would not, for all 
 thy fair brothers' earldoms, have our men other than 
 blithe to-night." 
 
 Harold answered not, but moved on, and coming 
 then within full sight of the bold Saxons of Kent, the 
 unmixed sons of the Saxon soil, and the special favorers
 
 HAROLD. 285 
 
 of the House of Godwin, so affectionate, hearty, and 
 cordial was their joyous shout of his name, that he felt 
 his kingly heart leap within him. Dismounting, he 
 entered the circle, and, with the august frankness of 
 a noble chief, nobly popular, gave to all, cheering smile 
 and animated word. That done, he said more gravely: 
 "In less than an hour, all wassail must cease, — my 
 bodes will come round ; and then sound sleep, my brave 
 merry men, and lusty rising with the lark." 
 
 "As you will, as you will, dear our king," cried 
 Vebba, as spokesman for the soldiers. "Fear us not, 
 — life and death, we are yours." 
 
 " Life and death yours, and freedom's," cried the 
 ICent men. 
 
 Coming now towards the royal tent beside the stan- 
 dard, the discipline was more perfect, and the hush 
 decorous. Por round that standard were both the 
 special body-guard of the king, and the volunteers 
 from London and Middlesex; men more intelligent 
 than the bulk of the army, and more gravely aware, 
 therefore, of the might of Norman sword. 
 
 Harold entered his tent, and threw himself on his 
 couch in deep reverie; his brothers and Haco watched 
 him silently. At length Gurth approached, and, with 
 a reverence rare in the familiar intercourse between the 
 two, knelt at his brother's side, and, taking Harold's 
 hand in his, looked him full in the face, his eyes moist 
 with tears, and said thus: — 
 
 " Oh, Harold! never prayer have I asked of thee that 
 thou hast not granted: grant me this! sorest of all, it 
 may be, to grant, but most fitting of all for me to press. 
 Think not, beloved brother, honored king, think 
 not it is with slighting reverence, that I lay rough hand 
 on the wound deepest at thy heart. But however sur-
 
 286 HAROLD. 
 
 prised or compelled, sure it is that thou didst make oath 
 to William, and upon the relics of saints; avoid this 
 battle, for I see that thought is now within thy soul; 
 that thought haunted thee in the words of the monk 
 to-day; in the sight of that awful camp to-night; — 
 avoid this battle! and do not thyself stand in arms 
 against the man to whom the oath was pledged ! " 
 
 " Gurth, Gurth!" exclaimed Harold, pale and 
 writhing. 
 
 "We," continued his brother — "we at least have 
 taken no oath, no perjury is charged against us; vainly 
 the thunders of the Vatican are launched on our heads. 
 Our war is just; we but defend our country. Leave 
 us, then, to fight to-morrow; thou retire towards London 
 and raise fresh armies; if we win, the danger is past; if 
 we lose, thou wilt avenge us. And England is not lost 
 while thou survivest. " 
 
 " Gurth, Gurth! " again exclaimed Harold, in a voice 
 piercing in its pathos of reproach. 
 
 " Gurth counsels well," said Haco, abruptly; "there 
 can be no doubt of the wisdom of his words. Let the 
 king's kinsmen lead the troops; let the king himself 
 with his guard hasten to London, and ravage and lay 
 waste the country as he retreats by the way ; ^ so that, 
 even if William beat us, all supplies will fail him; he 
 Avill be in a land without forage, and victory here will 
 aid him nought; for you, my liege, will have a force 
 equal to his own, ere he can march to the gates of 
 London." 
 
 " Faith and troth, the young Haco speaks like a gray- 
 beard; he hath not lived in Rouen for nought," quoth 
 
 1 Tliis counsel the Norman chronicler ascribes to Gurth, but it 
 is so at variance with the character of tliat hero, that it is here 
 assigned to the unscrupulous intellect of Haco.
 
 HAEOLD. 287 
 
 Leofwine. " Hear him, my Harold, and leave us to 
 shave the Normans yet more closely than the barber 
 hath already shorn." 
 
 Harold turned ear and eye to each of the speakers, 
 and as Leofwine closed, he smiled, 
 
 " Ye have chid me well, kinsmen, for a thought that 
 had entered into my mind ere ye spake — " 
 
 Gurth interrupted the king, and said, anxiously, — 
 
 " To retreat with the whole army upon London, and 
 refuse to meet the Norman till with numbers more fairly 
 matched ? " 
 
 " That had been my thought," said Harold, surprised. 
 
 " Such for a moment, too, was mine," said Gurth, 
 sadly; " but it is too late. Such a measure now, would 
 have all the disgrace of flight, and bring none of the 
 profits of retreat. The ban of the Church would get 
 wind; our priests, awed and alarmed, might wield it 
 against us ; tlie whole population would be damped and 
 disheartened; rivals to the crown might start up; the 
 realm be divided. No, it is impossible!" 
 
 "Impossible," said Harold, calmly. "And if the 
 army cannot retreat, of all men to stand firm, surely it 
 is the captain and the king. /, Gurth, leave others to 
 dare the fate from which I fly ! / give weight to the 
 impious curse of the Pope, by shrinking from its idle 
 blast! / confirm and ratify the oath, from which all law 
 must absolve me, by forsaking the cause of the land 
 which I purify myself when I guard! /leave to others 
 the agony of the martyrdom or the glory of the conquest ! 
 Gurth, thou art more cruel than the Norman! And I, 
 son of Sweyn, / ravage the land committed to my charge, 
 and despoil the fields which I cannot keep! Oh, Haco, 
 that indeed were to be the traitor and the recreant! 
 No, whatever the sin of my oath, never will I believe
 
 288 HAROLD. 
 
 that Heaven can punish millions for the error of one 
 naan. Let the bones of the dead war against us; in 
 Jife, they were men like ourselves; and no saints in the 
 calendar so holy as the freemen who figlit for tlieir 
 hearths and their altars. Nor do I see anght to alarm 
 us even in tliese grave human odds. We have but to 
 keep fast these intrenchments ; preserve, man by man, 
 our invincible line, — and the waves will but split on 
 our rock: ere the sun set to-morrow, we shall see the 
 tide ebb, leaving, as waifs, but the dead of the baffled 
 invader. 
 
 " Fare ye well, loving kinsmen ; kiss me, my brothers ; 
 kiss me on the cheek, my Haco. Go now to your tents. 
 Sleep in peace, and wake with the trumpet to the glad- 
 ness of noble war ! " 
 
 Slowly the earls left the king; slowest of all the 
 lingering Gurth ; and when all were gone, and Harold 
 was alone, he threw round a rapid, troubled glance, and 
 then, hurrying to the simple, imageless crucifix that 
 stood on its pedestal at the farther end of the tent, he 
 fell on his knees, and faltered out, Avhile his breast 
 heaved, and his frame shook with the travail of his 
 passion, — 
 
 " If my sin be beyond a pardon, my oath without recall, 
 on me, on me, Lord of Hosts, on me alone the doom! 
 Not on them, not on them, — not on England I "
 
 HAROLD. 289 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 On the 14th of October, 1066, the day of St. Calixtus, 
 the Norman force was drawn out in battle array. Mass 
 had been said; Odo and the Bishop of Coutance had 
 blessed the troops, and received their vow never more 
 to eat flesh on the anniversary of that day. And Odo 
 had mounted his snow-white charger, and already drawn 
 up the cavalry against the coming of his brother the duke. 
 The army was marshalled in three great divisions. 
 
 Eoger de Montgommeri and William Fitzosborne led 
 the first ; and with them were the forces from Picardy 
 and the countship of Boulogne, and the fiery Franks; 
 Geoffric Martel and the German Hugues (a prince of 
 fame) : Aimeri, Lord of Thouars, and the sons of Alain 
 Fergant, Duke of Bretagne, led the second, which com- 
 prised the main bulk of the allies from Bretagne, and 
 Maine, and Poitou. But both these divisions Avere 
 intermixed with Normans, under their own special 
 Norman chiefs. 
 
 The third section embraced the flower of martial 
 Europe, the most renowned of the Norman race; whether 
 those knights bore the French titles into which their 
 ancestral Scandinavian names had been transformed, 
 — Sires of Beaufou and Harcourt, Abbeville, and 
 De Molun, Montfichet, Grantmesnil, Lacie, D'Ain- 
 court, and D'Asnieres; or whether, still preserving, 
 amidst their daintier titles, the old names that had 
 scattered dismay through the seas of the Baltic, — 
 Osborne and Tonstain, Mallet and Bulver, Brand and 
 
 VOL. II. — 19
 
 290 HAROLD. 
 
 Briise.^ And over this division presided Duke "Wil- 
 liam. Here was the main body of the matchless cav- 
 alry, to which, however, orders were given to support 
 either of the other sections, as need might demand. 
 And with this body were also the reserve. For it is 
 curious to notice, that William's strategy resembled in 
 much that of the last great Invader of ISTations, — rely- 
 ing first upon the effect of the charge; secondly, upon 
 a vast reserve brought to bear at the exact moment on 
 the Aveakest point of the foe. 
 
 All the horsemen were in complete link or net mail,^ 
 armed with spears and strong swords, and long, pear- 
 shaped shields, with the device either of a cross or a 
 dragon.^ The archers, on whom William greatly relied, 
 were numerous in all three of the corps, ^ were armed 
 more lightly, — helms on their heads, but with leather 
 or quilted breast plates, and "panels," or gaiters, for 
 the lower limbs. 
 
 1 Osborne (Asbiorn), one of tbe most common of Danish and 
 Norwegian names. Tonstain, Toustain, or Tostiiin, the same as 
 Tosti, or Tostig, Danish. (Harold's brother is called Tostain or 
 Toustain in the Norman chronicles. ) Brand, a name common to 
 Dane and Norwegian, — Rulmer is a Norwegian name, and so is 
 Bulver, or Bolvar, — which is, indeed, so purely Scandinavian, 
 that it is one of the warlike names given to Odin himseK by the 
 Northscalds. Bulverhitlie still commemorates the landing of a 
 Norwegian son of tlie war-god. Bruce, the ancestor of the death- 
 less Scot, also bears in that name, more illustrious than all, the 
 proof of his f^candinavian birth. 
 
 2 This mail appears in that age to have been sewn upon linen or 
 cloth. In the later age of the crusaders, it was more artful, and 
 the links supported each other, without being attached to any 
 other material. 
 
 ^ Bayeux tapestry. 
 
 * The cross-bow is not to be seen in the Bayeux tapestry, — the 
 Norman bows are not long.
 
 HAROLD. 291 
 
 But before the chiefs and captains rode to tlieir 
 several posts, they assembled round William, whom 
 Fitzosborne had called betimes, and who had not yet 
 endued his heavy mail, that all men might see sus- 
 pended from his throat certain relics chosen out of 
 those on wliich Harold had pledged his fatal oatli. 
 Standing on an eminence in front of all his lines, tlie 
 consecrated banner behind him, and Bayard, liis Spanish 
 destrier, held V)y his squires at his side, the duke con- 
 versed cheerily with his barons, often pointing to the 
 relics. Then, in sight of all, he put on his mail, and, 
 by the haste of his squires, the backpiece was presented 
 to him first. The superstitious Normans recoiled as at 
 an evil omen. 
 
 "Tut!" said the ready chief; "not in omens and 
 divinations, but in God, trust I! Yet, good omen, 
 indeed is this, and one that may give heart to the 
 most doubtful ; for it betokens that the last shall be 
 first: the dukedom a kindgom, — the count a king ! 
 Ho there, Rou de Terni, as hereditary standard-bearer 
 take thy right, and hold fast to yon holy gonfanon." 
 
 " Grant merci," said De Terni, "not to-day shall a 
 standard be borne by me, for I shall have need of my 
 right arm for my sword, and my left for my charger's 
 rein and my trusty shield." 
 
 "Thou sayst right, and we can ill spare such a 
 warrior. Gautier Giffart, Sire do Longueville, to thee 
 is the gonfanon." 
 
 "■ BeoM Sire," answered Gautier; "^^ar Dex, merci. 
 But my head is gray and my arm weak; and the little 
 strength left me I would spend in smiting the English 
 at the head of my men." 
 
 "Per la resplendar De" cried William, frowning; 
 — " do ye think, my proud vavasours, to fail me in this 
 great need ? "
 
 292 HAKOLD. 
 
 "Nay," said Gautier; "but I have a great host of 
 chevaliers and paid soldiers, and without the old man 
 at their head will they fight as well 1 " 
 
 " Then, approach thou, Tonstain le Blanc, son of 
 Eou," said William; "and be thine the charge of a 
 standard that shall wave ere nightfall over the brows 
 of thy — Jcinff ! " A young knight, tall and strong as 
 his Danish ancestor, stepped forth and laid gripe on 
 the banner. 
 
 Then William, noAV completely armed, save his 
 helmet, sprang at one bound on his steed. A shout of 
 admiration rang from the quens and knights. 
 
 " Saw ye ever such beau rei ? " ^ said the Vicomte de 
 Thouars. 
 
 The shout was caught by the lines, and echoed far, 
 wide, and deep through the armament, as in all his 
 singular majesty of brow and mien, William rode forth: 
 lifting his hand, the shout hushed, and thus he spoke, 
 " loud as a trumpet with a silver sound: " — 
 
 " Normans and soldiers, long renowned in the lips of 
 men and now hallowed by the blessing of the Church ! 
 — I have not brought you over the wide seas for my 
 cause alone: what I gain, ye gain. If I take the land 
 you will share it. Pight your best and spare not;^ 
 no retreat and no quarter ! I am not come here for my 
 cause alone, but to avenge our whole nation for the 
 felonies of yonder English. They butchered our kins- 
 men tlie Danes, on the night of St. Brice ; they murdered 
 Alfred, the brother of their last king, and decimated the 
 Normans who were with him. Yonder they stand, — 
 malefactors that await their doom! and ye the dooms- 
 men! Never, even in a good cause, were yon English 
 illustrious for warlike temper and martial glory.* 
 1 " Koman de Rou." 2 William of Poitiers.
 
 HAKOLD. 293 
 
 Remember how easily the Danes subdued them! Are 
 ye less than Danes, or I than Canute 1 By victory ye 
 obtain vengeance, glory, honors, lands, spoil, — ay, 
 spoil beyond your wildest dreams. By defeat — yea 
 even but by loss of ground — ye are given up to the 
 sword ! Escape there is not, for the ships are useless. 
 Before you the foe, behind you the ocean! Normans, 
 remember the feats of your countrymen in Sicily! 
 Behold a Sicily more rich! Lordships and lands to 
 the living, — glory and salvation to those who die 
 under the gonfanon of the Cliurch! On to the cry of 
 the Norman warrior; the cry before which have fled so 
 often the prowest Paladins of Burgundy and France, 
 ' Notre Dame et Bex aide / ' " i 
 
 Meanwhile, no less vigilant, and in his own strategy 
 no less skilful, Harold had marshalled his men. He 
 formed two divisions: those in front of the intrench- 
 nients, those within it. At the first the men of Kent, 
 as from time immemorial, claimed the honor of the van, 
 under " the Pale Charger," — famous banner of Hengist. 
 This force was drawn up in the form of the Anglo- 
 Danish wedge; the foremost lines in the triangle all in 
 heavy mail, armed Avith their great axes and covered 
 by their immense shields. Behind these lines, in the 
 interior of the wedge, were the archers, protected by 
 the front rows of the heavy armed ; while the few 
 horsemen — few indeed compared with the Norman 
 cavalry — were artfully disposed where they could best 
 harass and distract the formidable chivalry with which 
 they were instructed to skirmish and not peril actual 
 encounter. Other bodies of the light armed — slingers, 
 javelin-throwers, and archers — were planted in spots 
 carefully selected, according as they were protected by 
 
 1 Dieu nous aide.
 
 294 HAROLD. 
 
 trees, lorush wood, and dykes. The Northumbrians (that 
 is, all the warlike population north the Humber, includ- 
 ing Yorkshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, etc.) were, 
 for their present shame and future ruin, absent from 
 the field, save, indeed, a few who had joined Harold 
 in his march to London. But there were the mixed 
 races of Hertfordshire and Essex, with the pure Saxons 
 of Sussex and Surrey, and a large body of the sturdy 
 Anglo-Danes from Lincolnshire, Ely, and Norfolk. 
 Men, too, there were, half of old British blood, from 
 Dorset, Somerset, and Gloucester, 
 
 And all were marshalled according to those touching 
 and pathetic tactics which speak of a nation more accus- 
 tomed to defend than to aggrieve. To that field the 
 head of each family led his sons and kinsfolk; every 
 ten families (or tything) were united under their own 
 chosen captain. Every ten of these tythings had again 
 some loftier chief, dear to the populace in peace; and 
 so on the holy circle spread from household, hamlet, 
 town, — till, all combined, as one county under one 
 earl, the warriors fought under the eyes of their own 
 kinsfolk, friends, neighbors, chosen chiefs! What 
 wonder that they were brave 1 
 
 The second division comprised Harold's house-carles, 
 or body-guard, — the veterans especially attached to his 
 family, the companions of his successful wars, a select 
 band of the martial East-Anglians, the soldiers sup- 
 plied by London and Middlesex, and who, both in 
 arms, discipline, martial temper, and athletic habits, 
 ranked high among the most stalwart of the troops, 
 mixed as their descent was, from the warlike Dane 
 and the sturdy Saxon. In this division, too, was 
 comprised the reserve. And it was all encompassed 
 by the palisades and breastworks, to which were but
 
 HAROLD. 295 
 
 three sorties whence the defenders might sally, or 
 through Avhich at need the vanguard might secure a 
 retreat. All the heavy armed had mail and shields 
 similar to the Normans, though somewhat less heavy; 
 the light armed had some tunics of quilted linen, some 
 of hide; helmets of the last material, spears, javelins, 
 swords, and clubs. But the main arm of the host was 
 in the great shield and the great axe wielded by 
 men larger in stature and stronger of muscle than the 
 majority of the Normans, whose physical race had 
 deteriorated, partly by intermarriage with the more 
 delicate Frank, partly by the haughty disdain of foot 
 exercise. 
 
 Mounting a swift and light steed, intended not for 
 encounter (for it was the custom of English kings to 
 fight on foot, in token that where they fought there was 
 no retreat), but to bear the rider rapidly from line to 
 line,^ King Harold rode to the front of the vanguard; 
 — his brothers by his side. His head, like his great 
 foe's, was bare, nor could there be a more striking con- 
 trast than that of the broad, unwrinkled brow of the 
 Saxon, with his fair locks, the sign of royalty and free- 
 dom, parted and falling over the collar of mail, the clear 
 and steadfast eye of blue, the cheek somewhat hollowed 
 by kingly cares, but flushed now with manly pride; the 
 form stalwart and erect, but spare in its graceful sym- 
 metry, and void of all tliat theatric pomp of bearing 
 which was assumed by William, — no greater contrast 
 could there be than that which the simple earnest hero- 
 king presented to the brow furrowed with harsh ire and 
 politic wile, the shaven hair of monastic afiectation, 
 
 1 Thus, when at the battle of Barnet, Earl Warwick, the king 
 maker, slew his horse and fought ou foot, he followed the old tr* 
 ditional custom of Saxou chiefs.
 
 296 HAROLD. 
 
 the dark, sparkling tiger eye, and the vast proportions 
 that awed the gaze in the port and form of the impe- 
 rious Norman. Deep and loud and hearty as the shout 
 Avith which his armaments had welcomed William, was 
 that which now greeted the king of the English host: 
 and clear and full and practised in the storm of popular 
 assemblies, went his voice down the listening lines. 
 
 " This day, friends and Englishmen, sons of our 
 common land, — this day ye fight for liberty. The 
 count of the Normans hath, I know, a mighty army; I 
 disguise not its strength. That army he hath collected 
 together, by promising to each man a share in the spoils 
 of England. Already, in his court and his camp, he 
 hath parcelled out the lands of this kingdom ; and fierce 
 are the robbers who fight for the hope of plunder! But 
 he cannot offer to his greatest chief boons nobler than 
 those I offer to my meanest freeman, — liberty, and 
 right, and law, in the soil of his fathers! Ye have 
 heard of the miseries endured in the old time under 
 the Dane, but they were slight indeed to those which 
 ye may expect from the Norman. The Dane was kin- 
 dred to us in language and in law, and who now can tell 
 Saxon from Dane 1 But yon men would rule ye in 
 a language ye know not, by a law that claims the crown 
 as the right of the sword, and divides the land among 
 the hirelings of an army. We baptized the Dane, and 
 the Church tamed his fierce soul into peace; but yon 
 men make the Chxirch itself their ally, and march to 
 carnage under the banner profaned to the foulest of 
 human wrongs! Oatscourings of all nations, they come 
 against you! Ye fight as brothers under the eyes of 
 your fathers and chosen chiefs ; ye fight for the women 
 ye would save from the ravisher; ye fight for the chil- 
 dren ye would guard from eternal bondage ; ye fight for
 
 HAROLD. 297 
 
 the altars which yon banner now darkens! Foreign 
 priest is a tyrant as ruthless and stern as ye shall find 
 foreign baron and king! Let no man dream of retreat; 
 every inch of ground that ye yield is the soil of your 
 native land. For me, on this field I peril all. Think 
 that mine eye is upon you wherever ye are. If a line 
 waver or shrink, ye shall hear in the midst the voice of 
 your king. Hold fast to your ranks; remember, such 
 amongst you as fought with me against Hardrada, — 
 remember that it was not till the Norsemen lost, by 
 rash sallies, their serried array , that our arms prevailed 
 against them. Be warned by their fatal error, break 
 not the form of the battle; and I tell you on the faith 
 of a soldier who never yet hath left field without vic- 
 tory, that ye cannot be beaten. While I speak, the 
 winds swell the sails of the Norse ships, bearing home 
 the corpse of Hardrada. Accomplish this day the last 
 triumph of England; add to these hills a new mount 
 of the conquered dead! And when, in far times and 
 strange lands, scald and scop shall praise the brave man 
 for some valiant deed wrouglit in some holy cause, they 
 shall say, ' He was brave as those who fought by the 
 side of Harold, and swept from the sward of England 
 the hosts of the haughty Norman.' " 
 
 Scarcely had the rapturous hurrahs of the Saxons 
 closed on this speech, when full in sight, north-west 
 of Hastings, came the first division of the invader. 
 
 Harold remained gazing at them, and not seeing the 
 other sections in movement, said to Gurth, " If these 
 are all that they venture out, the day is ours. " 
 
 " Look yonder ! " said the sombre Haco, and he pointed 
 to the long array that now gleamed from the wood 
 through which the Saxon kinsmen had passed the night 
 before ; and scarcely were these cohorts in view, than lo !
 
 298 HAROLD. 
 
 from a third quarter advanced the glittering knighthood 
 under the duke. All three divisions came on in simultane- 
 ous assault, — two on either wing of the Saxon vanguard, 
 the third (the Norman) towards the intrenchments. 
 
 In the midst of the duke's cohort was the sacred 
 gonfanon, and in front of it and of the whole line, rode 
 a strange warrior of gigantic height. And as he rode, 
 the warrior sang, — 
 
 " Chanting loud the lusty strain 
 Of Roland and of Charleniain, 
 And the dead, who, deathless all, 
 Fell at famous Roncesval." ^ 
 
 And the knights, no longer singing hymn and litany, 
 swelled, hoarse through their helmets, the martial 
 chorus. This warrior, in front of the duke and the 
 horsemen, seemed heside himself with the joy of battle. 
 As he rode, and as he chanted, he threw up his sword 
 in the air like a gleeman, catching it nimbly as it fell,^ 
 and floiirishing it wildly, till, as if unable to restrain 
 his fierce exhilaration, he fairly put spurs to his horse, 
 and, dashing forward to the very front of a detachment 
 of Saxon riders, shouted, — 
 
 " A Taillefer ! a Taillefer ! " and by voice and gesture 
 challenged forth some one to single combat. 
 
 A fiery young thegn, who knew the Romance tongue, 
 started forth and crossed swords with the poet; but by 
 
 1 Devant li Dus alout cantant 
 De Karlemaiue e de Rollant, 
 Ed \)lever e des Vassalls 
 Ki morurent en Ronchevals. 
 
 " Roman de Rou," Part ii. 1, 13, 151. 
 
 Much research has been made by French antiquaries tu discovei 
 the okl Chant de Roland, ])Ut in vain. 
 2 W. PiCT. : " Chron. de Nor."
 
 HAROLD. 299 
 
 what seemed rather a juggler's sleight of hami than a 
 knight's fair fence, Taillefer, again throwing vip and 
 catching his sword with incredible rapidity, shore the 
 unhappy Saxon from the helm to the chine, and riding 
 over his corpse, shouting and laughing, he again re- 
 newed his challenge. A second rode forth and shared 
 the same fate. The rest of the English horsemen stared 
 at each other aghast; the shouting, singing, juggling 
 giant seemed to them not knight, but demon ; and that 
 single incident, preliminary to all other battle, in sight 
 of the whole field, might have sufficed to damp the 
 ardor of the English, had not Leofwine, who had been 
 despatched by the king with a message to the intrench- 
 ments, come in front of the detachment; and his gay 
 spirit roused and stung by the insolence of the Norman, 
 and the evident dismay of the Saxon riders, without 
 thought of his graver duties, he spurred his light half- 
 mailed steed to the Norman giant; and, not even draw- 
 ing his sword, but with his spear raised over his head, 
 and his form covered by his shield, he cried in Romance 
 tongue, " Go and chant to the foul fiend, croaking 
 minstrel! " Taillefer rushed forward, his sword shivered 
 on the Saxon shield, and in the same moment he fell a 
 corpse under the hoofs of his steed, transfixed by the 
 Saxon spear. 
 
 A cry of woe, in Avhich even William (who, proud of 
 his poet's achievements, had pressed to the foremost 
 line to see this new encovmter) joined his deep voice, 
 wailed through the Norman ranks; while Leofwine rode 
 deliberately towards them, halted a moment, and then 
 flung his spear into the midst with so deadly an aim, 
 that a young knight, within two of William, reeled on 
 his saddle, groaned, and fell. 
 
 " How like ye, Normans, the Saxon gleemen 1 "
 
 300 HAEOLD. 
 
 said Leofvvine, as he turned slowly, regained the de- 
 tachment, and bade them heed carefully the orders they 
 had received, — namely, to avoid the direct charge of 
 the Norman horse, but to take every occasion to harass 
 and divert the stragglers; and then, blithely singing a 
 Saxon stave, as if inspii-ed by Norman minstrelsy, he 
 rode into the intrenchments.
 
 HAROLD. 301 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 The two brethren of Waltham, Osgood and Ailred, had 
 arrived a little after daybreak at the spot in which, about 
 half a mile to the rear of Harold's palisades, the beasts 
 of burden that had borne the heavy arms, missiles, lug- 
 gage, and forage of the Saxon march, were placed in and 
 about the fenced yards of a farm. And many human 
 beings, of both sexes and various ranks, were there as- 
 sembled, some in breathless expectation, some in careless 
 talk, some in fervent prayer. 
 
 The master of the farm, his sons, and the able-bodied 
 ceorls in his employ had joined the forces of the king, 
 under Gurth, as earl of the county.^ But many aged 
 theowes, past military service, and young children, 
 grouped around: the first, stolid and indifferent; the 
 last, prattling, curioiis, lively, gay. There, too, were 
 the wives of some of the soldiers, who, as common in 
 Saxon expeditions, had followed their husbands to the 
 field; and there, too, were the ladies of many a Hlaford 
 in the neigliboring district, who, no less true to their 
 mates than the wives of humbler men, were draAvn by 
 their English hearts to the fatal spot. A small wooden 
 chapel, half decayed, stood a little behind, witli its doors 
 
 ^ For, as Sir F. Palgrave shrewdly conjectures, upon the dis- 
 memberment of the vast earhlom of Wessex, on Harold's accession 
 to the throne, that portion of it comprising Sussex (the ohl gov- 
 ernment of his grandfather Wolnoth) seems to have been assigned 
 to Gurth.
 
 302 HAKOLD. 
 
 wide open, a sanctuary in case of need; and the interior 
 was thronged with kneeling suppliants. 
 
 The two monks joined, with pious gladness, some of 
 their sacred calling, who were leaning over the low wall, 
 and straining their eyes towards the bristling field. A 
 little apart from them, and from all, stood a female; 
 the hood drawn over her face, silent in her unknown 
 thoughts. 
 
 By and by, as the march of the Norman miiltitude 
 sounded hollow, and the trumps, and the fifes, and the 
 shouts rolled on through the air, in many a stormy peal, 
 — the two abbots in the Saxon camp, with their attend- 
 ant monks, came riding towards the farm from the 
 intrenchments. 
 
 The groups gathered round these new-comers in haste 
 and eagerness. 
 
 " The battle hath begun, " said the abbot of Hide, 
 gravely. " Pray God for England, for never was its 
 people in peril so great from man." 
 
 The female started and shuddered at those words. 
 
 " And the king, the king, " she cried, in a sudden and 
 thrilling voice ; " Avhere is he ? — the king 1 " 
 
 " Daughter, " said the abbot, " the king's post is by 
 his standard ; but I left him in the van of his troops. 
 AVhere he may be now, I know not. Wherever the foe 
 presses sorest." 
 
 Then dismounting, the abbots entered the yard, to 
 be accosted instantly by all the wives, who deemed, 
 poor souls, that the holy men must, throughout all the 
 field, have seen fheu- lords; for each felt as if God's 
 world hung but on the single life in which each pale 
 trembler lived. 
 
 With all their faults of ignorance and superstition, 
 the Saxon churchmen loved their flocks; and the good
 
 HAROLD. 303 
 
 abbots gave what comfort was in their power, and then 
 passed into the chapel, where all who could find room 
 followed them. 
 
 The war now raged. 
 
 The two divisions of the invading army that included 
 the auxiliaries had sought in vain to surround the 
 English vanguard, and take it in the rear: that noble 
 phalanx had no rear. Deepest and strongest at the base 
 of the triangle, everywhere a front opposed the foe; 
 shields formed a rampart against the dart, — spears a 
 palisade against the horse. While that vanguard main- 
 tained its ground, William could not pierce to tlie in- 
 trenchments, the strength of which, however, he was 
 enabled to perceive. He now changed his tactics, joined 
 his knighthood to the other sections, threw his hosts 
 rapidly into many wings, and, leaving broad spaces 
 between his archers, — who continued their fiery hail, — - 
 ordered his heavy-armed foot to advance on all sides 
 upon the wedge, and break its ranks for the awaiting 
 charge of his horse. 
 
 Harold, still in the centre of the vanguard, amidst 
 the men of Kent, continued to animate them all with 
 voice and hand ; and, as the Normans now closed in, he 
 flung himself from his steed, and strode on foot, with 
 his mighty battle-axe, to the spot where the rush was 
 dreadest. 
 
 iSTow came the shock, — the fight hand to hand : 
 spear and lance were thrown aside, axe and sword rose 
 and shore. But before the close, serried lines of the 
 English, with their physical strength, and veteran prac- 
 tice in their own special arm, the Norman foot Ave re 
 mowed as by the scythe. Tn vain, in the intervals, 
 thundeied the repeated charges of the fiery knights; in 
 vain, throughout all, came the shaft and the bolt.
 
 304 HAROLD. 
 
 Animated by the presence of their king, fighting 
 amongst tliem as a simple soldier, but with his eye ever 
 quick to foresee, his voice ever prompt to warn, the 
 men of Kent swerved not a foot from their indomitable 
 ranks. The ISTorman infantry wavered and gave way; 
 on, step by step, still unbroken in array, pressed the 
 English. And their cry, "Out! out! Holy Crosse!" 
 rose high above the flagging sound of " Ha Rou ! Ha 
 Eou! — Kotre Dame!" 
 
 " Per la resplendar De, " cried William. " Our sol- 
 diers are but women in the garb of I^ormans. Ho, 
 spears to the rescue! With me to the charge. Sires 
 D'Aumale and De Littaiu, — with me, gallant Bruse and 
 De Mortain; with me, De Graville and Grantmesnil: 
 Dex aide! Notre Dame." And heading his prowest 
 knights, William came as a thunderbolt on the bills and 
 shields. Harold, who scarce a minute before had been 
 in a remoter rank, was already at the brunt of that 
 charge. At his word down knelt the foremost line, 
 leaving nought but their shields and their spear-points 
 against the horse. While behind them, the axe in both 
 hands, bent forward the soldiery in the second rank, to 
 smite and to crush. And, from the core of the wedge, 
 poured the shafts of the archers. Down rolled in the 
 dust half the charge of those knights. Bruse reeled on 
 his saddle ; the dread right-hand of D'Aumale fell lopped 
 by the axe; De Graville, hurled from his horse, rolled 
 at the feet of Harold; and William, borne by his great 
 steed and his colossal strength into the third rank, there 
 dealt, right and left, the fierce strokes of his iron club, 
 till he felt his horse sinking under him, and had scarcely 
 time to back from the foe, — scarcely time to get beyond 
 reach of tlieir weapons, — ere the Spanish destrier, 
 frightfully gashed through its strong mail, fell dead on
 
 HAROLD. 305 
 
 the plain. His knights swept round him. Twenty 
 barons leaped from selle to yield him their chargers. 
 He chose the one nearest to hand, sprang to foot and to 
 stirrup, and rode back to his lines. Meanwhile, De 
 Graville's casque, its strings broken by the shock, had 
 fallen off, and as Harold was about to strike, he recog- 
 nized his guest. 
 
 Holding up his hand to keep off the press of his men, 
 the generous king said, briefly, " Rise and retreat ! — no 
 time on this field for captor and captive. He whom 
 thou hast called recreant knight has been Saxon host. 
 Thou hast fought by his side, thou shalt not die by his 
 hand! — Go." 
 
 Not a word spoke De Graville; but his dark eye 
 dwelt one minute with mingled pity and reverence on 
 the king; then rising, he turned away; and slowly, as 
 if he disdained to fly, strode back over the corpses of 
 his countrymen. 
 
 " Stay, all hands ! " cried the king to his archers ; 
 " yon man hath tasted our salt, and done us good ser- 
 vice of old. He hath paid his weregeld." 
 
 Not a shaft was discharged. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Norman infantry, who had been before 
 recoiling, no sooner saAv their duke (whom they recog- 
 nized by his steed and equipment) fall on the ground, 
 than, setting up a shout, " The duke is dead ! " they 
 fairly turned round, and fled fast in disorder. 
 
 The fortune of the day was now wellnigh turned in 
 favor of the Saxons ; and the confusion of the Nor- 
 mans, as the cry of " The duke is dead ! " reached, and 
 circled round the host, would have been irrecoverable, 
 had Harold possessed a cavalry fit to press the advan- 
 tage gained, or had not William himself rushed into 
 the midst of the fugitives, throwing his helmet back 
 VOL. II. — 20
 
 306 HAROLD. 
 
 on his neck, shoAving his face, all animated with fierce 
 valor and disdainful wrath, while he cried aloud, — ■ 
 
 "I live, ye varlets ! Behold the face of a chief who 
 never yet forgave coward ! Ay, tremble more at me 
 than at yon English, doomed and accursed as they he! 
 Ye Normans, ye ! I blush for you ! " and striking the 
 foremost in the retreat with the flat of his sword, chid- 
 ing, stimulating, threatening, promising in a breath, he 
 succeeded in staying the flight, re-forming the lines, 
 and dispelling the general panic. Then, as he joined 
 his own chosen knights, and surveyed the field, he 
 beheld an opening which the advanced position of the 
 Saxon vanguard had left, and by which his knights 
 might gain the intrenchments. He mused a moment, 
 his face still bare, and brightening as he mused. 
 Looking round him, he saw Mallet de Graville, who 
 had remounted, and said, shortly, — 
 
 " Pardex, dear knight, we thought you already with 
 St. Michael! joy, that you live yet to be an English 
 earl. Look you, ride to Fitzosborne with the signal- 
 'Word, ^ Li Hardiz passent aimnt ! ^ Off", and quick." 
 
 De Graville bowed, and darted across the plain. 
 
 "Now, my quens and chevaliers," said William, 
 gayly, as he closed his helmet, and took from his squire 
 another spear; " noAV, I shall give ye the day's great 
 pastime. Pass the word, Sire de Tancarville, to every 
 horseman, ' Charge ! — to the Standard ! ' " 
 
 The word passed, the steeds bounded, and the whole 
 force of William's knighthood, scouring the plain to 
 the rear of the Saxon vanguard, made for the intrench- 
 ments. 
 
 At that sight, Harold, divining the object, and see- 
 ing tliis new and more urgent demand on his presence, 
 halted the battalions over which he had presided, and,
 
 HAROLD. 307 
 
 yielding the command to Leofwine, once more briefly 
 but strenuously enjoined the troops to heed well their 
 leaders, and on no account to break the wedge, in the 
 form of which lay their whole strength both against 
 the cavalry and the greater number of the foe. Then 
 mounting his horse, and attended only by Haco, he 
 spurred across the plain in the opposite direction to 
 that taken by the Normans. In doing so, he was 
 forced to make a considerable circuit towards the rear 
 of the intrenchment, and the farm, with its watchful 
 groups, came in sight. He distinguished the garl^s of 
 the women, and Haco said to him, — 
 
 " There wait the wives, to welcome the living victors." 
 
 "Or search their lords among the dead!" answered 
 Harold. " Wlio, Haco, if we fall, will search for 
 us?" 
 
 As the word left his lips, he saw, under a lonely 
 thorn-tree, and scarce out of bowshot from the intrench- 
 ments, a woman seated. The king looked hard at the 
 bended, hooded form. 
 
 " Poor wretch ! " he murmured, " her heart is in the 
 battle ! " And he shouted aloud, " Farther off ! farther 
 off! — the war rushes hitherward! " 
 
 At the sound of that voice the woman rose, stretched 
 her arras, and sprang forward. But the Saxon cliiefs 
 had already turned their faces towards the neighboring 
 ingress into the ramparts, and beheld not her movement, 
 while the tramp of rushing chargers, the shout and the 
 roar of clashing war, drowned the wail of her feeble 
 cry. 
 
 " I have heard him again, again ! " murmured the 
 ■woman, " God be praised ! " and she reseated herself 
 quietly under the lonely thorn. 
 
 As Harold and Haco sprang to their feet within the
 
 308 HAKOLD. 
 
 intrenchments, the sliout of " tlie king, the king ! — • 
 Holy Crosse ! " came in time to rally the force at the 
 farther end, now undergoing the full storm of the Nor- 
 man chivalry. 
 
 The willow ramparts were already rent and hewed 
 beneath the hoofs of horses and the clash of swords, 
 and the sharp points on the frontals of the Norman 
 destriers were already gleaming within the intrench- 
 ments, when Harold arrived at the brunt of action. 
 The tide was then turned; not one of those rash riders 
 left the intrenchments they had gained; steel and 
 horse alike went down beneath the ponderous battle- 
 axes; and William, again foiled and baffled, drew off 
 his cavalry with the reluctant conviction that those 
 breastworks, so manned, were not to be won by horse. 
 Slowly the knights retreated down the slope of the 
 hillock, and the English, animated by that sight, would 
 have left their stronghold to pursue, but for the warn- 
 ing cry of Harold. The interval in the strife thus 
 gained was promptly and vigorously employed in repair- 
 ing the palisades. And this done, Harold, turning to 
 Haco and the thegns round him, said, joyously, — 
 
 " By Heaven's help we shall yet win this day. And 
 know you not that it is my fortunate day, — the day on 
 which, hitherto, all hath prospered with me in peace 
 and in war, — the day of my birth? " 
 
 " Of your birth ! " echoed Haco in surprise. 
 
 " Ay, — did you not know it ? " 
 
 " Nay ! — strange ! — it is also the birthday of Duke 
 William ! What would astrologers say to the meeting 
 of such stars V ^ 
 
 ^ Harold's birthday was certainly the 14th of October. Accord- 
 ing to Mr. Koscoe, in his " Life of William the Conqueror," Wil- 
 liam was born also on the 14th of October.
 
 HAROLD. 309 
 
 Harold's cheek paled, but his helmet concealed the 
 paleness; his arm drooped. The strange dream of 
 his yoi;th agahi came distinct before him, as it had 
 come in the hall of the Norman at the sight of the 
 ghastly relics: again he saw the shadowy hand from 
 the cloud ; again heard the voice murmuring, " Lo ! 
 the star that shone on the birth of the victor ; " again 
 he heard the words of Hilda interpreting the dream, — • 
 again the chant which the dead or the fiend had poured 
 from the rigid lips of the Vala. It boomed on his ear : 
 hollow as a death-bell it knelled through the roar of 
 
 battle, — 
 
 " Never 
 Crown and brow shall Force dissever, 
 Till the dead men, unforgiving. 
 Loose the war-steeds on the living; 
 Till a sun whose race is ending 
 Sees the rival stars contending, 
 Where the dead men, unforgiving. 
 Wheel their war-steeds round the living ! " 
 
 Faded the vision and died the chant, as a breath that 
 dims and vanishes from the mirror of steel. The 
 breath was gone, — the firm steel was bright once more ; 
 and suddenly the king was recalled to the sense of the 
 present hour by shouts and cries, in which the yell of 
 Norman triumph predominated, at the farther end of 
 the field. The signal words to Fitzosborne had con- 
 veyed to that chief the order for the mock charge on 
 the Saxon vanguard, to be followed by the feigned 
 fliglit; and so artfully had this stratagem been prac- 
 tised, that despite all the solemn orders of Harold, — ■ 
 despite even the warning cry of Leofwine, who, rash and 
 gay-hearted though he was, had yet a captain's skill, — • 
 the bold English, their blood heated by long contest and
 
 310 iiAi;oLD. 
 
 seeming victory, could not resist pursuit. They ruslied 
 forward impetuously, breaking the order of their hitherto 
 indomitable phalanx, and the more eagerl}^ because the 
 Normans had unwittingly taken their way towards a part 
 of the ground concealing dykes and ditches, into which 
 the English trusted to precipitate the foe. It was as 
 William's knights retreated from the breastworks that 
 this fatal error was committed; and pointing towards 
 the disordered Saxons with a wild laugli of revengeful 
 joy, William set spurs to his horse, and, followed by 
 all his chivalry, joined the cavalry of Poitou a)id 
 Boulogne in their swoop upon the scattered array. 
 Already the Norman infantry had turned round, — 
 already the horses that lay in ambush amongst the brush- 
 wood near the dykes had thundered forth. The whole 
 of the late impregnable vanguard was broken up, divided 
 corps from corps, hemmed in ; horse after horse charging 
 to the rear, to the front, to the flank, to the right, to the 
 left. 
 
 Gurth, with the men of Surrey and Sussex, had alone 
 kept their ground, Ijut they were now compelled to ad- 
 vance to the aid of their scattered comrades; and coming 
 up in close order, they not only awhile stayed the 
 slaughter, but again lialf turned the day. Knowing the 
 country thoroughly, Gurth lured the foe into the ditches 
 concealed within a hundred yards of their own ambush, 
 and there the havoc of the foreigners was so great, that 
 the hollows are said to have been literally made level 
 with the plain by their corpses. Yet this combat, how- 
 ever fierce, and however skill might seek to repair the 
 former error, coidd not be long maintained against such 
 disparity of numbers. And meanwhile the whole of the 
 division under Geoffroi IVIartel and his co-captains had, by 
 a fresh order of William's, occupied the space between
 
 HAEOLD. 311 
 
 the intrenchments and the more distant engagement; 
 thus, when Harold looked up, he saw the foot of the 
 hillocks so lined with steel as to render it liopeless that 
 he himself could win to the aid of his vanguard. He set 
 his teeth firmly, looked on, and only by gesture and 
 smothered exclamations showed his emotions of hope and 
 fear. At length he cried, — 
 
 " Gallant Gurth ! brave Leofwine, look to their pen- 
 nons ; right, right ; well fought, sturdy Vebba ! Ha ! 
 they are moving this way. The wedge cleaves on, — it 
 cuts its path through the heart of the foe." And, in- 
 deed, the chiefs now drawing off the shattered remains 
 of their countrymen, still disunited, but still each sec- 
 tion shaping itself wedge-like, — on came the English, 
 with their shields over their head, through the tempest 
 of missiles, against the rush of the steeds, here and there, 
 through the plains, up the slopes, towards the intrench- 
 ment, in the teeth of the formidable array of Martel, 
 and harassed by hosts that seemed numberless. The 
 king could restrain himself no longer. He selected 
 five hundred of his bravest and most practised vet- 
 erans yet comparatively fresh, and commanding the 
 rest to stay firm, descended the hills, and charged un- 
 expectedly into the rear of the mingled iSTormans and 
 Bretons. 
 
 This sortie, well-timed though desperate, served to 
 cover and favor the retreat of the straggling Saxons. 
 Many, indeed, were cut off, bv;t Gurth, Leofwine, and 
 Vebba heAved the way for their followers to the side of 
 Harold, and entered the intrenchments, close followed 
 by the nearer foe, who were again repulsed amidst the 
 shouts of the English. 
 
 But, alas ! small indeed the band thus saved, and hope- 
 less the thought that the small detachments of English
 
 312 HAEOLD. 
 
 still surviving and scattered over the plain would ever 
 win to their aid. 
 
 Yet in those scattered remnants were, perhaps, almost 
 the only men who, availing themselves of their acquaint- 
 ance with the country, and despairing of victory, escaped 
 by flight from the field of Sanguelac. Nevertheless, 
 within the intrenchments not a man had lost heart ; the 
 day was already far advanced, no impression had been yet 
 made on the outworks, the position seemed as impregna- 
 ble as a fortress of stone ; and, truth to say, even the 
 bravest Normans were disheartened, when they looked to 
 that eminence which had foiled the charge of William 
 himself. The duke, in the recent melee had received 
 more than one wound ; his third horse that day had been 
 slain under him. The slaiighter among the knights and 
 nobles had been immense, for they had exposed their 
 persons with the most desperate valor. And William, 
 after surveying the rout of nearlj' one-half of the English 
 army, heard everywhere, to his wrath and his shame, 
 murmurs of discontent and dismay at the prospect of 
 scaling the heights, in which the gallant remnant had 
 found their refuge. 
 
 At this critical JTincture, Odo of Bayeux, who had 
 hitherto remained in the rear ^ with the crowds of monks 
 that accompanied the armament, rode into the full field, 
 where all the hosts were re-forming their lines. He 
 was in complete mail ; but a white surplice was drawn 
 over the steel, his head was bare, and in his right hand he 
 bore the crozier. A formidable club swung by a leathern 
 noose from his wrist, to be used only for self-defence: 
 the canons forbade the priest to strike merely in assault. 
 
 Behind the milk-white steed of Odo came the whole 
 body of reserve, fresh and unbreathed, free from the 
 
 1 William Pict.
 
 H AHOLD. 313 
 
 terrors of their comrades, and stung into proud wrath 
 at the delay of the Norman conquest. 
 
 " How now, how now ! " cried the prelate ; " do ye 
 flag? do ye falter when tlie sheaves are down and ye 
 have but to gather up the harvest ? How now, sons of 
 the Church ! warriors of the Cross ! avengers of the 
 Saints! Desert your count if ye please; but shrink 
 not back from a Lord mightier than man. Lo, I come 
 forth to ride side by side with my brother, bare-headed, 
 the crozier in my hand. He who fails his liege is but a 
 coward, — he who fails the Church is apostate! " 
 
 The fierce shout of the reserve closed this harangue, 
 and the words of the prelate, as well as the physical aid 
 he brought to back them, renerved the army. And now 
 the whole of AVilliam's mighty host, covering the field 
 till its lines seemed to blend with the gray horizon, came 
 on — serried, steadied, orderly — to all sides of the in- 
 trenchment. Aware of the inutility of his horse till the 
 breastworks were cleared, William placed in the van all 
 his heavy armed foot, spearmen, and archers, to open the 
 way throiigh the palisades, the sorties from which had 
 now been carefully closed. 
 
 As they came up the hills, Harold turned to Haco and 
 said, " Where is thy battle-axe ? " 
 
 " Harold, " answered Haco, with more than his usual 
 tone of sombre sadness, " I desire now to be thy shield- 
 bearer, for thou must use thine axe with both hands 
 while the day lasts and thy shield is useless. Where- 
 fore, thou strike and I will shield thee." 
 
 " Thou lovest me, then, son of Sweyn ; I have some- 
 times doubted it." 
 
 " I love thee as the best part of my life, and with thy 
 life ceases mine : it is my heart that my shield guards 
 when it covers the breast of Harold."
 
 314 HAKOLD. 
 
 " I would bid thee live, poor j'outli, " whispered 
 Harold ; " but what were life if this day were lost 1 
 Happy, then, will be those Avho die! " 
 
 Scarce had the words left his lips ere he sprang to the 
 breastworks, and with a sudden sweep of his axe down 
 dropjjed a helm that peered above them. But helm 
 after helm succeeds. Now they come on, swarm upon 
 swarm, as wolves on a traveller, as bears round a bark. 
 Countless, amidst their carnage, on they come! The 
 arrows of the Norman blacken the air: Avith deadly pre- 
 cision to each arm, each limb, each front exposed above 
 the bulwarks, whirs the shaft. They clamber the pali- 
 sades, the foremost fall dead under the Saxon axe; now 
 thovisands rush on : vain is the might of Harold, vain 
 had been a Harold's might in every Saxon there! The 
 first row of breastworks is forced, — it is trampled, 
 hewed, crushed down, cumbered with the dead. " Ha 
 Rou ! Ha Rou ! Notre Dame ! Notre Dame ! " sounds 
 joyous and shrill, the chargers snort and leap, and 
 charge into the circle. High wheels in air the great 
 mace of William ; bright by the slaughterers flashes the 
 crozier of the Church. 
 
 " On, Normans ! — earldom and land ! " cries the duke. 
 
 " On, sons of the Church ! Salvation and heaven ! " 
 shouts the voice of Odo. 
 
 The first breastwork down, — the Saxons yielding inch 
 by inch, foot by foot, are pressed, crushed back, into the 
 second enclosure. The same rush, and swarm, and fight, 
 and cry, and roar: the second enclosure gives way. And 
 now, in the centre of the third — lo, before the eyes of 
 the Normans — towers proudly aloft and shines in the 
 rays of the western sun, broidered Avith gold and blazing 
 with mystic gems, the standard of England's king! And 
 there are gathered the reserve of the English host ; there,
 
 HAEOLD. 315 
 
 the heroes who had never yet known defeat, — unwearied 
 they by the battle, vigorous high-hearted still ; and round 
 them the breastworks were thicker, and stronger, and 
 higher, and fastened by chains to pillars of wood and 
 staves of iron, with the wagons and carts of the bag- 
 gage, and piled logs of timber, — barricades at which 
 even William paused aghast, and Odo stifled an excla- 
 mation that became not a priestly lip. 
 
 Before that standard, in the front of the men, stood 
 Gurth, and Leofwine, and Haco, and Harold, the last 
 leaning for rest upon his axe, for he was sorely wounded 
 in many places, and the blood oozed through the links of 
 his mail. 
 
 Live, Harold ! live yet, and Saxon England shall not 
 die! 
 
 The English archers had at no time been numerous; 
 most of them had served with the vanguard, and the 
 shafts of those within the ramparts were spent; so that 
 the foe had time to pause and to breathe. The Kor- 
 man arrows meanwhile flew fast and thick, but William 
 noted to his grief that they strvick against the tall 
 breastworks and barricades, and so failed in the slaughter 
 they should inflict. 
 
 He mused a moment, and sent one of his knights to 
 call to him three of the chiefs of the archers. They 
 were soon at the side of his destrier. 
 
 "See ye not, maladroits," said the duke, "that your 
 shafts and bolts fall harmless on those ozier walls? 
 Shoot in the air; let the arrows fall perpendicular on 
 those within, fall as the vengeance of the saints falls, — 
 direct from heaven! Give me thy bow, archer, — thus." 
 He drew the bow as he sat on his steed, — the arrow 
 flashed up, and descended in the heart of the reserve, 
 within a few feet of the standard.
 
 316 HAROLD. 
 
 " So ; that standard be your mark, " said the duke, 
 giving back the bow. 
 
 The archers withdrew. The order circulated through 
 their bands, and in a few moments more down came the 
 iron rain. It took the English host as by surprise, 
 piercing hide cap and even iron helm ; and in the very 
 surprise that made them instinctively look up, — death 
 came. 
 
 A dull groan as from many hearts boomed from the 
 intrenchments on the Norman ear. 
 
 " Now, " said William, " they must either use their 
 shields to guard their heads, and their axes are useless, 
 or, while they smite with the axe they fall by the shaft. 
 On now to the ramparts. I see my crown already rest- 
 ing on yonder standard ! " 
 
 Yet, despite all, the English bear up; the thickness 
 of the palisades, the comparative smallness of the last 
 enclosure, more easily therefore manned and maintained 
 by the small force of the survivors, defy other weapons 
 than those of the bow. Every Norman who attempts 
 to scale the breastwork is slain on the instant, and his 
 body cast forth under the hoofs of the baffled steeds. 
 The sun sinks near and nearer towards the red horizon. 
 
 "Courage!" cries the voice of Harold, — "hold but 
 till nightfall and ye are saved. Courage and freedom ! " 
 
 " Harold and Holy Crosse ! " is the answer. 
 
 Still foiled, William again resolves to hazard his fatal 
 stratagem. He marked that quarter of the enclosure 
 which was most remote from the chief point of attack, 
 — most remote from the provident watch of Harold, 
 whose cheering voice ever and anon he recognized amidst 
 the hurtling clamor. In this quarter the palisades were 
 the weakest and the ground the least elevated; but it 
 was guarded by men on whose skill with axe and shield
 
 HAPtOLD. 317 
 
 Harold placed the firmest reliance, — the Anglo-Danes 
 of his old East-Anglian earldom. Thither, then, the 
 duke advanced a chosen column of his heavy-armed 
 foot, tutored especially hy himself in the rehearsals of 
 his favorite ruse, and accompanied by a hand of archers ; 
 while at the same time, he himself, with his brother 
 Odo, headed a considerable company of knights under 
 the son of the great Roger de Beaumont, to gain the 
 contiguous level heights on which now stretches the 
 little town of " Battle, " there to watch and to aid 
 the manoeuvre. The foot column advanced to the 
 appointed spot, and after a short, close, and terrible 
 conflict, succeeded in making a wide breach in the 
 breastworks. But that temporary success only animates 
 yet more the exertions of the beleaguered defenders, 
 and swarming round the breach, and pouring through 
 it, line after line of the foe drop beneath their axes. 
 The column of the heavy-armed Normans fall back 
 down the slopes ; they give way ; they turn in disorder ; 
 they retreat ; they fly ; — but the archers stand firm , 
 midway on the descent, — those archers seem an easy 
 prey to the English; the temptation is irresistible. 
 Long galled, and harassed, and maddened by the shafts, 
 the Anglo-Danes rush forth at the heels of the Norman 
 swordsmen, and, sweeping down to exterminate the 
 archers, the breach that they leave gapes wide. 
 
 " Forward ! " cries William, and he gallops towards 
 the breach. 
 
 " Forward ! " cries Odo ; " I see the hands of the holy 
 saints in the air ! Forward ! it is the dead that wheel 
 our war-steeds round the living ! " 
 
 On rush the Norman knights. But Harold is already 
 in the breach, rallying round him hearts eager to replace 
 the shattered breastworks.
 
 318 HAROLD. 
 
 " Close shields! Hold fast! " shouts his kingly voice. 
 
 Before him were the steeds of Bruse and Grantmesnil, 
 At his breast their spears ; — Haco holds over the breast 
 the shield. Swinging aloft with both hands his axe, 
 the spear of Grantmesnil is shivered in twain by the 
 king's stroke. Cloven to the skull rolls the steed of 
 Bruse. Knight and steed roll on the bloody sward. 
 
 But a blow from the sword of De Lacy has broken 
 down the guardian shield of Haco. The son of Sweyn 
 is stricken to his knee. With lifted blades and whirling 
 maces, the Norman knights charge through the breach. 
 
 " Look up, look up, and guard thy head ! " cries the 
 fatal voice of Haco to the king. 
 
 At that cry the king raises his flashing eyes. Why 
 halts his stride 1 Why drops the axe from his hand ? 
 As he raised his head, down came the hissing death- 
 shaft. It smote the lifted face ; it crushed into the 
 dauntless eyeball. He reeled, he staggered, he fell 
 back several yards, at the foot of his gorgeous standard. 
 With desperate hand he broke the head of the shaft, 
 and left the barb, quivering in the anguish. 
 
 Gurth knelt over him. 
 
 " Fight on ! " gasped the king : " conceal my death ! 
 Holy Crosse ! England to the rescue ! woe — woe ! " 
 
 Rallying himself a moment, he sprang to his feet, 
 clinched his right hand, and fell once more, — a corpse. 
 
 At the same moment a simultaneous rush of horse- 
 men towards the standard bore back a line of Saxons, 
 and covered the body of the king with heaps of the slain. 
 
 His helmet cloven in two, his face all streaming with 
 blood, but still calm in its ghastly hups, amidst the 
 foremost of those slain, fell the fated Haco. He fell 
 with his head on the breast of Harold, kissed the bloody 
 cheek with bloody lips, groaned, and died.
 
 HAROLD. 319 
 
 Inspired by despair with superhuman strength, Gurth, 
 striding over the corpses of his kinsmen, opposed him- 
 self singly to the knights; and the entire strength of 
 the English remnant, coming round him at the menaced 
 danger to the standard, once more drove off the assailants. 
 
 But now all the enclosure was filled with the foe; 
 the whole space seemed gay in the darkening air with 
 banderols and banners. High through all rose the club 
 of the conqueror; high through all shone the crozier 
 of the churchman. Xot one Englishman fled ; all now 
 centring round the standard, they fell, slaughtering if 
 slaughtered. Man by man, under the charmed banner, 
 fell the lithsmen of Hilda. Then died the faithful 
 SexwoK. Then died the gallant Godrith, redeeming, 
 by the death of many a Xorman, his young fantastic 
 love of the Norman manners. Tlien died, last of such 
 of the Kent men as had won retreat from their scattered 
 vanguard into the circle of closing slaughter, the English- 
 hearted Vebba. 
 
 Even still in that age, when the Teuton had yet in 
 his veins the blood of Odin, the demi-god, — even still 
 one man could delay the might of numbers. Through 
 the crowd, the i!^ormans beheld with admiring awe here, 
 in the front of their horse, a single warrior, before whose 
 axe spear shivered, helm drooped, — there, close by the 
 staiidard, standing breast high among the slain, one still 
 more formidable, and even amidst ruin unvanquished. 
 The first fell at length under the mace of Roger de 
 Montgommeri. So, unknown to the Norman poet (who 
 hath preserved in his verse the deeds but not the name), 
 fell, laughing in death, young Leofwine! Still by the 
 enchanted standard towers the other; still the enchanted 
 standard waves aloft, with its brave ensign of the solitary 
 " Fighting Man " girded by the gems that had flashed in 
 the crown of Odin.
 
 320 HAROLD. 
 
 " Thine be the honor of lowering that haughty flag, ** 
 cried William, turning to one of his favorite and most 
 famous knights, Robert de Tessin. 
 
 Overjoyed, the knight rushed forth, to fall by the axe 
 of that stubborn defender. 
 
 " Sorcery ! " cried Fitzosborne, " sorcery ! This is no 
 man, but fiend. " 
 
 " Spare him ! spare the brave ! " cried in a breath 
 Bruse, D'Aincourt, and De Graville. 
 
 William turned round in wrath at the cry of mercy, 
 and, spurring over all the corpses, with the sacred banner 
 borne by Tonstain close behind him, so that it shadowed 
 his helmet, he came to the foot of the standard, and for 
 one moment there was single battle between the knight- 
 duke and the Saxon hero. Nor even then conquered 
 by the Norman sword, but exhausted by a hundred 
 wounds, that brave chief fell, ^ and the falchion vainly 
 pierced him, falling. So, last man at the standard, died 
 Gurth. 
 
 The sun had set, the first star was in heaven, the 
 " Fighting Man " was laid low, and on that spot where 
 now, all forlorn and shattered, amidst stagnant water, 
 stands the altar-stone of Battle Abbey, rose the glitter- 
 ing dragon that surmounted the consecrated banner of 
 the Norman victor. 
 
 1 Thus Wace : — 
 
 " Guert (Gurth) vit Engleiz amenuisier, 
 Vi K'il n'i out nul recovrier," etc. 
 
 " Gurth saw the English diminish, and that there was no hope 
 to retrieve the day ; the duke pushed forth with such force that he 
 reached him, and struck him with great violence (par ijrant air). 
 I know not if he died by the stroke, but it is said that it laid him 
 low."
 
 HAROLD. 321 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Close by his banner, amidst the piles of the dead, 
 AVilliam the Conqueror pitched his pavilion, and sat 
 at meat. And over all the plain, far and near, torches 
 were moving like meteors on a marsh; for the duke 
 had permitted the Saxon women to search for the 
 bodies of their lords. And as he sat, and talked, and 
 laughed, there entered the tent two humble monks: 
 their lowly mien, their dejected faces, their homely 
 serge, in mournful contrast to the joy and the splendor 
 of tlie Victory-Feast. 
 
 They came to the Conqueror, and knelt. 
 
 " Rise up, sons of the Church, " said William, mildly, 
 " for sons of the Church are toe ! Deem not that we 
 shall invade the rights of the religion which we have 
 come to avenge. Nay, on this spot we have already 
 sworn to build an abbey that shall be the proudest in 
 the land, and where masses shall be sung evermore for 
 the repose of the brave Normans who fell in this field, 
 and for mine and my consort's soul." 
 
 " Doubtless, " said Odo, sneering, " the holy men 
 have heard already of this pious intent, and come to 
 pray for cells in the future abbey." 
 
 " Not so, " said Osgood, mournfully, and in barbarous 
 Norman: "we have our own beloved convent at Wal- 
 tham, endowed by the prince Avhom thine arms have 
 defeated. We come to ask but to bury in our sacred 
 cloisters the corpse of him so lately king over all Eng' 
 land, — our benefactor, Harold." 
 
 VOL. II. — 21
 
 322 HAKOLD. 
 
 The duke's brow fell. 
 
 "And see," said Ailred, eagerly, as he drew out a 
 leathern pouch, " we have brought with us all the gold 
 that our poor crypts contained, for we misdoubted this 
 day ; " and he poured out the glittering pieces at the 
 Conqueror's feet. 
 
 " No ! " said William, fiercely, " Ave take no gold for 
 a traitor's body ; no, not if Githa, the usurper's mother, 
 offered us its weight in the shining metal: unburied be 
 the Accursed of the Church, and let the birds of prey 
 feed their young with his carcass ! " 
 
 Two murmurs, distinct in tone and in meaning, were 
 heard in that assembly : the one of approval from fierce 
 mercenaries, insolent with triumph; the other of gener- 
 ous discontent and indignant amaze from the large ma- 
 jority of Norman nobles. 
 
 But William's brow was still dark, and his eye still 
 stern, for his policy confirmed his passions; and it was 
 only by stigmatizing as dishonored and accursed the 
 memory and cause of the dead king that he could justify 
 the sweeping spoliation of those who had fought against 
 himself, and confiscate the lands to which his own quens 
 and warriors looked for their reward. 
 
 The murmurs had just died into a thrilling hush, 
 when a woman, who had followed the monks unper- 
 ceived and unheeded, passed, with a swift and noiseless 
 step, to the duke's footstool ; and, without bending knee 
 to the ground, said, in a voice which, though low, was 
 heard by all : — 
 
 "Norman, in the name of the women of England, I 
 tell thee that thou darest not do this wrong to the 
 hero who died in defence of their hearths and their 
 children ! " 
 
 Before she spoke she had thrown back her hood : her
 
 HAROLD. 323 
 
 hair, dishevelled, fell over her shoulders, glittering 
 like gold ill the hlaze of the banquet-lights; and tliat 
 wondrous beauty, without parallel amidst the dames of 
 England, shone like the vision of an accusing angel on 
 the eyes of the startled duke and the breathless knights. 
 But twice in her life Edith beheld that awful man. 
 Once, when roused from her reverie of innocent love 
 by the holiday pomp of his trumps and banners, the 
 childlike maid stood at the foot of the grassy knoll; 
 and once again, when, in the hour of his triumph and 
 amidst the wrecks of England on the field of Sanguelac, 
 with a soul surviving the crushed and broken heart, the 
 faith of the lofty woman defended the hero dead. 
 
 There, with knee unbent and form unquailing, with 
 marble cheek and haughty eye, she faced the Conqueror; 
 and, as she ceased, his noble barons broke into bold 
 applause. 
 
 "Who art tliou?" said William, if not daunted at 
 least amazed. " Methinks I have seen thy face before ; 
 thou art not Harold's wife or sister'?" 
 
 "Dread lord," said Osgood, "she was the betrothed 
 of Harold; but, as within the degrees of kin, the 
 Church forbade their union, and they obeyed the 
 Church." 
 
 Out from the banquet-throng stepped Mallet de 
 Graville. "0 my liege," said he, "thou hast prom- 
 ised me lands and earldom; instead of these gifts, 
 undeserved, bestow on me the right to bury and to 
 honor the remains of Harold; to-day I took from him 
 my life, let me give all I can in return, — a grave! " 
 
 William paused, but the sentiment of the assembly, 
 so clearly pronounced, and it may be his own better 
 nature, which, ere polluted by plotting craft and hard- 
 ened by despotic ire, was magnanimous and heroic,
 
 324 HAEOLD. 
 
 moved and won him. " Lady," said he, gently, " thou 
 appealest not in vain to Norman knighthood: thy 
 rebuke was just, and I repent me of a hasty impulse. 
 Mallet de Graville, thy prayer is granted; to thy choice 
 be consigned the place of burial, to thy care the funeral 
 rites of him whose soul hath passed out of human 
 judgment." 
 
 The feast was over; William the Conqueror slept 
 on his couch, and round him slumbered his Norman 
 knights, dreaming of baronies to come; and still the 
 torches moved dismally to and fro the waste of death, 
 and through the hush of night was heard near and far 
 the wail of women. 
 
 Accompanied by the brothers of Waltham, and 
 attended by link-bearers, Mallet de Graville was yet 
 engaged in the search for the royal dead, — and the 
 search was vain. Deeper and stiller, the autumnal 
 moon rose to its melancholy noon, and lent its ghastly 
 aid to the glare of the redder lights. But, on leaving 
 the pavilion, they had missed Edith: she had gone 
 from them alone, and was lost in that dreadful wilder- 
 ness. And Ailred said, despondingly, — 
 
 " Perchance we may already have seen the corpse we 
 search for, and not recognized it; for the face may be 
 mutilated with wounds. And therefore it is that Saxon 
 wives and mothers haunt our battlefields, discovering 
 those they search by signs not known without the 
 household." ^ 
 
 "Ay," said the Norman, "I comprehend thee, by 
 
 ^ The suggestions implied in tlie text will probably be admitted 
 as correct, when we read iu the Saxon auuals of the recognition of 
 the dead, by peculiar marks on their bodies; the obvious, or at 
 least the most natural, explanation of those signs is to be found iu 
 the habit of puncturing the skin, mentioned by the Malmesbury 
 chronicler.
 
 HAROLD. 325 
 
 the letter or device, in which, according to your cus- 
 toms, your warriors impress on their own forms some 
 token of affection or some fancied charm against ill." 
 
 "It is so," answered the monk; "wherefore I grieve 
 that we have lost the guidance of the maid." 
 
 While thus conversing, they had retraced their steps, 
 almost in despair, towards the duke's pavilion. 
 
 " See," said De Graville, " how near yon lonely woman 
 hath come to the tent of the duke, — yea, to the foot 
 of the holy gonfanon, which supplanted 'the Fighting 
 Man ! ' Pardex, my heart bleeds to see her striving to 
 lift up the heavy dead! " 
 
 The monks neared the spot, and Osgood exclaimed, 
 in a voice almost joyful, — 
 
 " It is Edith the Fair ! This way, the torches ! 
 hither, quick!" 
 
 The corpses had been flung in irreverent haste from 
 either side of the gonfanon, to make room for the banner 
 of the conquest and the pavilion of the feast. Huddled 
 together, they lay in that holy bed. And the woman 
 silently, and by the help of no light save the moon, 
 was intent on her search. She waved her hand impa- 
 tiently as they approached, as if jealous of the dead; 
 but as she had not sought, so neither did she oppose, 
 their aid. Moaning low to herself, she desisted from 
 her task, and knelt watching them, and shaking her 
 head mournfully, as they removed helm after helm, and 
 lowered the torches upon stern and livid brows. At 
 length the lights fell red and full on the ghastly face 
 of Haco, — proud and sad as in life. 
 
 De Graville uttered an exclamation : " The king's 
 nephew: be sure the king is near!" 
 
 A shudder went over the woman's form, and the 
 moaning ceased.
 
 326 HxVKOLD. 
 
 They unhelmed another corpse; and the monks and 
 the knight, after one glance, turned away sickened and 
 awe-stricken at the sight : for the face was all defeatured 
 and mangled with wounds; and nought could they 
 recognize save the ravaged majesty of what had been 
 man. But at the sight of that face a wild shriek broke 
 from Edith's heart. 
 
 She started to her feet, put aside the monks with a 
 wild and angry gesture, and, bending over tlie face, 
 sought with her long hair to wipe from it the clotted 
 blood; then, with convulsive fingers, she strove to 
 loosen the buckler of the breast-mail. The knight 
 knelt to assist her. "No, no," she gasped out. "He 
 is mine, — mine now ! " 
 
 Her hands bled as the mail gave way to her efforts; 
 the tunic beneath was all dabbled with blood. She 
 rent the folds, and on the breast, just above the silenced 
 heart, were punctured, in the old Saxon letters, the word 
 "Edith;" and just below, in characters more fresh, 
 the word "England." 
 
 "See, see!" she cried, in piercing accents; and, 
 clasping the dead in her arms, she kissed the lips, and 
 called aloud, in words of the tenderest endearments, as 
 if she addressed the living. All there knew then that 
 the search was ended, — all knew that the eyes of love 
 had recognized the dead. 
 
 " Wed, wed," murmured the betrothed ; " wed at last? 
 O Harold, Harold! the words of the Vala were true, — 
 and Heaven is kind!" and laying her head gently on 
 the breast of the dead, she smiled and died. 
 
 At the east end of the choir in the abbey of Waltham 
 was long shown the tomb of the last Saxon king, in- 
 scribed with the touching words, "Harold Infelix." 
 But not under that stone, according to the chronicler
 
 HAROLD. 327 
 
 ■who should hest know the truth, ^ mouldered the dust 
 of him in whose grave was buried an epoch in human 
 annals. 
 
 " Let his corpse," said William the Norman — " let his 
 corpse guard the coasts which his life madly defended. 
 Let the seas wail his dirge and girdle his grave, and liis 
 spirit protect the land which hath passed to the Norman's 
 sway." 
 
 And Mallet de Graville assented to the word of his 
 chief, for his knightly heart turned into honor the latent 
 taunt ; and well he knew that Harold could have chosen 
 no burial-spot so worthy his English spirit and his 
 Koman end. 
 
 The tomb at Waltham would have excluded the 
 faithful ashes of the betrothed, whose heart had broken 
 on the bosom she had found ; more gentle was the grave 
 in the temple of Heaven, and hallowed by the bridal 
 death-dirge of the everlasting sea. 
 
 So, in that sentiment of poetry and love which made 
 half the religion of a Norman knight, IMallet de Graville 
 sufl'ercd death to unite those whom life had divided. In 
 the holy burial-ground that encircled a small Saxon 
 cliapel on the shore, and near the spot on which William 
 had leaped to land, one grave received the betrothed; 
 and the tomb of Waltham only honored an empty name. 
 
 Eiglit centuries have rolled away, and where is the 
 Norman now? or where is not the Saxon? The little 
 urn that sufficed for the mighty lord ^ is despoiled of his 
 
 ^ Tlie contemporary Norman chronicler, William of Poitiers. 
 
 2 " Eex magnus parva jacet hie Gulielmus in urna. — 
 Sufficit et maguo parva Domus Domino." 
 From William the Conqueror's epitaph (ap-Gemiticen). His 
 bones are said to liave been disinterred some centuries after his 
 death.
 
 28 HAROLD. 
 
 very dust; but the tombless shade of the kingly freeman 
 still guards the coasts and rests upon the seas. In many 
 a noiseless field, with Thoughts for Armies, your relics, 
 Saxon Heroes, have won back the victory from the 
 bones of the Norman saints; and whenever, with fairer 
 fates, Freedom opposes Force, and Justice, redeeming 
 the old defeat, smites down the armed Frauds that 
 would consecrate the wrong, — smile, soul of our 
 Saxon Harold, smile, appeased, on the Saxon's land!
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 28. Unguents used bt "Witches. 
 
 Lord Bacon, speaking of the ointments used by the witches, 
 supposes that they really did produce illusions by stopping the 
 vapors and sending thera to the liead. It seems that all witches 
 who attended the sabbat used these unguents, and there is some- 
 thing very remarkable in the concurrence of their testimonies as 
 to the scenes they declared themselves to have witnessed, not in the 
 body, which they left behind bvi*- as present in the soul ; as if the 
 same anointments and preparatives produced dreams nearly sim- 
 ilar in kind. To the believers in mesmerism I may add, that few 
 are aware of the extraordinary degree to which somnambulism 
 appears to be heightened by certain chemical aids ; and the disbe- 
 lievers in that agency, who have yet tried the experiments of some 
 of those now neglected drugs to which the medical art of the 
 Middle Ages attached peculiar virtues, will not be inclined to dis- 
 pute the powerful, and, as it were, systematic effect which certain 
 drugs produce on the imagination of patients with excitable and 
 nervous temperaments. 
 
 Page 32. Hilda's Adjurations. 
 
 "By the Urdar-fount dwelling, 
 Day by day from the rill, 
 The Nomas besprinkle 
 The ash Ygg: Dnissill." 
 
 The ash Ygg-drassill. — Much learning has been employed by 
 Scandinavian scholars in illustrating the symbols supposed to be 
 couched under the myth of the Ygg-drassill or the great Ash-tree. 
 With this I shall not weary the reader ; especially since large sys- 
 tems have been built on very small premises, and the erudition em- 
 ployed has been equally ingenious and unsatisfactory : I content 
 myself with stating the simple myth.
 
 330 NOTES. 
 
 The Ygg-drassill has three roots ; two spring from the iufernal 
 regious, — that is, from the home of the frost-giants, and from 
 NitHheim, "vapor-home, or hell" — one from the heavenly abode 
 of the Asas. Its branches, says the Prose Edda, extend over the 
 whole universe, and its stem bears up the earth. Beneath the 
 root, which stretches through Niffl-heim, and which the snake- 
 king continually gnaws, is the fount whence flow the iufernal 
 rivers. Beneath the root, which stretches in the laud of the 
 giants, is Miniir's well, wherein all wisdom is concealed ; but 
 uuder the root, wliich lies in tlie laud of the gods, is the well of 
 Urda, the Noma, — here the gods sit in judgment. Near this 
 well is a fair l)uilding, whence issue the tliree maidens, Urda, Ver- 
 daudi, Skulda (the Past, the Present, tlie Future). Daily they 
 water the ash-tree from Urda's well, that the branches may not 
 perish. Four harts constantly devour the buds and bi'anches of 
 the Ash-tree. On its boughs sits an eagle, wise iu much; and 
 between its eyes sits a hawk. A squirrel runs up and down the 
 tree, sowing strife between the eagle and the snake. 
 
 Such, in brief, is the account of the myth. For the various in- 
 ter})retations of its symbolic meaning the general reader is re- 
 ferred to Mr. Black well's edition of Mallett's " Nortlieru Antiqui- 
 ties," and Pigott's " Scandinavian Manual." 
 
 'O^ 
 
 Page 175. Harold's Accession, 
 
 There are, as is well known, two accounts as to Edward the 
 Confessor's death-bed disposition of the English crown. The 
 Norman chroniclers affirm, first, that Edward ])romised William 
 the crown during his exile in Normandy ; secondly, that Siward, 
 Earl of Northumbria, Godv/in, and Leofric had taken oath, " ser- 
 meiit de la main," to receive liim as Seigneur after Edward's death, 
 and that the hostages, Wolnoth and Haco, were given to the Duke 
 in jiledge of tliat oath ; ^ thirdly, that P^dward left him the crown 
 by will. 
 
 Let us see what probability there i-s of truth in these three 
 assertions. 
 
 First, Edward promised William the crown when in Normandy. 
 
 This seems probable enough, and it is corroborated indirectly by 
 the Saxon clironiclers, when they unite in relating Edward's warn- 
 ings to Harold against his visit to the Norman court. Edward 
 
 1 William of Poitiers.
 
 NOTES. 331 
 
 might well be aware of William's designs on the crown (though in 
 those warnings he refrains from mentioning them), — might re- 
 member the authority given to those designs by his own early 
 promise, and know the secret purpose for which the hostages were 
 retained by William, and the advantages he would seek to gain 
 from having Harold himself in his power. But this promise ia 
 itself was clearly not binding on the English people, nor on any 
 one but Edward, who, without the sanction of tlie Witau, could 
 not fulfil it. And that William himself could not have attached 
 great importance to it during Edward's life is clear, because, if he 
 had, the time to urge it was when Edward sent into Germany for 
 the Atheling, as the heir presumptive of the throne. This was a 
 virtual annihilation of the promise ; but William took no step to 
 urge it, made no complaint and no remonstrance. 
 
 Secondly, That Godwin, Siward, and Leofric had taken oaths of 
 fealty to WiUiam. 
 
 This appears a fable wliolly without foundation. When could 
 those oaths have been pledged ? Certainly not after Harold's 
 visit to William, for they were then aU dead. At the accession of 
 Edward 1 This is obviously contradicted by the stipulation which 
 Godwin and the other chiefs of the Witan exacted, that Edward 
 should not come accompanied by Norman supporters ; by the evi- 
 dent jealousy of the Xormans entertained by those chiefs, as I)y 
 the whole English people, who regarded the alliance of Ethelred 
 with the Norman Emma as the cause of the greatest calamities ; 
 and by the marriage of Edward himself with Godwin's daughter, 
 a marriage which that Earl might naturally presume would give 
 legitimate heirs to the throne. — In the interval between Ed- 
 ward's accession and Godwin's outlawry ? No ; for all the Eng- 
 lish chroniclers, and, indeed, the Norman, concur in representing 
 the iU-will borne liy Godwin and his House to the Norman favor- 
 ites, whom, if they could have anticipated William's accession, or 
 were in any way bound to William, they would have naturally 
 conciliated. But Godwin's outlawry is the result of the breach 
 between him and the foreigners. — In William's visit to Edward ? 
 No ; for that took place when Godwin was an exile; and even the 
 writers who assert Edward's early promise to William declare 
 that nothing was then said as to the succession to the throne. To 
 Godwin's return from outlawry the Norman chroniclers seem to 
 refer the date of this pretended oath, by the assertion that the 
 hostages were given in pledge of it. This is the most monstrous
 
 332 ~ NOTES. 
 
 supposition of all: for Godwin's return is followed by the banish 
 nieut of the Norman favorites ; by the utter downfall of the Nor- 
 man party in England ; by the decree of the Witan, that all the 
 troubles in England had come from the Normans ; by the trium- 
 phant ascendancy of Godwin's House. And is it credible for a 
 moment, that the great English Earl could then have agreed to a 
 pledge to transfer the kingdom to the very party he had expelled, 
 and expose himself and his party to the vengeance of a foe he had 
 thoroughly crushed for the time, and whom, without any motive 
 or object, he himself agreed to restore to power for his own prob- 
 able perdition? When examined, this assertion falls to the ground 
 from other causes. It is not among the arguments that William 
 uses in his embassies to Harold ; it rests mainly upon the author- 
 ity of William of Poitiers, who, though a contemporary, and a 
 good authority on some points purely Norman, is grossly ignoi-ant 
 as to the most accredited and acknowledged facts, in all that relate 
 to the English. Even with regard to the hostages, he makes the 
 most extraordinary blunders. He says they were sent by Edward, 
 with the consent of his nobles, accompanied by Roliert, Arclibishop 
 of Canterbury. Now Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, had fled 
 from England as fast as he could fly on the return of Godwin ; 
 and arrived in Normandy, half drowned, before the hostages were 
 sent, or even before the Witan which reconciled Edward and 
 Godwin had assembled. He says that William restored to Harold 
 " his young brother ; " whereas it was Haco, the nephew, who was 
 restored ; we know, by Norman as well as iSaxou chroniclers, that 
 Wolnoth, the brother, was not released till after the Conqueror's 
 death (he was re-imprisoned by Rufus) ; and his partiality may be 
 judged by the assertions, first, that " William gave nothing to a 
 Norman that was unjustly taken from an Englishman ; " and, sec- 
 ondly, that Odo, whose horrible oppressions revolted even William 
 himself, "never had an equal for justice, and that all the English 
 obeyed him willingly." 
 
 We may, therefore, dismiss this assertion as utterly groundless, 
 on its own merits, without directly citing against it the Saxon 
 authorities. 
 
 Thirdly, That Edward left William the crown by will. 
 
 On this assertion alone, of the tliree, the Norman Conqueror 
 himself seems to have rested a positive claim. i But if so, where 
 
 1 He is considered to refer to sucli bequest in one of his charters : " Devicto 
 Haroldo rege cum suis complicibus qui miehi reguuui prudentia Domini destina-
 
 NOTES. 833 
 
 was the will ? Whj' was it never produced or producihle ? If 
 destroyed, where were tlie witnesses "? why were they not cited ? 
 The testamentary dispositions of an Anglo-Saxon king were al- 
 ways respected, and went far towards the succession. But it was 
 al)solutely necessary to prove them before the Witan.^ An oral 
 act of this kind, in the words of the dying Sovereign, would be 
 legal, but they must be confirmed by those who heard them. 
 Why, when William was master of England, and acknowledged by 
 a National Assembly convened in London, and when all who 
 heard the dying King would have been naturally disposed to give 
 every evidence in William's favor, not only to flatter the new 
 sovereign, but to soothe the national pi-ide, and justify the Norman 
 succession by a more popular plea than conquest, — why were no 
 witnesses summoned to prove the bequest ? Aired, Stigand, and 
 tlie Abbot of Westminster must have been present at the death- 
 bed of tlie King, and these priests concurred in submission to 
 William. If tiiey had any testimony as to Edward's bequest in 
 his favor, would they not liave been too glad to give it, in justifica- 
 tion of themselves, in compliment to William, in duty to the 
 people, in vindication of law against force? But no such attempt 
 at proof was ventured upon. 
 
 Against these, the mere assertion of William, and the authority 
 of Normans who could know nothing of the truth of the matter, 
 while they had every interest to misrepresent the facts, — we have 
 the positive assurances of tlie best possible authorities. Tlie 
 Saxon Chronicle (worth all the other annalists put together) says 
 expressly that Edward left the crown to Harold • — 
 
 " The sage, ne'ertheless, 
 The realm committed 
 To a highly-born man ; 
 Harold's self, 
 The noble Earl. 
 He in all time 
 
 turn, et beneficio coneessionis Domini et cognati mei gloriosi regis Edwardi con- 
 cessuni conati sunt auferre." — Forf.stina, A. 3. 
 
 But William's word is certainly not to be taken, for he never scrupled to break 
 it ; and even in these words he does not state that it was left him by Edward's 
 will, but destined and given to him, — words founded, perhaps, solely on the 
 promise referred to, before Edward came to the throne, corroborated by some 
 messages in the earlier years of his reign, through the Norman Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, who seems to have been a notable intriguer to that end. 
 
 ' Palgea.v£ : "Commonwealth," p. 560.
 
 
 4 NOTES. 
 
 Obeyed faithfully 
 His rightful lord, 
 By words and deeds ; 
 Nor aught neglected 
 Which needful was 
 To his sovereign king." 
 
 Florence of Worcester, the next best .intliority (valuable from 
 su])plyiug omissions in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), says expressly 
 that the King chose Harold for his successor before his decease,^ 
 that he was elected by the chief men of all England, and conse- 
 crated by Aired. Hoveden, Simon (Dnnelm), the Beverley chron- 
 icler confirm these authorities as to Edward's choice of Harold as 
 his successor. William of Malmeshury, who is not partial to 
 Harold, writing in the reign of Henry the First, has doubts him- 
 self as to Edward's bequest (tliougli grounded on a very l)ad argu- 
 ment, namel}', "tlie imjirobability that Edward would leave his 
 ci'own to a man of whose power he had always been jealous ; " there 
 is no proof that Edward had l)een jealous of IlarohVs power, — he 
 had been of Gochvin's) ; but Malmeshury gives a more valuable 
 autliority tlian his own, in tiie concurrent opinion of his time, for 
 he deposes that " tlte Enijllsh sujj " the diadem was granted him 
 (Harold) by the King. 
 
 These evidences are, to say the least, infinitely more worthy of 
 historical credence than the one or two English chroui^ders, of 
 little comparative estimation (such as Wike), and the prejudiced 
 and ignorant Norman chroniclers - who depose on behalf of Wil- 
 liam. I assume, therefore, that Edward left the crown to Harold ; 
 of Harold's better claim in the election of the Witan, there is no 
 doubt. But Sir F. Palgrave starts the notion that, " admitting 
 that the prelates, eaids, aldermen, and thanes of Wessex and East- 
 Anglia had sanctioned the accession of Harold, their decision could 
 not have been obligatory on the other kingdoms (jtrovinces) ; and 
 the very short time elapsing between tlie death of Edward and the 
 
 1 " Quo tumulato, suhregulus Ilaroldns Godwin Ducis Alius, quem rex ante 
 suam decessionem regni sneeessnrem elesrernt, a totius Anglipe primatibus, ad 
 regale culuien electus, die eodem ab Aldredo Eboracensi Archiepiscopo in regem 
 est hnnorifice consecratus." — Flor. Wi(/. 
 
 - Some of these Norman chroniclers tell an absurd story of Harold seizing the 
 crown from the hand of the bishop, and putting it liimself on his head. The 
 Bayeux Tapestry, which is VVilliani's most connected apology for his claim, 
 shows no such violence ; but Harold is represented as crowned very peaceably. 
 With more art (as I have observed elsfwhere), the Tapestry represents Stigand 
 as crowning him instead of Aired ; Stigand being at that time under the Pope's 
 interdict.
 
 NOTES. 335 
 
 recognition of Harold, utterly precludes the supposition that their 
 conscut was even a.^ked." This great writer must permit me, with 
 all revereuce, to suggest that he has, I thiuk, forgotten the fact, 
 tliat just prior to Edward's deatli, an assembly, fully as numerous 
 as ever met in any national Witau, had been convened to attend 
 the consecration of the new abbey and church of Westminster, 
 which Edward considered the great work of his life ; that assemldy 
 would certainly not liave dispersed during a period so short and 
 anxious as the mortal illness of the King, which appears to liave 
 prevented his attending the ceremony in person, and which ended 
 in his death a very few days after the consecration. So that dur- 
 ing the interval, which appears to have been at most about a 
 week, between Edward's death and Harold's coronation,i the unus- 
 ually large concourse of prelates and nobles from all parts of the 
 kingdom assembled in London and Westminster would have fur- 
 nished the numbers requisite to give weight and sanction to the 
 Witan. And had it not been so, the Saxon chroniclers, and still 
 more the Norman, would scarcely have omitted some remark in 
 qualification of tlie election. But not a word is said as to any in- 
 adecjuate number in the Witan. And as for the two great princi 
 palities of Northumbria and Mercia, Plarold's recent marriage 
 with the sister of their earls might naturally tend to secure their 
 allegiance. 
 
 Nor is it to be forgotten that a very numerous Witan had assem- 
 bled at Oxford a few mouths before, to adjudge the rival claims of 
 Tostig and Morcar ; the decision of tiie Witau proves the alliance 
 between Harold's party and that of the young earls, — ratified by 
 the marriage with Aldyth. And he who has practically engaged 
 in the contests and cabals of party will allow the probability, 
 adopted as fact in the romance, that, considering Edward's years 
 and infirm liealtli, and the urgent necessity of determining before- 
 hand tiie claims to the succession, — some actual, if secret, under- 
 standing was then come to by the leading chiefs. It is a common 
 error in history to regard as sudden, that which in the nature of 
 affairs never can be sudden. All that paved Harold's way to the 
 throne must have been silently settled long before the day in 
 which the Witan elected him unanimi omnium consensu.'^ 
 
 1 Edward died January 5th. Harold's coronation is said to have taken plaoo 
 January 12th; but there is no very satisfactory evidence as to the precise day ; 
 indeed some writers would imply that he was crowned the day after Edward' 3 
 death, which is scarcely possible. 
 
 2 Vit. Harold. Uhron. Ang. Norm.
 
 336 NOTES. 
 
 With the views to which my examination of the records of the 
 time have led me in favor of Harold, I cannot but think that Sir 
 F. Palgrave, in his admirable History of Anglo-Saxon England, 
 does scanty justice to the Last of its kings ; and that his pe- 
 culiar political and constitutional theories, and his attachment to 
 the principle of hereditary succession, which make him cou.^ider 
 that Harold " had no clear title to the crown any way," tincture 
 with sometliing like the prejudice of party his estimate of Harold's 
 character and pretensions. My profound admiration for Sir F. 
 Palgrave's learning and judgment would not permit me to make 
 this remark without carefully considering and re-weighing all the 
 contending autliorities on which he himself relies. And I own 
 that, of all modern historians, Thierry seems to rae to have given 
 the most just idea of the great actors in the tragedy of the Norman 
 invasion, though I incline to believe that he has overrated the 
 oppressive influence of the Isorman dynasty in which the tragedy 
 closed. 
 
 Page 196. Physical PEcnLiARiTiES of the Scandixavians. 
 
 " It is a singular circumstance, that in almost all the swords of 
 those ages to be found in the collection of weapons in the Anti- 
 quarian Museum at Copenhagen, the handles indicate a size of 
 hand very much smaller than the hands of modern people of any 
 class or rank. No modern dandy, with the most delicate hands, 
 would find room for his hand to grasp or wield with ease some of 
 the swords of these Northmen." ^ 
 
 This peculiarity is by some scholars adduced, not without reason, 
 as an argument for the Eastern origin of the Scandinavian. Nor 
 was it uncommon for the Asiatic Scythians, and indeed many of 
 the early warlike tribes fluctuating between tlie east and west of 
 Europe, to be distinguished by the blue eyes and yellow hair of 
 the north. The physical attributes of a deity or a hero are usually 
 to be regarded as those of the race to which he belongs. The 
 golden locks of Apollo and Achilles are the sign of a similar char- 
 acteristic in the nations of wliich tliey are the types ; and the blue 
 eye of Minerva lielies the absurd doctrine that would identify her 
 with the Egyptian Naith. 
 
 The Norman retained perhaps longer than the Scandinavian, 
 from whom he sprang, the somewhat effeminate peculiarity of 
 
 * Laing's Note to " Saorro Sturleson," vol. iii. p. 101.
 
 NOTES. 337 
 
 small hands aud feet; and hence, as throughout all the nobility of 
 Europe, the Norman was the model for imitation, and the ruling 
 families in many lands sought to trace from him their descents, so 
 that characteristic is, even to our day, ridiculously regarded as a 
 sign of noble race. The Norman probably retained that peculi- 
 arity longer than the Dane, because his habits, as a conqueror, 
 made him disdain all manual labor; and it was below his kniglitly 
 dignity to walk, as long as a horse could be found for him to ride. 
 But the Auglo-Normau (the noblest specimen of the great cou- 
 queriug family) became so blended with the Saxon, both in blood 
 and in habits, that such physical distiuctions vanished with the 
 age of chivalry. The Saxon blood in our highest aristocracy now 
 predominates greatly over tlie Norman ; and it would be as vain a 
 task to identify the sons of Hastings and Rollo by the foot aud 
 hand of the old Asiatic Scythian, as by the reddish auburn hair 
 aud the high features which were no less ordinarily their type. 
 Here aud there such peculiarities may all be seen amongst plain 
 country gentlemen, settled from time immemorial in the counties 
 peopled by the Anglo-Danes, and intermarrying generally in tlieir 
 own provinces ; but amongst the far more mixed breed of the 
 larger lauded proprietors comprehended in the Peerage, the Saxon 
 attributes of race are strikingly conspicuous, and, amongst them, 
 the larae hand aud foot common with all the Germanic tribes. 
 
 Pase 327. The Interment of Harold. 
 
 Here we are met by evidences of the most contradictory char- 
 acter. According to most of the English writers, the body of 
 Harold was given by William to Githa, without ransom, and bur- 
 ied at Waltham. There is even a story told of the geuerosity of 
 the Conqueror, in cashiering a soldier who gashed the corpse of 
 the dead hero. This last, however, seems to apply to some other 
 Saxon, and not to Harold. But William of Poitiers, who was the 
 Duke's own chaplain, and whose narration of the battle appears to 
 contain more internal evidence of accuracy than the rest of his 
 chronicle, expressly says that William refused Githa's offer of its 
 weight in gold for the supposed corpse of Harold, and ordered it 
 to be buried on the beach, with the taunt quoted in the text of 
 this work, " Let him guard the coasts which he madly occupied ; " 
 and on the pretext that one whose cupidity and avarice had been 
 the cause that so many men were slaughtered aud lay uusepul- 
 
 VOL. II. — 22
 
 oo 
 
 8 NOTES. 
 
 tured, was not worthy himself of a tomb. Orderic confirms this 
 account, and says the body was given to William Mallet for that 
 purpose. 1 
 
 Certainly, William de Poitiers ought to have known best ; and 
 the probability of his story is to a certain degree borne out by the 
 uncertainty as to Harold's positive interment, which long pre- 
 vailed, and which even gave rise to a story related by Giraldus 
 Cambrensis (and to be found also in the Harleian MSS.), that 
 Harold survived the battle, became a monk in Chester, and before 
 he died had a long and secret interview with Henry the First. 
 Such a legend, however absurd, could scarcely have gained auy 
 credit if (as the usual story runs) Harold had been formally bur- 
 ied, in the presence of many of the Norman barons, in Waltham 
 Abbey, — but would very easily creep into belief, if his body had 
 been carelessly consigned to a Norman knight, to be buried pri- 
 vately by the sea-shore. 
 
 Tlie story of Osgood and Ailred, the childemaister (school- 
 master in the monastery), as related by Palgrave, and used in this 
 romance, is recorded in a MS. of Waltham Abbej', and was writ- 
 ten somewhere about fifty or sixty years after the events, — say at 
 the beginning of the twelfth century. These two monks followed 
 Harold to the field, placed themselves so as to watch its results, 
 offered ten marks for the body, obtained permission for the 
 search, and could not recognize the mutilated corpse until Osgood 
 souglit and returned with Edith. In point of fact, according to 
 this authority, it must have been two or three days after the 
 battle before the discovery was made. 
 
 1 This William Mallet was the father of Robert Mallet, founder of the Priory 
 of Eye, in Suffolk (a branch of the house of Mallet de Graville). — 1'luquet. He 
 was also the ancestor of the great William Mallet (or Malet, as the old Scandina- 
 vian name was now corruptly spelt), one of the illustrious twenty-five "constTTa- 
 tors " of Magna Charta. The family is still extant; and 1 have to apologize to 
 Sir Alexander Malet, Bart, (her Majesty'."? Minister at Stutgard), Lieut. - 
 Colonel Charles St. Lo. Malet, the Rev. William Windham Malet (Vicar of 
 Ardley), and other members of that ancient house, for the liberty taken with 
 the name of their gallant forefather. 
 
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