CHAPTER II.
King Edward sate, not on his throne, but on a chair of state, in the
presence-chamber of his palace of Westminster. His diadem, with the
three zimmes shaped into a triple trefoil [75] on 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 [76]. 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 earlier sources of ancestral
heroes. Worthy in that hour he seemed to boast the blood and wield
the sceptre of Athelstan and Alfred. [77]
Thus spoke the King:
"Right worthy and beloved, my ealdermen, earls, and thegns of England;
noble and familiar, my friends and guests, counts and chevaliers of
Normandy, 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
the 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? or
would ye rather that we dismiss the messenger 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 Notre 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 Alred, Bishop of Winchester, the worthiest prelate in
all the land. [78]
"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 Alred 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 honour. 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 citizens. Delay but proves our own weakness; a king's name
is a tower of strength, but only when fortified by a king's authority.
Give the signal for--war 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 murmurs were hushed.
Grey 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 naught 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 spoke of peace; but when
Norman advises the dwellers of England to go forth and slay each
other, no sword of mine shall be drawn at his hest. Who shall say that
Siward of the Strong Arm, the grandson of the Berserker, ever turned
from a foe? 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
countrymen, and judge as warriors. I have said."
The utmost excitement and agitation followed the speech of Siward,--
unanimous applause from the Saxons, 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. [79]
A blank disappointment, not unmixed with apprehensive terror,
succeeded the turbulent excitement of the Normans; for well they knew
that the consequences, if not condition, of negotiations, would be
their own downfall and banishment at the least;--happy, it might be,
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 national with the Saxon, though then little in
vogue; his beard thick and fair, his eyes grey 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 without 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 this 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 him
and his sons their just possessions and well-won honours; and, more
than all, to replace them where they have sought by loving service 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 countrymen."
"Hast thou said?" 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 Norman valour 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 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 other reasonable items, the head of thy humble servant
--not by name indeed, for my name is as yet unknown to him--but as one
of the unhappy class called Normans?"
"Had Earl Godwin," returned the nuncius, "thought fit to treat for
peace by asking vengeance, he would have chosen another 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 favour 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, he 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 Edward should love
him too? It is a question I have often asked, and to which I am not
likely in these halls to get answer satisfactory. If I know aught of
your 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
Normandy--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 into 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 born off
to London, and shortly afterwards his eyes are torn out in the Islet
of Ely, and he dies of the anguish! That 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?"
"All this is a Norman 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 drily, "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
fourscore 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."
"Yet answer me still, why love you Earl Godwin? He hath changed sides
from party to party, and in each change won lordships and lands. He
is ambitious and grasping, ye all allow; for the ballads sung in your
streets liken him to the thorn and the bramble, at which the sheep
leaves his wool. He is haughty and overbearing. Tell me, O Saxon,
frank Saxon, why you love Godwin the Earl? Fain would I know; for,
please the saints (and you and your Earl so permitting), I mean to
live and die in this merrie England; and it would be pleasant to learn
that I have but to do as Earl Godwin, in order to win love from the
English."
The stout Vebba looked perplexed; but after stroking his beard
thoughtfully, he answered thus:
"Though 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 doubtless 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 peaceful 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 might puzzle King Solomon. What meanest thou by 'Godwin
the thing'?"
"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 dishonoured 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 upon the knight's shoulder and whispered:
"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 misguided as to count on arms, and strive against yon
multitude, and verily before nightfall not one Norman 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 sufficiently 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 nuncius was again summoned into the
presence-chamber. Nor did he return into the ante-room, 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 this was the manoeuvre of Godwin's array. His vessels having
passed London Bridge, had rested awhile on the banks of the Southward
suburb (Suth-weorde)--since called Southwark--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.
High above all the vessels towered the majestic bark, or aesca, 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
glittering 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 physical strength than that of
a man, well shaped, robust, and deep of chest, who still preserved in
age the pith and sinew of mature manhood. Neither, 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 civilised 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 essentially the arts of party; he knew how to
deal with vast masses of mankind; he could carry along with his
interests the fervid heart of the multitude; he had in the highest
degree that gift, useless in most other lands--in all lands where
popular assemblies do not exist--the gift of popular eloquence. Ages
elapsed, after the Norman conquest, ere eloquence again became a power
in England. [80]
But like all men renowned for eloquence, he went with the popular
feeling of his times; he embodied its passions, its prejudices--but
also that keen sense of self-interest, which is the invariable
characteristic of a multitude. He was 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 with 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 kingdom had been received with general applause; and the
earlier severities of that great prince had been so redeemed in his
later years by wisdom and mildness--so, even in the worst period of
his reign, relieved by extraordinary 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 honoured name [81], and Godwin was the
more esteemed as the chosen counsellor of 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; viz., 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 throughout the English nation, that
with the House of Godwin was identified the cause of the English
people. Everything in this man's aspect served to plead in his
favour. 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 inscrutable. His mien was singularly
noble, but wholly without 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 distinguished from the other,
all remarkable for beauty of countenance and strength of frame.
Sweyn, the eldest [82], had the dark hues of his mother 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 fire. Over his shoulder he bore his mighty axe. His form,
spare, but of immense power, was sheathed in mail, and he leant on his
great pointed Danish shield. At his feet sate 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 favourite, seemed yet in the first flower of
youth, but he alone of all the sons had something irresolute and
effeminate 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 leant with both hands upon the wood of
his long spear. Leofwine, who stood next to Wolnoth, contrasted 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.
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 effect 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 would have
pointed to the man unarmed.
"So what says the King?" 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 ateghar; 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 were off his heart; "there will be no need of axe or
armour to-day. Harold alone was wise," and he pointed to the linen
tunic of the son thus cited.
"What mean you, Sir Father?" said Tostig, imperiously. "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 honour and life in his hands, and what he counsels that will we
do.--Go."
The Kent man nodded, and regained his boat. Then spoke Harold.
"Father, yonder are the forces of Edward; as yet without leaders,
since the chiefs must still be 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 English man. Wherefore, with your leave, I will
take boat, and land. And unless I have lost in my absence all right
here 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 birthright, and Cain retain it?" So
saying, he withdrew, and, reclining against the stern of the vessel,
leant 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 whispered, "Peace to the
past, O my brother!"
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, "He, 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 him, too? Father and
son, both?"
Meanwhile, Harold had entered the boat lowered from the sides of the
aesca 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 favour of thy
darling. Dissension and strife in our house have they wrought
already; and if the feuds between Harold and me have sown grey in thy
locks, thank thyself when, flushed with vain soothsayings for thy
favoured 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,
labour, valour; these are the stars that rule the career of mortals."
Tostig made no answer; for the splash of oars was near, and two ships,
containing the principal chiefs that had joined Godwin's cause, came
alongside the Runic aesca to hear the result of the message sent to
the King. Tostig sprang to the vessel's side, and exclaimed, "The
King, girt by his false counsellors, will hear us not, and arms must
decide between us."
"Hold, hold! malignant, unhappy boy!" cried Godwin, 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 tremble.
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
the hostile array, came, as by irresistible impulse, the cry, "Harold,
our Harold! All hail, the good Earl!"
While this chanced without,--within the palace, Edward had quitted the
presence-chamber, and was closeted with Stigand, the bishop. This
prelate had the more influence with 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 attachment to the Norman queen-mother Emma [83]. 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
favourite 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 listened 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 honour 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 by 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 him now, as it
would have condemned when he shunned to meet it."
"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 (Norman as well as Saxon) of the King's troops rushed in,
wild, rude, and tumultuous.
"The troops desert! half the ranks have thrown down their arms at the
very name of Harold!" exclaimed the Earl of Hereford. "Curses on the
knaves!"
"And the 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 displayed, 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 disgrace. 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 fervour, and
his face again became tranquil.
"Go," he said, flinging himself on his seat in the exhaustion that
follows passion, "go, Siward, go, Stigand, deal with things mundane as
ye will."
The bishop, satisfied with this reluctant acquiescence, seized Siward
by the arm and withdrew him from the closet. The captains remained a
few moments behind, the Saxons silently gazing on the King, the
Normans whispering each other, in great doubt and trouble, and darting
looks of the bitterest scorn at their feeble benefactor. Then, as
with one accord, these last rushed along the corridor, gained the hall
where their countrymen yet assembled, and exclaimed, "A toute bride!
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, clamoured 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
characterised the Norman, 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, viz., 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 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 abreast, 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
outland men!" Through each, spear pierced, and sword clove, the way.
Red with gore was the spear of the prelate of London; broken to the
hilt was the sword militant in the terrible hand of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. So on thy rode, so on they slaughtered--gained the
Eastern Gate, and passed with but two of their number lost.
The fields once gained, for better precaution they separated. 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, Ness, 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 countrymen; 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 flight of the counts and vavasours
of great William the Duke!
