CHAPTER IX.
Close by his banner, amidst the piles of the dead, William the
Conqueror pitched his pavilion, and sate 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 sate, 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 splendour
of the Victory-Feast.
They came to the Conqueror, and knelt.
"Rise up, sons of the Church," said William, mildly, "for sons of the
Church are we! 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 Waltham, endowed by the prince whom thine
arms have defeated. We come to ask but to bury in our sacred
cloisters the corpse of him so lately King over all England--our
benefactor, Harold."
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, "we 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 carcase!"
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 generous discontent and indignant amaze, from
the large majority 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 stigmatising, as
dishonoured 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 unperceived and unheeded, passed with a swift and
noiseless step to the Duke's foot-stool; 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 hair dishevelled,
fell over her shoulders, glittering like gold, in the blaze of the
banquet-lights; and that 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 thou?" 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. "O my liege,"
said he "thou hast promised me lands and earldom; instead of these
gifts undeserved, bestow on me the right to bury and to honour the
remains of Harold; today 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 hardened by despotic ire, was magnanimous and
heroic, 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
wilderness. And Ailred said despondingly:
"Perchance we may already have seen the corpse we search for, and not
recognised it; for the face may be mutilated with wounds. And
therefore it is that Saxon wives and mothers haunt our battle-fields,
discovering those they search by signs not known without the
household." [276]
"Ay," said the Norman, "I comprehend thee, by the letter or device, in
which, according to your customs, 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 impatiently 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.
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
recognise 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 the 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
recognised 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, inscribed with the touching words--
"Harold Infelix." But not under that stone, according to the
chronicler who should best know the truth [277], 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 his 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 honour the latent taunt; and well he knew,
that Harold could have chosen no burial spot so worthy his English
spirit and his Roman 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, Mallet de Graville suffered death to unite those
whom life had divided. In the holy burial-ground that encircled a
small Saxon chapel, on the shore, and near the spot on which William
had leapt to land, one grave received the betrothed; and the tomb of
Waltham only honoured an empty name. [278]
Eight 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 [279] is despoiled of his 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, O
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, O soul of our Saxon Harold, smile,
appeased, on the Saxon's land!
NOTES
NOTE (A)
There are various accounts in the Chroniclers as to the stature of
William the First; some represent him as a giant, others as of just or
middle height. Considering the vulgar 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
disburied bones--for which the authorities are really less respectable
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 in harmony with the
usual laws of Nature. It is rare, indeed, that a great intellect is
found in the form of a giant.
NOTE (B)
Game Laws before the Conquest.
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 in the vast wastes called forest-land, and which mainly
belonged to the kings.
Edward declares, in a law recorded in a volume of the Exchequer, "I
will that all men do abstain from hunting in my woods, and that my
will shall be obeyed under penalty of life." [280]
Edgar, the darling monarch of the monks, and, indeed, one of the most
popular of the Anglo-Saxon kings, was so rigorous in his forest-laws
that the thegns murmured as well as the lower husbandmen, who had been
accustomed to use the woods for pasturage and boscage. Canute's
forest-laws were meant as a liberal concession 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. Nevertheless, 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 the time of his son, Henry I., parks became so
common as to be at once a ridicule and a grievance.
NOTE (C)
Belin's Gate.
Verstegan combats the Welsh antiquaries who would appropriate 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 Belinsport than Belinsgate. This is no very strong
argument; for, in the Norman time, many compound words were half
Norman, half Saxon. But, in truth, Belin was a Teuton deity, whose
worship pervaded all Gaul; and the Saxons might either 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
orthography. 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.
NOTE (D)
The question whether or not real vineyards were grown, or real wine
made from them, in England has been a very vexed question among the
antiquaries. But it is scarcely possible to read Pegge's dispute with
Daines Barrington in the Archaeologia without deciding both questions
in the affirmative.--See Archaeol. vol. iii. p. 53. An engraving of
the 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 Bacchus--appear to have been imported about 1154,
by the marriage of Henry II. with Eleanor of Aquitaine.
NOTE (E)
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 1105. His family was
noble--his father ranked amongst the magistrature of Pavia, the
Lombard capital. From his earliest youth he gave himself 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. "While yet extremely
young," says one of the lively chroniclers, "he triumphed 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 tribunals. His mind, to judge both by
his history and his peculiar reputation (for probably few, if any,
students of our day can pretend to more than a partial or superficial
acquaintance with his writings), was one that delighted in subtleties
and casuistical refinements; but a sense too large and commanding for
those studies which amuse but never satisfy the higher intellect,
became disgusted betimes with mere legal dialectics. Those grand and
absorbing mysteries connected with the Christian faith and the Roman
Church (grand and absorbing in proportion as their premises 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 interesting anecdote of his life at
this, its important, crisis. He had retired to a solitary spot,
beside the Seine, to meditate on the mysterious essence of the
Trinity, when he saw a boy ladling out the waters of the river that
ran before him into a little well. His curiosity arrested, he asked
"what the 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 thou dost
meditate into the well of thy reason." Therewith the speaker
vanished, and Lanfranc, resigning the hope to achieve the mighty
mystery, threw himself at once into the arms of faith, and took his
refuge in the monastery of Bec.
The tale may be a legend, but not an idle one. Perhaps he 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 his
scholarly fame, he professed. The Convent of Bee had been lately
founded, under Herluin, the first abbot; there 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 of the site and the poverty of
the endowment allured his choice, grew the Academe of the age. "It
was," says Oderic, in his charming chronicle, "it was under such a
master that the Normans received their 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." [281]
At first, as superficially stated in the tale, Lanfranc had taken part
against the marriage of William with Matilda of Flanders--a marriage
clearly contrary to the formal canons of the Roman 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 excommunicated his realm. [282]
At Rome he assisted in the council held 1059 (the year wherein the ban
of the Church was finally and formally taken from Normandy), 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), abjured "his heresies" as to the Real
Presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist.
In 1062, or 1063, Duke William, against the Lombard'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 absolute. 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 theological learning, Lanfranc
attained indeed to the true ideal of the 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 microcosm that embraces the mart and
the forum; who by the reflective part of his nature seizes the higher
region of philosophy--by the energetic, is attracted to the central
focus of action. For scholarship is but the parent of ideas; and
ideas are the parents of action.
After the conquest, as prelate of Canterbury, Lanfranc became the
second man in the kingdom--happy, perhaps, for England had he been the
first; for all the anecdotes recorded of him show a deep and genuine
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, especially 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 his exemption
from the ordinary vices. He regarded the cruelties of Odo of Bayeux
with detestation, opposed him 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 the foundations of a powerful
and splendid church, which, only because it failed in future
Lanfrancs, failed in effecting the civilisation 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, honoured 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 the 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! [283]
NOTE (F)
Edward the Confessor's reply to Magnus of Denmark who claimed his
Crown.
On rare occasions Edward was not without touches of a brave kingly
nature.
Snorro Sturleson gives us a noble and spirited reply of the Confessor
to Magnus, who, as heir of Canute, claimed the English 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 kingly title 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
am consecrated king; I have established my royal dignity and
authority, as my father before me; and while I live I will not
renounce my title. If King Magnus comes here with an army, I will
gather no army against him; but he 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 authentic, it is
significant, as proof that Edward rests his title on the resolution of
the people to take him for king; and counts as nothing, in comparison,
his hereditary claims. This, together with the general tone of the
reply, particularly the passage in which he implies that he trusts his
defence not to his army 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.
NOTE (G)
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 briefly
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 reputation,
honour, 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. Whitlock says, "that some
derive the name of Herald from Hereauld, "a Saxon word (old soldier,
or old master), "because anciently they 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 practice of heraldry;" and observes truly, "that
the 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 Norman Chronicles. Thus Charles the
Simple sends an archbishop to treat with Rolfganger; Louis the
Debonnair sends to Mormon, chief of the Bretons, "a sage and prudent
abbot." 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 warbode. The
messengers between Godwin and the King would seem, by the general
sense of the chronicles, to have been certain thegns acting as
mediators.
NOTE (H)
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 Germanic
Teutons, and is closely allied with the good angel, or guardian
genius, of the Persians. It forms, therefore, one of the arguments
that favour the Asiatic origin of the Norsemen.
The Fylgia (following, or attendant, spirit) was always represented as
a female. Her influence was not uniformly favourable, 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 Manual of Scandinavian
Mythology," relates an interesting legend with respect to one of these
supernatural ladies:
A Scandinavian warrior, Halfred Vandraedakald, having embraced
Christianity, and being attacked by a disease which he thought mortal,
was naturally anxious that a spirit who had accompanied him through
his pagan career should not attend him into that other world, where
her society might involve him in disagreeable 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 Halfred, recognising his Fylgia, told her point
blank that their connection was at an end for ever. The forsaken
Fylgia had a high spirit of her own, and she then asked Thorold "if he
would take her." Thorold ungallantly refused; but Halfred the younger
said, "Maiden, I will take thee." [284]
In the various Norse Saga there are many anecdotes of these spirits,
who are always charming, because, with their less earthly attributes,
they always blend something of the woman. The poetry embodied in
their existence is of a softer and more humane character than that
common with the stern and vast demons of the Scandinavian mythology.
NOTE (I)
The Origin of Earl Godwin.
Sharon Turner quotes from the Knytlinga Saga what he calls "an
explanation of Godwin's career or parentage, which no other document
affords;" viz.--"that Ulf, a Danish chief, after the battle of
Skorstein, between Canute and Edmund Ironsides, pursued 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 refused the bribe, but sheltered the
Dane in the cottage of his father (who is represented as a mere
peasant), 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 countrymen, and besought him to befriend his son's
fortunes with Canute." The Dane promised, and kept his word; hence
Godwin's rise. Thierry, in his "History of the Norman Conquest,"
tells the same story, on the authority of Torfaeus, 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, unfortunately for
this pretty story, we have against it the direct statements of the
very best authorities we possess, viz. The Saxon Chronicle and
Florence Of Worcester. The Saxon Chronicle expressly tells us that
Godwin's father was Childe of Sussex (Florence calls him minister or
thegn of Sussex [285]), and that Wolnoth was nephew to Edric, the all-
powerful Earl or Duke of Mercia. Florence confirms this statement,
and gives the pedigree, which may be deduced as follows:
________________________________
| |
Edric married Egelric,
Edgith, daughter of surnamed Leofwine
King Ethelred II. |
Egelmar,
|
Wolnoth.
|
Godwin.
Thus this "old peasant," as the North Chronicles call Wolnoth, as,
according to our most unquestionable authorities, a thegn 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 son of a Saxon herdsman should in a few years
rise to such power as to marry the sister of the royal Danish
Conqueror--or that that honour 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
Streone! Even after the Conquest, one of Streone's nephews, Edricus
Sylvaticus, is mentioned (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
historical 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), Canute 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 favoured by that
sagacious king, and ultimately honoured with the hand, first of his
sister, secondly of his niece, as a mode of conciliating the Saxon
thegns.
NOTE (K)
The want of Fortresses in England.
The Saxons were sad destroyers. They destroyed the strongholds 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 other cities, and urgently
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 in three years.
[286]
It was thus that in a country, in 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 Conquest, 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 dynasty: 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 handful 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 illegitimate, which they clearly
were according 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 throughout England,--and the certainty 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.
NOTE (L)
The Ruins of Penmaen-mawr.
In Camden's Britannia there is an account of the remarkable relics
assigned, in the text, to the last refuge of Gryffyth ap Llewellyn,
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 hundred towers, about six yards
in 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 ascending 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.
"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 workmanship." [287]
But in the year 1771, Governor Pownall ascended Penmaen-mawr,
inspected these remains, and published his account in the
Archaeologia, vol. 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 inclosure contained a carn
(or arch-Druid's sepulchre), that there is not room for any lodgment,
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," [288] says
he, "visited this noted rock, to view the fortifications described by
the editor of Camden, from some notes of that sensible old baronet,
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 innumerable 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 eighteen feet (ample room here for lodgement);
the walls were in certain places intersected with others equally
strong. This stronghold of the Britons is exactly of the same kind
with those on Carn Madryn, Carn Boduan, and Tre'r Caer."
"This was most judiciously chosen to cover the passage into Anglesey,
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," etc. What appears most probable is, that the place was both
carn and fort; that the strength of the place, and the convenience of
stones, suggested the surrounding the narrow area of the central
sepulchre with walls, intended for refuge and defence. As to the
circular 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--," Caesar 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, necessarily 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 garrison of the enclosure. Taking
into account the tradition of the spot mentioned by Sir John Wynne,
and other traditions still existing, which mark, in the immediate
neighbourhood, the scenes of legendary battles, it is hoped that the
reader will accept the description in the text as suggesting, amidst
conflicting authorities, the most probable supposition of the nature
and character of these very interesting remains in the eleventh
century [289], and during the most memorable invasion of Wales (under
Harold), which occurred between the time of Geraint, or Arthur, and
that of Henry II.
NOTE (M)
The Idol Bel.
Mons. Johanneau considers that Bel, or Belinus, is derived from the
Greek, a surname of Apollo, and means the archer; from Belos, a dart
or arrow. [290]
I own I think this among the spurious conceits of the learned,
suggested by the vague affinities of name. But it is quite as likely,
(if there be anything in the conjecture,) that the Celt taught the
Greek, as that the Greek taught the Celt.
There are some very interesting questions, however, for scholars to
discuss--viz. 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 acquired them long
before Lucan'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 examined. Nor 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 their first
traditional immigration from the East? and is not their Bel identical
with the Babylonian deity?
NOTE (N)
Unguents used by Witches.
Lord Bacon, speaking of the ointments used by the witches, supposes
that they really did produce illusions by stopping the vapours and
sending them to the head. It seems that all witches who attended the
sabbat used these unguents, and there is something 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,
but as present in the soul; as if the same anointments and
preparatives produced dreams nearly similar 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 disbelievers 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 dispute the powerful and, as it were, systematic effect which
certain drugs produce on the imagination of patients with excitable
and nervous temperaments.
NOTE (O)
Hilda's Adjurations.
I.
"By the Urdar fount dwelling,
Day by day from the rill,
The Nornas besprinkle
The Ash Ygg-drasill."
The Ash Ygg-drasill.--Much learning has been employed by Scandinavian
scholars in illustrating the symbols supposed to be couched under the
myth of the Ygg-drasill, or the great Ash-tree. With this I shall not
weary the reader; especially since large systems have been built on
very small premises, and the erudition employed has been equally
ingenious and unsatisfactory: I content myself with stating the simple
myth.
The Ygg-drasill has three roots; two spring from the infernal regions
--i.e. from the home of the frost-giants, and from Niffl-heim, "vapour-
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 infernal rivers. Beneath the root, which stretches in
the land of the giants, is Mimir's well wherein all wisdom is
concealed; but under the root which lies in the land of the gods, is
the well of Urda, the Norna--here the gods sit in judgment. Near this
well is a fair building, whence issue the three maidens, Urda,
Verdandi, Skulda (the Past, the Present, the Future). Daily they
water the ash-tree from Urda's well, that the branches may not perish.
Four harts constantly devour the birds and branches of the Ash-tree.
On its boughs sits an eagle, wise in 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
interpretations of its symbolic meaning, the general reader is
referred to Mr. Blackwell's edition of MALLETT's Northern Antiquities,
and PIGOTT's Scandinavian Manual.
NOTE (P)
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 promised William the crown during his exile
in Normandy; secondly, that Siward, Earl of Northumbria, Godwin, and
Leofric had taken oath, "serment de la main," to receive him as
Seigneur after Edward's death, and that the hostages, Wolnoth and
Haco, were given to the Duke in pledge of that oath [291]; thirdly,
that Edward left him the crown by will.
Let us see what probability there is 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
chroniclers, when they unite in relating Edward's warnings to Harold
against his visit to the Norman court. Edward might well be aware of
William's designs on the crown (though in those warnings he refrains
from mentioning them)--might remember 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 in itself was clearly not binding on the English people, nor
on any one but Edward, who, without the sanction of the Witan, 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 William.
This appears a fable wholly without foundation. When could those
oaths have been pledged? Certainly not after Harold's visit to
William, for they were then all dead. At the accession of Edward?
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 evident jealousy of the
Normans entertained by those chiefs, as by 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 Edward's accession and Godwin's outlawry? No; for
all the English chroniclers, and, indeed, the Norman, concur in
representing the ill-will borne by Godwin and his House to the Norman
favourites, 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 supposition of all; for
Godwin's return is followed by the banishment of the Norman
favourites--by the utter downfall of the Norman party in England--by
the decree of the Witan, that all the troubles in England had come
from the Normans--by the triumphant 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 or his own
probable 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 authority of William
of Poitiers, who, though a contemporary, and a good authority on some
points purely Norman, is grossly ignorant 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 Robert, Archbishop 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 Saxon
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
secondly, 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 three, the Norman Conqueror himself
seems to have rested a positive claim [292]. But if so, where was the
will? Why was it never produced or producible? If destroyed, where
were the witnesses? why were they not cited? The testamentary
dispositions of an Anglo-Saxon king were always respected, and went
far towards the succession. But it was absolutely necessary to prove
them before the Witan [293]. 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 favour, not only to flatter the new
sovereign, but to soothe the national pride, and justify the Norman
succession by a more popular plea than conquest,--why were no
witnesses summoned to prove the bequest! Alred, Stigand, and the
Abbot of Westminster, must have been present at the death-bed of the
King, and these priests concurred in submission to William. If they
had any testimony as to Edward's bequest in his favour, would they not
have been too glad to give it, in justification 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 the best possible authorities. The 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
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 authority, (valuable from
supplying omissions in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,) says expressly that
the King chose Harold for his successor before his decease [294], that
he was elected by the chief men of all England, and consecrated by
Alred. Hoveden, Simon (Dunelm.), the Beverley chronicler, confirm
these authorities as to Edward's choice of Harold as his successor.
William of Malmesbury, who is not partial to Harold, writing in the
reign of Henry the First, has doubts himself as to Edward's bequest,
(though grounded on a very bad argument, viz. "the improbability that
Edward would leave his crown to a man of whose power he had always
been jealous;" there is no proof that Edward had been jealous of
Harold's power--he had been of Godwin's;) but Malmesbury gives a more
valuable authority than his own, in the concurrent opinion of his
time, for he deposes that "the English say," 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 chroniclers, of little
comparative estimation, (such as Wike,) and the prejudiced and
ignorant Norman chroniclers [295], who depose on behalf of William. 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,
earls, 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 (provinces); and the very short time elapsing
between the death of Edward and the recognition of Harold, utterly
precludes the supposition that their consent was even asked." This
great writer must permit me, with all reverence, to suggest that he
has, I think, forgotten the fact that, just prior to Edward's death,
an assembly, fully as numerous as ever met in any national Witan, 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 assembly would certainly not have dispersed during a period so
short and anxious as the mortal illness of the King, which appears to
have prevented his attending the ceremony in person, and which ended
in his death a very few days after the consecration. So that during
the interval, which appears to have been at most about a week, between
Edward's death and Harold's coronation [296], the unusually large
concourse of prelates and nobles from all parts of the kingdom
assembled in London and Westminster would have furnished 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 the election.
But not a word is said as to any inadequate number in the Witan. And
as for the two great principalities of Northumbria and Mercia,
Harold'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 assembled at
Oxford a few months before, to adjudge the rival claims of Tostig and
Morcar; the decision of the Witan proves the alliance between Harold's
party and that of the young Earl's--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 health, and the urgent
necessity of determining beforehand the claims to the succession--some
actual, if secret, understanding 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. [297]
With the views to which my examination of the records of the time have
led me in favour of Harold, I can not 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 peculiar political and
constitutional theories, and his attachment to the principle of
hereditary succession, which make him consider that Harold "had no
clear title to the crown any way," tincture with something 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 authorities on which he himself
relies. And I own that, of all modern historians, Thierry seems to me
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 Norman dynasty in which the tragedy
closed.
NOTE (Q)
Physical Peculiarities of the Scandinavians.
"It is a singular circumstance, that in almost all the swords of those
ages to be found to the collection of weapons in the Antiquarian
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 the 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 characteristic in the nations
of which they are the types; and the blue eye of Minerva belies 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 small hands and 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 peculiarity longer than the Dane, because his
habits, as a conqueror, made him disdain all manual labour; and it was
below his knightly dignity to walk, as long as a horse could be found
for him to ride. But the Anglo-Norman (the noblest specimen of the
great conquering family) became so blent with the Saxon, both in blood
and in habits, that such physical distinctions vanished with the age
of chivalry. The Saxon blood in our highest aristocracy now
predominates greatly over the Norman; and it would be as vain a task
to identify the sons of Hastings and Rollo by the foot and hand of the
old Asiatic Scythian, as by the reddish auburn hair and the high
features which were no less ordinarily their type. Here and there
such peculiarities may all be seen amongst plain country gentlemen,
settled from time immemorial in the counties peopled by the Anglo-
Danes, and inter-marrying generally in their own provinces; but
amongst the far more mixed breed of the larger landed proprietors
comprehended in the Peerage, the Saxon attributes of race are
strikingly conspicuous, and, amongst them, the large hand and foot
common with all the Germanic tribes.
NOTE (R)
The Interment of Harold.
Here we are met by evidences of the most contradictory character.
According to most of the English writers, the body of Harold was given
by William to Githa, without ransom, and buried at Waltham. There is
even a story told of the generosity 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 coast which he madly occupied;"
and on the pretext that one, whose cupidity and avarice had been the
cause that so many men were slaughtered and lay unsepultured, was not
worthy himself of a tomb. Orderic confirms this account, and says the
body was given to William Mallet, for that purpose. [299]
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 prevailed,
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 any credit if (as the usual story runs)
Harold had been formally buried, 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 privately by the sea-shore.
The story of Osgood and Ailred, the childemaister (schoolmaster in the
monastery), as related by Palgrave, and used in this romance, is
recorded in a MS. of Waltham Abbey, and was written somewhere about
fifty or sixty years after the event--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 recognise the
mutilated corpse until Osgood sought 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.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Sismondi's History of France, vol. iv. p. 484.
[2] "Men's blinded hopes, diseases, toil, and prayer,
And winged troubles peopling daily air."
[3] Merely upon the obscure MS. of the Waltham Monastery; yet, such
is the ignorance of popular criticism, that I have been as much
attacked for the license I have taken with the legendary connection
between Harold and Edith, as if that connection were a proven and
authenticated fact! Again, the pure attachment to which, in the
romance, the loves of Edith and Harold are confined, has been alleged
to be a sort of moral anachronism,--a sentiment wholly modern;
whereas, on the contrary, an attachment so pure was infinitely more
common in that day than in this, and made one of the most striking
characteristics of the eleventh century; indeed of all the earlier
ages, in the Christian era, most subjected to monastic influences.
[4] Notes less immediately necessary to the context, or too long not
to interfere with the current of the narrative, are thrown to the end
of the work.
[5] There is a legend attached to my friend's house, that on certain
nights in the year, Eric the Saxon winds his horn at the door, and, in
forma spectri, serves his notice of ejectment.
[6] The "Edinburgh Review," No. CLXXIX. January, 1849. Art. I.
"Correspondance inedite, de Mabillon et de Montfaucon, avec l'Italie."
Par M. Valery. Paris, 1848.
[7] And long before the date of the travesty known to us, and most
popular amongst our mediaeval ancestors, it might be shown that some
rude notion of Homer's fable and personages had crept into the North.
[8] "The apartment in which the Anglo-Saxon women lived, was called
Gynecium."--FOSBROOKE, vol. ii., p. 570.
[9] Glass, introduced about the time of Bede, was more common then in
the houses of the wealthy, whether for vessels or windows, than in the
much later age of the gorgeous Plantagenets. Alfred, in one of his
poems, introduces glass as a familiar illustration:
"So oft the mild sea
With south wind
As grey glass clear
Becomes grimly troubled."
SHAR. TURNER.
[10] Skulda, the Norna, or Fate, that presided over the future.
[11] The historians of our literature have not done justice to the
great influence which the poetry of the Danes has had upon our early
national muse. I have little doubt but that to that source may be
traced the minstrelsy of our borders, and the Scottish Lowlands;
while, even in the central counties, the example and exertions of
Canute must have had considerable effect on the taste and spirit of
our Scops. That great prince afforded the amplest encouragement to
Scandinavian poetry, and Olaus names eight Danish poets, who
flourished at his court.
[12] "By the splendour of God."
[13] See Note (A) at the end of this volume.
[14] It is noticeable that the Norman dukes did not call themselves
Counts or Dukes of Normandy, but of the Normans; and the first Anglo-
Norman kings, till Richard the First, styled themselves Kings of the
English, not of England. In both Saxon and Norman chronicles, William
usually bears the title of Count (Comes), but in this tale he will be
generally called Duke, as a title more familiar to us.
[15] The few expressions borrowed occasionally from the Romance
tongue, to give individuality to the speaker, will generally be
translated into modern French; for the same reason as Saxon is
rendered into modern English, viz., that the words may be intelligible
to the reader.
[16] "Roman de Rou," part i., v. 1914.
[17] The reason why the Normans lost their old names is to be found
in their conversion to Christianity. They were baptised; and Franks,
as their godfathers, gave them new appellations. Thus, Charles the
Simple insists that Rolf-ganger shall change his law (creed) and his
name, and Rolf or Rou is christened Robert. A few of those who
retained Scandinavian names at the time of the Conquest will be cited
hereafter.
[18] Thus in 991, about a century after the first settlement, the
Danes of East Anglia gave the only efficient resistance to the host of
the Vikings under Justin and Gurthmund; and Brithnoth, celebrated by
the Saxon poet, as a Saxon par excellence, the heroic defender of his
native soil, was, in all probability, of Danish descent. Mr. Laing,
in his preface to his translation of the Heimskringla, 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 Danish descent, not in 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, Suffolk, Norfolk, and the Isle
of Ely, 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 Frith, in A.D. 876.--See PALGRAVE'S Commonwealth. But besides
their more allotted settlements, the Danes were interspersed as
landowners all over England.
[19] Bromton Chron--via., Essex, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Herts,
Cambridgeshire, Hants, Lincoln, Notts, Derby, Northampton,
Leicestershire, Bucks, Beds, and the vast territory called
Northumbria.
[20] PALGRAVE's History of England, p. 315.
[21] The laws collected by Edward the Confessor, and in later times
so often and so fondly referred to, contained many introduced 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 HAKEWELL's Treatise on the Antiquity of Laws in this Island, in
HEARNE's Curious Discourses.
[22] PALGRAVE's History of England, p. 322.
[23] The name of this god is spelt Odin, when referred to as the
object of Scandinavian worship; Woden, when applied directly to the
deity of the Saxons.
[24] See Note (B), at the end of the volume.
[25] The Peregrine hawk built on the rocks of Llandudno, and this
breed was celebrated, even to the days of Elizabeth. Burleigh thanks
one of the Mostyns for a cast of hawks from Llandudno.
[26] Hlaf, loaf,--Hlaford, lord, giver of bread; Hleafdian, lady,
server of bread.--VERSTEGAN.
[27] Bedden-ale. When any man was set up in his estate by the
contributions of his friends, those friends were bid to a feast, and
the ale so drunk was called the bedden-ale, from bedden, to pray, or
to bid. (See BRAND's Pop. Autiq.)
[28] Herleve (Arlotta), William's mother, married Herluin de
Conteville, after the death of Duke Robert, and had by him two sons,
Robert, Count of Mortain, and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux.-ORD. VITAL. lib.
vii.
[29] Mone, monk.
[30] STRUTT's Horda.
[31] There is an animated description of this "Battle of London
Bridge, "which gave ample theme to the Scandinavian scalds, in Snorro
Sturleson:
"London Bridge is broken down;
Gold is won and bright renown;
Shields resounding,
War-horns sounding,
Hildur shouting in the din,
Arrows singing,
Mail-coats ringing,
Odin makes our Olaf win."
LAING's Heimskringla, vol. ii. p. 10.
[32] Sharon Turner.
[33] Hawkins, vol. ii. p. 94.
[34] 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, Arles, Avignon, Montpellier, Toulouse, were the wonted
stapes of their active traders. What civilisers, what teachers they
were--those same Saracens! How much in arms and in arts we owe them!
Fathers of the Provencal 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
Mnssulmans. The medical science of the Moors for six centuries
enlightened Europe, and their metaphysics were adopted in nearly all
the Christian universities.
[35] Billingsgate. See Note (C), at the end of the volume.
[36] London 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 surface of
history.
[37] 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 (Lel. Collect.
lviii.), the writer, a thorough master of his subject, states that
"the Romans made a public 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 fitted up for
the reception of records, there remained many Saxon inscriptions."
[38] Rude-lane. Lad-lane.--BAYFORD.
[39] Fitzstephen.
[40] Camden.
[41] BAYFORD, Leland's Collectanea, p. lviii.
[42] Ludgate (Leod-gate).--VERSTEGAN.
[43] See Note (D), at the end of the volume.
[44] Massere, merchant, mercer.
[45] Fitzstephen.
[46] Meuse. Apparently rather a hawk hospital, from Muta (Camden).
Du Fresne, in his Glossary, says, Muta is in French Le Meue, and a
disease to which the hawk was subject on changing its feathers.
[47] Scotland-yard.--STRYPE.
[48] The first bridge that connected Thorney Isle with the mainland
is said to have been built by Matilda, wife of Henry I.
[49] 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 Magesetan (the Welch Marches).
[50] Eadigan.--S. TURNER, vol. i. p. 274.
[51] The comparative wealth of London was indeed considerable. When,
in 1018, all the rest of England was taxed to an amount considered
stupendous, viz., 71,000 Saxon pounds, London contributed 11,000
pounds besides.
[52] Complin. the second vespers.
[53] CAMDEN--A church was built out of the ruins of that temple by
Sibert, King of the East Saxons; and Canute favoured much the small
monastery attached to it (originally established by Dunstan for twelve
Benedictines), on account of its Abbot Wulnoth, whose society pleased
him. The old palace of Canute, in Thorney Isle, had been destroyed by
fire.
[54] See note to PLUQUET's Roman de Rou, p. 285.
N.B.--Whenever the Roman de Rou is quoted in these pages it is from
the excellent edition of M. Pluquet.
[55] Pardex or Parde, corresponding to the modern French expletive,
pardie.
[56] Quen, or rather Quens; synonymous with Count in the Norman
Chronicles. Earl Godwin is strangely styled by Wace, Quens Qwine.
[57] "Good, good, pleasant son,--the words of the poet sound
gracefully on the lips of the knight."
[58] A sentiment variously assigned to William and to his son Henry
the Beau Clerc.
[59] Mallet is a genuine Scandinavian name to this day.
[60] Rou--the name given by the French to Rollo, or Rolf-ganger, the
founder of the Norman settlement.
[61] Pious 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;" i.e., on transubstantiation.
But the wise Norman, while flattering the tastes of the Roman Pontiff
in such matters, took special care to preserve the independence of his
Church from any undue dictation.
[62] A few generations later this comfortable and decent fashion of
night-gear was abandoned; and our forefathers, Saxon and Norman, went
to bed in puris naturalibus, like the Laplanders.
[63] Most of the chroniclers merely state the parentage within the
forbidden degrees as the obstacle to William's marriage with Matilda;
but the betrothal or rather nuptials 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 elder brother, "an affinity," as is observed by
a writer in the "Archaeologia," "quite near enough to account for, if
not to justify, the interference of the Church."--Arch. vol. xxxii. p.
109.
[64] 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 the gripe of the Anglo-Norman
kings, were achieved by the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. And even to
this 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 characterise the
homely bonders of Norway, in whom we may still recognise the sturdy
likeness of their fathers; while it is also remarkable that 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.
[65] Ex pervetusto codice, MS. Chron. Bec. in Vit. Lanfranc, quoted
in the "Archaeologia," vol. xxxii. p. 109. The joke, which is very
poor, seems to have turned upon pede and quadrupede; it is a little
altered in the text.
[66] Ord. Vital. See Note on Lanfranc, at the end of the volume.
[67] Siward was almost a giant (pene gigas statures). There are some
curious anecdotes of this hero, immortalised by Shakspere, in the
Bromton Chronicle. His grandfather is said to have been a bear, who
fell in love with a Danish lady; and his father, Beorn, 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 Viking genus fought in his shirt or his
bearskin, the name equally lends itself to those mystifications from
which half the old legends, whether of Greece or Norway, are derived.
[68] Wace.
[69] See Note (E), at the end of the volume (foot-note on the date of
William's marriage).
[70] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
[71] Some writers say fifty.
[72] Hovenden.
[73] Bodes, i.e. messengers.
[74] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
[75] Or Fleur-de-lis, which seems to have been a common form of
ornament with the Saxon kings.
[76] Bayeux Tapestry.
[77] See note (F), at the end of the volume.
[78] The York Chronicle, written by an Englishman, Stubbs, gives this
eminent person an excellent character as peacemaker. "He could make
the warmest friends of foes the most hostile." "De inimicissimis,
amicissimos faceret." This gentle priest had yet the courage to curse
the Norman Conqueror in the midst of his barons. That scene is not
within the range of this work, but it is very strikingly told in the
Chronicle.
[79] Heralds, though probably 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 nuncius. See
Note (G), at the end of the volume.
[80] When the chronicler praises the gift of speech, he unconsciously
proves the existence of constitutional freedom.
[81] Recent Danish historians have in vain endeavoured to detract
from the reputation of Canute as an English monarch. The 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.
[82] Some of our historians erroneously represent Harold as the
eldest son. But Florence, the best authority we have, in the silence
of the Saxon Chronicle, as well as Knyghton, 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 their spite to Harold, wish to
make him junior 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.
[83] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A. D. 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." The saintly Confessor
dealt with his bishops as summarily as Henry VIII. could have done,
after his quarrel with the Pope.
[84] The title of Basileus was retained by our kings so late as the
time of John, who styled himself "Totius Insulae Britannicae
Basileus."--AGARD: On the Antiquity of Shires in England, op. Hearne,
Cur. Disc.
[85] Sharon Turner.
[86] See the Introduction to PALGRAVE's History of the Anglo-Saxons,
from which this description of the Witan is borrowed so 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 plagiarised to half the extent I have done.
[87] Girald. Gambrensis.
[88] Palgrave omits, I presume accidentally, these members of the
Witan, 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.
[89] By Athelstan's law, every man was to have peace going to and
from the Witan, unless he was a thief.--WILKINS, p. 187.
[90] Goda, Edward's sister, married first Rolf's father, Count of
Nantes; secondly, the Count of Boulogne.
[91] More correctly of Oxford, Somerset, Berkshire, Gloucester, and
Hereford.
[92] 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.
[93] SENECA, Thyest. Act ii.--"He is a king who fears nothing; that
kingdom every man gives to himself."
[94] Scin-laeca, literally a shining corpse; a species of apparition
invoked by the witch or wizard.--See SHARON TURNER on The
Superstitions of the Anglo-Saxons, b. ii. c. 14.
[95] Galdra, magic.
[96] Fylgia, tutelary divinity. See Note (H), at the end of the
volume.
[97] Morthwyrtha, worshipper of the dead.
[98] It is a disputed question whether the saex 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.
[99] See Note (K), at the end of the volume.
[100] Saxon Chronicle, Florence Wigorn. Sir F. Palgrave says that
the title of Childe is equivalent to that of Atheling. With that
remarkable appreciation of evidence which generally makes him so
invaluable as a judicial authority where accounts are contradictory,
Sir F. Palgrave discards with silent contempt the absurd romance of
Godwin's station of herdsman, to which, upon such very fallacious and
flimsy authorities, Thierry and Sharon Turner have been betrayed into
lending their distinguished names.
[101] This first wife Thyra, was of very unpopular repute with the
Saxons. She was accused of sending young English persons as slaves
into Denmark, and is said to have been killed by lightning.
[102] It is just, however, to Godwin to say, that there is no proof
of his share in this barbarous transaction; the presumptions, on the
contrary, are in his favour; but the authorities are too
contradictory, and the whole event too obscure, to enable us
unhesitatingly to confirm the acquittal he received in his own age,
and from his own national tribunal.
[103] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
[104] William of Malmesbury.
[105] So Robert of Gloucester says pithily of William, "Kyng Wylliam
was to mild men debonnere ynou."--HEARNE, v. ii. p. 309.
[106] 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 prelate complained, he struck
prophetic dismay into Becket's heart by evading the kiss of peace.
[107] SNORRO STURLESON's Heimskringla.--Laing's Translation, p. 75-
77.
[108] The gre-hound was so called from hunting the gre or badger.
[109] The spear and the hawk were as the badges of Saxon nobility;
and a thegn was seldom seen abroad without the one on his left wrist,
the other in his right hand.
[110] BED Epist. ad Egbert.
[111] TEGNER's Frithiof.
[112] Some of the chroniclers say that he married the daughter of
Gryffyth, the king of North Wales, but Gryffyth certainly married
Algar's daughter, and that double alliance could not have been
permitted. It was probably, therefore, some more distant kinswoman of
Gryffyth's that was united to Algar.
[113] The title of queen is employed in these pages, as one which our
historians have unhesitatingly given to the consorts of our Saxon
kings; but the usual and correct designation of Edward's royal wife,
in her own time, would be, Edith the Lady.
[114] ETHEL. De Gen. Reg. Ang.
[115] AILRED, De Vit. Edward Confess.
[116] Ingulfus.
[117] The clergy (says Malmesbury), contented with a very slight
share of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the
sacraments; and a person who understood grammar was an object of
wonder and astonishment. Other authorities, likely to be impartial,
speak quite as strongly as to the prevalent ignorance of the time.
[118] 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.
[119] This was cheap. For Agelnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury, gave
the Pope 6000 lb. weight of silver for the arm of St. Augustine.--
MALMESBURY.
[120] William of Malmesbury says, that the English, at the time of
the Conquest, loaded their arms with gold bracelets, and adorned their
skins with punctured designs, i.e., 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.
[121] 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.
[122] Very few of the greater Saxon nobles could pretend to a
lengthened succession in their demesnes. The wars with the Danes, the
many revolutions which threw new families uppermost, the confiscations
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 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 the First; he extended the supremacy of his
hereditary lordship over all Mercia. See DUGDALE, Monast. vol. iii.
p. 102; and PALGRAVE's Commonwealth, Proofs and Illustrations, p. 291.
[123] AILRED de Vit. Edw.
[124] Dunwich, now swallowed up by the sea.--Hostile element to the
house of Godwin.
[125] Windsor.
[126] The chronicler, however, laments that the household ties,
formerly so strong with the Anglo-Saxon, had been much weakened in the
age prior to the Conquest.
[127] Some authorities state Winchester as the scene of these
memorable festivities. Old Windsor Castle is supposed by Mr. Lysons
to have occupied the site of a farm of Mr. Isherwood's surrounded by a
moat, about two miles distant from New Windsor. He conjectures that
it was still occasionally inhabited by the Norman kings till 1110.
The ville surrounding it only contained ninety-five houses, paying
gabel-tax, in the Norman survey.
[128] AILRED, de Vit. Edward. Confess.
[129] "Is it astonishing," asked the people (referring to Edward's
preference of the Normans), "that the author 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.
[130] Henry of Huntingdon, etc.
[131] Henry of Huntingdon; Bromt. Chron., etc.
[132] Hoveden.
[133] The origin of the word leach (physician), which has puzzled
some inquirers, is from lids or leac, a body. Leich is the old Saxon
word for surgeon.
[134] Sharon Turner, vol. i. p. 472.
[135] Fosbrooke.
[136] Aegir, the Scandinavian god of the ocean. Not one 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.
[137] 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 general sense of reproach. Both marriage and
concubinage were common amongst the Anglo-Saxon priesthood, despite
the unheeded canons; and so, indeed, they were with the French clergy.
[138] Hilda, not only as a heathen, but as a Dane, would be no
favourer of monks; they were unknown in Denmark at that time, and the
Danes held them in odium.--Ord Vital., lib. vii.
[139] Chron. Knyghton.
[140] Weyd-month. Meadow month, June.
[141] Cumen-hus. Tavern.
[142] Fitzstephen.
[143] William of Malmesbury speaks with just indignation of the
Anglo-Saxon custom of selling female servants, either to public
prostitution, or foreign slavery.
[144] It will be remembered that Algar governed Wessex, which
principality included Kent, during the year of Godwin's outlawry.
[145] Trulofa, from which comes our popular corruption "true lover's
knot;" a vetere Danico trulofa, i.e., fidem do, to pledge faith.--
HICKE's Thesaur.
"A knot, among the ancient northern nations, seems to have been the
emblem of love, faith, and friendship."--BRANDE's Pop. Antiq.
[146] The Saxon Chronicle contradicts itself as to Algar's outlawry,
stating in one passage that he was outlawed without any kind of guilt,
and in another that he was outlawed as swike, or traitor, and that he
made a confession of it before all the men there gathered. His
treason, however, seems naturally occasioned by his close connection
with Gryffyth, and proved by his share in that 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 the chroniclers says just the contrary--
that Harold did all he 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 that
of conciliation.
[147] Saxon Chron., verbatim.
[148] Hume.
[149] "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 is
curious to see how, even in Latin, the poet preserves the
alliterations that characterised the Saxon muse.
[150] Slightly altered from Aldhelm.
[151] It is impossible to form any just view of the state of parties,
and the position of Harold in the later portions of this work, unless
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.
[152] Bayeux Tapestry.
[153] Indeed, apparently the only monastic order in England.
[154] See Note to Robert of Gloucester, vol. ii. p. 372.
[155] The Saxon priests were strictly 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 Welch.
Unluckily, this valiant prelate was slain so soon, that it was no
encouraging example.
[156] See Note (K), at the end of the volume.
[157] The Normans and French detested each other; and it was the
Norman who taught to the Saxon his own animosities against the Frank.
A very eminent antiquary, indeed, De la Rue, considered 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 neighbours.
[158] The present town and castle of Conway.
[159] See CAMDEN's Britannia, "Caernarvonshire."
[160] When (A.D. 220) the bishops, Germanicus, and Lupus, headed the
Britons against the Picts and Saxons, in Easter week, fresh from their
baptism in the Alyn, Germanicus ordered them to attend to his war-cry,
and repeat it; he gave "Alleluia." The hills so loudly re-echoed the
cry, that the enemy caught panic, and fled with great slaughter. Maes
Garmon, in Flintshire, was the scene of the victory.
[161] The cry of the English at the onset of battle was "Holy Crosse,
God Almighty;" afterwards in fight, "Ouct, ouct," out, out.--HEARNE's
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."
[162] Certain high places in Wales, of which this might well be one,
were so sacred, that even the dwellers in the immediate neighbourhood
never presumed to approach them.
[163] See Note (L), at the end of the volume.
[164] See Note (M), at the end of the volume.
[165] The Welch seem to have had a profusion of the precious metals
very disproportioned to the scarcity of their coined money. To say
nothing of the torques, bracelets, and even breastplates of gold,
common with their numerous chiefs, their laws affix to offences
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 mouth 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 Welch 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 Peruvians, had they coined it into money.
[166] Leges Wallicae.
[167] Mona, or Anglesea.
[168] Ireland.
[169] The Welch were then, and still are, remarkable for the beauty
of their teeth. Giraldus Cambrensis observes, as something very
extraordinary, that they cleaned them.
[170] I believe it was not till the last century that a good road
took the place of this pass.
[171] The Saxons of Wessex seem to have adopted the Dragon for their
ensign, 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 the Basileus of Britain. The dragon seems also to have been a
Norman ensign. The lions or leopards, popularly assigned to the
Conqueror, are certainly a later invention. There is no appearance of
them on the banners and shields of the Norman army in the Bayeux
tapestry. Armorial bearings were in use amongst the Welch, and even
the Saxons, long before heraldry 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 armorial ensign with the Cymrians before they could have had any
obligation to the songs and legends of that people.
[172] "In whose time the earth brought forth double, and there was
neither beggar nor poor man from the North to the South Sea."
POWELL's Hist. of Wales, p. 83.
[173] "During the military expeditions made in our days against South
Wales, an old Welchman, 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, O 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 any other nation than this of Wales, or
any other language (whatever may hereafter come to pass), shall in the
day of severe examination before the Supreme Judge answer for this
corner of the earth!'"--HOARE's Giraldus Cambrensis, vol. i. p. 361.
[174] Gryffyth left a son, Caradoc; but he was put aside as a minor,
according to the Saxon customs.
[175] Bromton Chron., Knyghton, Walsingham, Hoveden, etc.
[176] Bromton, Knyghton, etc.
[177] The word "decimated" is the one generally applied by the
historians to the massacre in question; and it is therefore retained
here. But it is not correctly applied, for that butchery was
perpetrated, not upon one out of ten, but nine out of ten.
[178] 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 inconsiderate
policy, that key to his visit, which is not to be found in chronicler
or historian.
[179] See Note (N).
[180] Faul was an evil spirit much dreaded by the Saxons. Zabulus
and Diabolus (the Devil) seem to have been the same.
[181] Ygg-drassill, the mystic Ash-tree of Life, or symbol of the
earth, watered by the Fates.--See Note (O.)
[182] 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.
[183] Asa-Lok or Loke--(distinct from 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 attributes with our
"Lucifer." One of his progeny was Hela, the Queen of Hell.
[184] "A hag dwells in a wood called Janvid, 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 blood of men who draw near their end, and will swallow up the moon
and stain the heavens and the hearth with blood."--From the Prose
Edda. In the Scandinavian poetry, Managarm is sometimes the symbol of
war, and the "Iron Wood" a metaphor for spears.
[185] "Wolf Month," January.
[186] Bayeux tapestry.
[187] Roman de Rou, see part ii. 1078.
[188] Belrem, the present Beaurain, near Montreuil.
[189] Roman de Rou, part ii. 1079.
[190] William of Poitiers, "apud Aucense Castrum."
[191] As soon as the rude fort of the middle ages admitted something
of magnificence and display, the state rooms were placed in the third
story of the inner court, as being the most secure.
[192] 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.
[193] The Council of Cloveshoe forbade the clergy to harbour poets,
harpers, musicians, and buffoons.
[194] ORD. VITAL.
[195] Canute made his inferior strength and stature his excuse for
not meeting Edward Ironsides in single combat.
[196] Odo's licentiousness was, at a later period, one of the alleged
causes of his downfall, or rather against his release from the prison
to which he had been consigned. He had a son named John, who
distinguished himself under Henry I.--ORD. VITAL. lib. iv.
[197] William of Poitiers, the contemporary Norman chronicler, says
of Harold, that he was a man to whom imprisonment was more odious than
shipwreck.
[198] 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 Bayeux and its vicinity were a class
distinct from the Franco-Normans, or the rest of Neustria; they
submitted with great reluctance to the ducal authority, and retained
their old heathen cry of Thor-aide, instead of Dieu-aide!
[199] Similar was the answer of Goodyn the Bishop of Winchester,
ambassador from Henry VIII. to the French King. To this day the
English entertain the same notion of forts as Harold and Goodyn.
[200] See Mr. Wright's very interesting article on the "Condition of
the English Peasantry," etc., Archaeologia, vol. xxx. pp. 205-244. I
must, however, observe, that one very important fact seems to have
been generally overlooked by all inquirers, or, at least, not
sufficiently enforced, viz., 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 sight of that distinction the Anglo-Saxons had made
between the agricultural ceorl and the theowe; i.e., 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 their 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 le menu peuple to their grand aise, et abondance de
biens.
[201] Twelve o'clock.
[202] Six A.M.
[203] A celebrated antiquary, in his treatise in the "Archaeologia,"
on the authenticity of the Bayeux tapestry, very justly invites
attention to the rude attempt of the artist to preserve individuality
in his portraits; and especially to the singularly erect bearing of
the Duke, by which he is at once recognised wherever he is introduced.
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.
[204] Bayeux tapestry.
[205] 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.
[206] 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 Archaeologia, vol. xxx. p. 259. In the text the poem
is much abridged, reduced into rhythm, and in some stanzas wholly
altered from the original. But it is, nevertheless, greatly indebted
to Mr. Stephens's translation, from which several 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.
[207] People.
[208] Heaven.
[209] Omen.
[210] The Eastern word Satraps (Satrapes) made one of the ordinary
and most inappropriate titles (borrowed, no doubt, from the Byzantine
Court), by which the Saxons, in their Latinity, honoured their simple
nobles.
[211] 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.
[212] By his first wife; Aldyth was his second.
[213] Flor. Wig.
[214] This truth has been overlooked by writers, who have maintained
the Atheling's right as if incontestable. "An opinion prevailed,"
says Palgrave, "Eng. Commonwealth," pp. 559, 560, "that if the
Atheling was born before his father and mother were ordained to the
royal dignity, the crown did not descend to the child of uncrowned
ancestors. "Our great legal historian quotes Eadmer, "De Vit. Sanct.
Dunstan," p. 220, for the objection made to the succession of Edward
the Martyr, on this score.
[215] 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.
[216] And so, from Gryffyth, beheaded by his subjects, descended
Charles Stuart.
[217] Brompt. Chron.
[218] See Note P.
[219] It seems by the coronation service of Ethelred II. still
extant, that two bishops officiated in the crowning of the King; and
hence, perhaps, the discrepancy in the chronicles, some contending
that Harold was crowned by Alred, others, by Stigand. It is
noticeable, however, that it is the apologists of the Normans who
assign that office to Stigand, who was in disgrace with the Pope, and
deemed no lawful bishop. 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
Alred. The ceremonial of the coronation described in the text, is for
the most part given on the authority of the "Cotton MS." quoted by
Sharon Turner, vol. iii. p. 151.
[220] Introduced into our churches in the ninth century.
[221] The Wyn-month: October.
[222] "Snorro Sturleson." Laing.
[223] The Vaeringers, or Varangi, mostly Northmen; this redoubtable
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 nobles, 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.
[224] Laing's Snorro Sturleson.--"The old Norwegian ell was less than
the present ell; and Thorlasius reckons, in a note on this chapter,
that Harold's stature would be about four Danish ells; viz. about
eight feet."--Laing's note to the text. Allowing for the exaggeration
of the chronicler, it seems probable, at least, that Hardrada exceeded
seven feet. Since (as Laing remarks in the same note), and as we
shall see hereafter, "our English Harold offered him, according to
both English and Danish authority, seven feet of land for a grave, or
as much more as his stature, exceeding that of other men, might
require."
[225] Snorro Sturleson. See Note Q.
[226] Snorro Sturleson.
[227] Hoveden.
[228] Holinshed. Nearly all chroniclers (even, with scarce an
exception, those most favouring the Normans), concur in the abilities
and merits of Harold as a king.
[229] "Vit. Harold. Chron. Ang. Norm." ii, 243.
[230] Hoveden.
[231] Malmesbury.
[232] Supposed to be our first port for shipbuilding.--FOSBROOKE, p.
320.
[233] Pax.
[234] 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 trustworthy authorities
assure us that Robert had been dead some years before, not long
surviving his return into Normandy.
[235] Saxon Chronicle.
[236] Saxon Chronicle.--"When it was the nativity of St. Mary, then
were the men's provisions gone, and no man could any longer keep them
there."
[237] It is curious to notice how England was represented as a
country almost heathen; its conquest was regarded quite as a pious,
benevolent act of charity--a sort of mission for converting the
savages. 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 Saxon soil by the feet of the invading Norman.
[238] WILLIAM OF POITIERS.--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.
[239] Snorro Sturleson.
[240] Does any Scandinavian scholar know why the trough was so
associated with the images of Scandinavian witchcraft? A witch was
known, when seen behind, by a kind of trough-like shape; there must be
some symbol, of very ancient mythology, in this superstition!
[241] Snorro Sturleson.
[242] Snorro Sturleson.
[243] So Thierry translates the word: others, the Land-ravager. In
Danish, the word is Land-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).
[244] Snorro Sturleson.
[245] See Snorro Sturleson for this parley between Harold in person
and Tostig. The account differs from the Saxon chroniclers, but in
this particular instance is likely to be as accurate.
[246] Snorro Sturleson.
[247] Snorro Sturleson.
[248] Sharon Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. p. 396. Snorro
Sturleson.
[249] Snorro Sturleson.
[250] 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.
[251] It may be said indeed, that, in the following reign, the Danes
under Osbiorn (brother of King Sweyn), sailed up the Humber; but it
was to assist the English, not to invade them. They were bought off
by the Normans,--not conquered.
[252] The Saxons sat at meals with their heads covered.
[253] Henry.
[254] Palgrave--"Hist. of Anglo-Saxons."
[255] Palgrave--"Hist. of Anglo-Saxons."
[256] The battle-field of Hastings seems to have be
