BOOK taneous coronation from the suspended archbishop of Canterbury. 29 VI. Harold the Second. 1067. THAT Harold used his authority with kingly dignity, and for the great ends of public utility, is asserted 30, and must be admitted, with the qualification that as his reign was so short, the panegyric must be referred to its intentions rather than to his actions. It is, however, essential to an usurper to be popular; an human ingenuity cannot invent a spell more potent to arrest the favour of its contemporaries, than the practice of virtue. All rulers, whose right to power is ambiguous, and whose possession of it depends on the public support, will affect to govern a while with equity and popularity. The true character of Harold cannot therefore be judged from his actions in the emergency of competition; and he perished before the virtues of his disposition could be distinguished from those of his convenience. It is amusing to remark how industrious the chroniclers of this period have been to record, that a comet appeared this year in the heavens, and that it forboded the revolutions of greatness, and the bloodshed which ensued. 31 The popular impression produced by this comet is shown by its having been worked in the tapestry of Bayeux. This relic of ancient times contains, immediately 29 Though most of the writers say that the archbishop of York crowned him; yet, as the tapestry shows Harold on his throne, and Stigant, who held Canterbury, near him; and as Guil. Pictav. 196. and Ord. Vitalis, state that Stigand crowned him, I adopt this opinion, which M. Lancelot supports, 421. 30 As Hoveden, Florence, and others. Malmsbury, 93. admits it. 31 Will. Gem. p. 285.; Matt. West. 439.; and many annalists. I believe that above ninety comets have been remarked in the heavens. XV after Harold's coronation, a rude figure of the CHAP. comet, with several persons gazing at it with eager Harold eyes and pointing hands. 82 32 THE enjoyment of a favourite felicity is seldom the consequence of its violent acquisition. Harold found his crown full of the thorns which poets and moralists have been fond of describing. Three competitors prepared at the same time to wrestle with him for it; each was formidable enough to have endangered his prosperity, but the combination of their hostilities could have hardly failed to overpower him. THE rivals of Harold were, his brother Tostig, William duke of Normandy, and Haralld Hardrada, the king of Norway. The two last were sovereigns of long-established authority, and great military experience; and came with peculiar advantage into a conflict with Harold, whose ancestry was obscure, whose power was young, whose title was questionable, and whose friends were but a party in the nation which he governed. TOSTIG was a man of talents and activity, but his fraternal relation gave to his hostilities a peculiar venom. He had been expelled from Northumbria in a preceding reign, and he had not been recalled by Harold. His discontent and envy were fostered by William, who embraced the policy of multiplying the enemies and of dividing the strength of Harold. 32 The inscription over the men is: Isti mirant stella. The MS. Chronicles, Tib. B. 1. and B. 4. thus mention the comet : "Tha peapthgeonb eall Engla land rpylc tacen on heopenum zerepen spylce nan man en ne zereah. Sumie men cpedon tha hit conieta se steoppa pæpe thone sume men hatach thone Fixedon steoppan he æteopde æpest on thone æren Levania majon 8 K mai spa sean ealle cha reofon niht." the Second. 1066. BOOK the Second. 1066. Tostig's invasion. EAGER to oppress his more fortunate brother, Tostig attempted, but in vain, to excite the king of Denmark to attack him. On the mind of Haralld Hardrada, king of Norway, he operated with more success. The Norwegian consented to invade England in the summer. 33 TOSTIG went to Flanders, to prepare the means of an aggression of his own. He visited William of Normandy, of whose ambition he was made a convenient instrument. 34 He collected all the English who were willing to join him; he raised many supplies from Flanders, and with sixty ships proceeded to the English coast. HE levied contributions from the Isle of Wight, and plundered along the shore till he reached Sandwich. Harold was then at London. He collected a very numerous fleet and army, because he perceived that his brother's force was but the advanced guard of William. When Harold reached Sandwich, Tostig, whose friends were chiefly in the north, sailed hastily for Lincolnshire, and committed many ravages on Lindesey. The earls of Mercia and Northumbria allowed him no time to collect support, but commenced an immediate opposition. 36 Tostig, defeated by their energy, fled to Scotland with twelve ships, to wait the arrival of his allies, and Malcolm gave him an asylum. 33 Snorre, vol. iii. p. 146-149. W. Gemmet. 285. 35 Snorre, 150. rcipum. 37 MS. Chron. Tib. B. 4. mid 12 Snaccum. XV. Harold the Second. THE first arrow of calamity was thus happily CHAP. averted from Harold; but the feeblest arm of the confederacy had thrown it, and the triumph did not much augment the security of the king. The two sovereigns, whose power singly was sufficient o endanger him, were now preparing a combined attack. 1066. accedes WILLIAM, the rival of Harold, was the son of William Robert, the fifth duke of Normandy. He was not in Nora legitimate child; but in these days this circum- mandy. stance, though always a reproach 39, did not prevent deserving talents from attaining the royal succession. William, like our Athelstan and Edmund Ironside, was admitted to assume the dignity of his father. WHEN Robert, obeying a fashion of his day, went to Jerusalem with a noble retinue, he appointed his boy William, though but a child, to govern Normandy in his stead, under the superintendance of a wise and faithful administration; and he engaged his nobles and the king of France to guard his arrangement. Robert died at Nice, on his return from Palestine, in 1035, the same year in which Canute the Great departed from this scene of his existence. 41 40 38 His mother was Herleva, or Harlotta, the daughter of Fullbert, an officer of the duke's household. After Robert's death she was married by Herluin, a probus miles, and left him two sons, of whom one, Odo, became an archbishop; the other also obtained reputation. W. Gemmet. lib. vii. c. 3. 39 Therefore one of his nobles declared, quod nothus non deberet sibi aliisque Normannis imperare. Gem. lib. vii. c. 3. Glaber Rodulphus says of the Normans: Fuit enim usui a primo adventu ipsius gentis in Gallias, ex hujusmodi concubinarum commixtione illorum principes extitisse, p. 47. 40 Glaber, p. 47. 41 Gemmet. lib. vi. c. 12, 13. Ord. Vit. lib. iii. p. 459. BOOK the Second. 1066. William's Harold. WILLIAM, at the age of eight, became the duke of Normandy. 42 His minority tempted many nobles to rebel against him, and to be turbulent towards each other. The king of France also coveted his dominions. Normandy was for many years harassed by wars, murders, and civil feuds; and William, like Philip of Macedon, experienced adversity enough to excite his energies, and to discipline his judgment. The abilities of his friends at first, and afterwards his own good conduct, surmounted every difficulty.43 He not only secured his own power, but having so often measured it against others with success, he was taught to know its strength, to nurture ambition upon that knowledge, and to look around him for new theatres on which his active mind could be employed with profit, and where increased celebrity would reward its exertions. 44 THE friendship of Edward, the visit of Harold, and the state of the English court, excited and determined him to aim at the sceptre of our island. THE sudden coronation of Harold prevented message to the effect of any private intrigues, and left to William no hope but from his sword. William, however, knew that the combat was half gained if the moral impressions of society were in his favour; and he therefore sent an embassy to Harold, gently expostulating upon the seizure of the crown, re 42 Ord. Vit. 459. 43 On William's struggles to maintain his dignity, see Guil. Pictav.; W. Gemmet.; and Orderic. Vitalis. They may be also read in Daniel's Histoire de France, vol. i. p. 362–368. 44 He married Mathilda, the daughter of Baldwin, count of Flanders. Gemmet. p. 277. She was descended from Alfred's daughter. |