Chapter XXXVI: Appendix: NOTE A. p. 3 (8)

Here it is not the news of the Battle of Fulford, but the news of the landing at Riccall, on hearing of which Harold sets forth. This is at least possible, as we have no distinct statement how long a time passed between the landing and the battle. But the story certainly reads as if the battle followed very fast upon the landing, and as if Harold must have been on his march, not only before the battle but before the landing. And indeed some news must have reached him of the approach of the Norwegian fleet, of the muster in the Tyne, and of the ravage of the Yorkshire coast. One cannot help thinking that the Chroniclers, even the Abingdon Chronicler, have fallen into a certain inaccuracy of expression, and that Harold must have known of the approach of the Northern enemy at a much earlier time than their words would imply. And yet, after all, the inaccuracy is hardly a literal one. News both of the landing and of the battle would reach the King on his march and would stir up him and his army to still greater exertions. The great march of Harold is in itself one of the most wonderful things in our wonderful history. But, if we take the words of the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles in their literal and grammatical sense, the march becomes not only wonderful but miraculous.

NOTE CC. p. 363.

THE DETAILS OF THE BATTLE OF STAMFORDBRIDGE.

Years ago, when I first began these studies, one of my greatest difficulties was that Harold of England is described, in all the ordinary histories, as furnished with a strong force of cavalry and archers at Stamfordbridge, while he was utterly destitute of both arms at Senlac. The haste of his march southwards would not of itself account for the difference; for if he could have collected cavalry and archers for the one campaign, he could doubtless have collected them again for the other. I soon saw that the only authority for the usual description of the fight at Stamfordbridge was the Saga of Harold Hardrada, and I gradually came to the conclusion that that part of the Saga was mythical. The whole conception of the English army was clearly taken from an English army of Snorro’s own age, of which horsemen and archers undoubtedly formed the most important part. That is to say, the English had by that time adopted the Norman tactics. Indeed some of the incidents in Snorro’s account of Stamfordbridge seem very much as if they had been transferred thither from Senlac. The defeat of the Norwegian army, just like that of the English army at Senlac, is owing to their breaking the line of the shield-wall, and Harold the son of Sigurd is killed by the chance shot of an arrow, just like Harold the son of Godwine. But though the account of the Battle of Stamfordbridge is clearly mythical, the like is not the case with the whole of the story. The writer shows a knowledge of the Yorkshire coast, and his narrative seems quite trustworthy up to the Battle of Fulford. His account of that battle quite agrees with the appearance of the site (see p. 350). He seemingly confounds Waltheof with Eadwine (see p. 351), but then he utterly confounds all English genealogies and personalities (see vol. ii. p. 553). It is only when he gets to Stamfordbridge that he begins wholly to break down. For instance (see p. 354) he fancies that place to be close under the walls of York, whereas it really is eight miles off. May not the difference in value between these two parts of his narrative be explained by the circumstances of the case? A division of the army remained at Riccall (see p. 348), and never went to Stamfordbridge at all. All the men of this division (see p. 375) went back safe to Norway, while hardly any fugitives escaped from Stamfordbridge. It was therefore only natural that the story of the former part of the campaign, taking in the Battle of Fulford, should be much better known in Norway than the details of the greater battle itself. The Saga-maker therefore had trustworthy tradition to go by for one part of his story, while for the other he had to draw largely on his imagination.

I have drawn my own ideas of this, as of other battles, from an examination of the ground compared with the accounts of the original writers. I have twice visited the field of Stamfordbridge, in July and in December 1867, the former time in company with Archdeacon Jones and Mr. J. R. Green, when I also examined the site of Fulford with the Archdeacon. In December I also visited Aldby and the ground between Aldby and Stamfordbridge. I have compared the impressions thus formed with the short accounts in the Chronicles, and with those in Henry of Huntingdon and William of Malmesbury. The narrative of Henry has a special value. As soon as he reaches the actual fight, his narrative, hitherto meagre and inaccurate, suddenly lights up, and becomes minute, poetical, and evidently founded on an accurate knowledge of the spot. That is to say, his description here, as in so many other cases, is founded on contemporary and local ballads, of whose words distinct traces may be recognized in his narrative. An English ballad of Stamfordbridge must have been absolutely contemporary with the event—made perhaps to be sung at King Harold’s feast of victory. Such a relic, did we possess it in full, would be almost more precious than the songs of Brunanburh and Maldon.

The accounts in Lappenberg, Thierry, and St. John seem to have been written without any knowledge of the ground. Lappenberg puts the single-handed defence of the bridge quite at the end of the battle. This is perhaps merely an attempt to patch on this incident to the account in the Saga, or it is perhaps because the story comes at the end of the Abingdon Chronicle. But it comes at the end of the Chronicle, simply because it is an addition by another hand, and the words in which the anecdote is told show that it did not take place at the end of the battle. Any one who compares the ground with the account in Henry of Huntingdon will easily see that the defence of the bridge was more than a mere incident after the battle was decided. It is, I feel sure, the central point of the whole fight. Henry’s account begins (M. H. B. 762 B);

“Pugna igitur incepta est, quâ gravior non fuerat. Coeuntes namque a summo mane usque ad meridiem, quum horribiliter ruentes utrimque perseverarent, maximus numerus Anglorum Norwagenses cedere sed non fugere compulit. Ultra flumen igitur repulsi, vivis super mortuos transeuntibus, magnanimiter restiterunt.”

Then follows the defence of the bridge, as I have quoted the account in p. 370, and the narrative goes on thus;

“Transeuntes igitur Angli Haroldum Regem et Tosti occiderunt, et totam Norwagensium aciem vel armis straverunt vel igne deprehensos combusserunt.”

Here are two distinct acts of the battle, fought on opposite sides of the Derwent. As the English were coming from York, the first act must have been on the right bank of the river, and the second on the left. The crossing of the Derwent is the main point, and the crossing of the Derwent was for a while hindered by the valour of this single Northman. And the most hard-fought and decisive part of the battle is clearly placed on the left bank, after the defender of the bridge was slain. Up to that time the Northmen, in Henry’s words, “gave way, but did not fly.” It was after the crossing of the river that the great slaughter took place; but this was not a mere slaughter of flying men, but the most stoutly contested part of the battle. For it was then that Tostig and Harold Hardrada were slain, and they assuredly were not slain flying. There was fighting then on both sides of the river, but the great and decisive struggle took place on the left side, the further side from York. We must here take into account the statements of so many writers, from the Chroniclers onwards, that the English came on the Northmen “unawares,” that the Northmen were without their breast-plates, and the like (see p. 369). This has to be reconciled with the fact of the hard fight which was kept on for so many hours. When we once understand the topography, the explanation is easy. The events naturally arrange themselves as I have given them in the text. The Norwegian army is spread abroad on both sides of the river, Harold Hardrada and Tostig with their main strength being on the further side. The English come “unawares” on the unprepared division on the right side, and drive them back. The single hero defends the bridge, and gives time for the main army beyond it to form. Then comes the great fight in which the two leaders are slain and the whole Norwegian army is at last cut to pieces.

The only point on which I have any doubt is as to the hours of the day. Henry of Huntingdon makes the battle begin in the early morning, “summo mane;” the first fight lasts till noon; the defender of the bridge withstands the passage of the English till three in the afternoon. Then comes the second fight, and, after all this day’s work, Harold of England is back at York the same evening, and the same evening hears at dinner—or rather supper—of the landing of William (see p. 376). The reckoning of time is in itself suspicious, and it is clearly not without a reference to the sacred hours of the Church. The first and last reckonings can be shown to be wrong. It is possible that Harold may have returned to York on the night of the battle. But he certainly did not hear that evening of William’s landing, because William had not yet landed (see p. 400). Neither could the battle have begun very early in the morning. The English army got no further than Tadcaster on the Sunday evening (“com Harold ... on ðone Sunnandæg to Táða” Chron. Ab.). On Monday morning they marched from Tadcaster, through York, to Stamfordbridge (“fór þa on Monandæg þurh ut Eoferwic”). A march of about seventeen miles, with doubtless some, though not a very long, halt in the city, could not be accomplished so as to make the battle begin very early on a September morning. Then it is quite inconceivable that the resistance on the right side lasted from early morning till noon, and the defence of the bridge from noon till three o’clock. A three hours’ defence of the bridge by one man is impossible. The affair was probably an affair of minutes, though at such a moment minutes would seem like hours. Most likely the hours have got into the wrong places. From noon till three would be a very likely amount of time for the whole of the actual fighting. The march and the pursuit have to be added at each end to make up the whole day’s work.

But this mistake as to the mere reckoning of hours need not throw any doubt as to the main facts of the one intelligible and consistent account of the battle. Henry’s account also exactly agrees with the two accounts in the Abingdon Chronicle. These two accounts must not be read as a consecutive narrative. They come from two different hands (see p. 369), and they contain an apparent, though not a real, contradiction. The first tells the story in general terms;

“Ða com Harold Engla cyning heom ongean _on unwaran begeondan þære brycge_, and hi þær togædere fengon, and swyðe heardlice lange on ðæg feohtende wæron. And þær wæs Harold cyning of Norwegan and Tostig eorl ofslagen, and ungerim folces mid heom, ægðer ge Normana ge Englisca, and þa Normen flugon þa Englisca.”

This is a complete story by itself; then comes the supplement;

“Ða wæs þer an of Norwegan þe widstod þet Englisce folc, þet hí ne micte þa brigge oferstigan _ne sige gerechen_. Þa seite an Englisce mid anre flan, ac hít nactes ne widstod. And þa com an oþer under þere brigge, end hine þurðstang en únder þere brunie; þa com Harold Engla chinge ofer þere brigge, and hys furde forð mid hine, and þere michel wel geslogon, ge Norweis ge Flæming, and þes cyninges sunu Hetmundus let Harold faran ham to Norwéie mid alle þá scípe.”

This story is clearly the same as that of Henry of Huntingdon, and it even more distinctly sets forth that the victory was still uncertain when the single Northman defended the bridge. Up to that time the English had the better, but the victory was not complete, and the defence of the bridge hindered them for a while from making it complete (“ne sige gerechen”). That the fighting began on the York side, and ended on the further side, is manifest. But it might be thought from the words of the first account, “com Harold ... heom ongean on unwaran begeondan þære brycge,” that the surprise was made on the further side of the bridge; but this, in the case of an army coming from York, is impossible. We must therefore look on the expression as elliptical and in some measure inaccurate. The English came upon them unawares on the York side of the bridge, but the main fight took place “begeondan þære brycge.” In the brief language of the Chronicler these two ideas are run together.

The other accounts throw little light on the matter. The Worcester and Peterborough Chroniclers give no account of the details of the battle, though the Worcester writer becomes rather minute as to the fate of the Northmen after the battle (see p. 375). Florence follows Worcester. William of Malmesbury (ii. 228) gives no details except in his account of the defence of the bridge, which he introduces with the words, “Angli superiorem manum nacti, Noricos in fugam egerunt; sed tantorum et tot virorum victoriam (quod forsitan posteritas difficile credat) unus Noricus multâ horâ interpolavit.” This almost sounds as if William had read the two accounts in the Abingdon Chronicle as a consecutive narrative; his “in fugam egerunt” seems to come from the “Normen flugon þa Englisca,” followed by the account of the defence of the bridge. It is clear that it is from this account of William of Malmesbury that the idea arose that the defence of the bridge took place in the very last stage of the battle.

The three Kings whom Lambert (see above, p. 641) conceived to have been killed at Stamfordbridge must be Harold Hardrada, the Irish King (see p. 372), and, I suppose, Tostig, mistaken for a King.

I have in the text (see p. 354) suggested that the neighbourhood of Aldby may have been one of the attractions which led Harold Hardrada to Stamfordbridge. It may however be thought an objection that Aldby is on the York side of the river, while I conceive the main strength of the Norwegian army to have been on the other side. If however the bridge which now crosses the river at Aldby had a predecessor in those days, this difficulty is got rid of. But in any case I do not insist on the connexion with Aldby as any essential part of the story. It seems to me to have been a probable motive, but if it is thought inconsistent with the one intelligible view of the battle, it must be given up.

Let us now see how the great victory of Stamfordbridge looked in the eyes of Norman and Normannizing writers. It is universally looked on as a wicked fratricide. William of Poitiers (126) refers to the Northumbrian campaign only in an incidental way. William landed easily, because Harold “in Eboracensem pagum recesserat, cum fratre suo Tostillo et Heraldo, Noricorum Rege, dimicaturus.” This was a first-rate opportunity for reviling Harold, and he accordingly goes on with a fierce declamation, to some of the particular expressions of which I have already had to call attention (see above, p. 635, and vol. ii. p. 540);

“Nec mirere quod germanus permotus injuriis, invasi honoris æmulus, arma externa adduxit in Heraldum, quem germana quoque, illi moribus absimillima, quum armis non valeret, votis impugnabat et consilio, luxuriâ fœdum, truculentum homicidam, divite rapinâ superbum, adversarium æqui et boni.”

William of Jumièges (vii. 34) thus speaks of the battle, to which by the way he gives quite a wrong date;

“In quo conflictu prædictum fratrem suum peremit ac Heraldum regem Northwegæ qui Tosticum juvare venerat. Hæc pugna nonis Octobris in die Sabbati facta est in quâ penè totus Northwigenarum exercitus ab Anglis cæsus est. Inde victor Heraldus Lundoniam rediit, sed de fratricidio diu gaudere vel securus esse non potuit, quia legatus ei Normannos adesse mox nuntiavit.”

Two chapters on (vii. 36), when he describes the battle of Senlac, he says;

“In die Sabbati mulctavit [Omnipotens Deus] multa millia Anglorum, qui longè ante innocentem Aluredum injustè necaverunt, ac præcedenti Sabbato Heraldum Regem et Tosticum Comitem aliosque multos absque pietate trucidaverunt.”

Orderic too tells us (500 C) how “Anglicus Tyrannus, effuso fratris et hostis sanguine, lætus intumuit, et peractâ multiplici strage victor Lundoniam rediit.” Presently he uses the exact words of William of Jumièges about the “fratricidium.”

Guy of Amiens also (Giles, 129) makes his elegiacs as fierce as he can. I have already (p. 373) quoted two lines of him; the whole passage runs thus;

“Rex Heraldus enim sceleratus ad ultima terræ,
Fratris ad exitium perfida tela parat.
Non modicam regni partem nam frater adeptus,
Tecta dabat flammis et gladiis populum.
Marte sub opposito currens Heraldus in hostes,
Non timuit fratris tradere membra neci.
Alter in alterutrum plus quam civile peregit
Bellum; sed victor, proh dolor, ipse fuit.
Invidus ille Caïn fratris caput amputat ense,
Et caput et corpus sic sepelivit humo.
Hæc tibi providit qui debita regna subegit,
Criminis infesti quatenus ultor eas.”

The Hyde writer has also his stone to fling at the fratricide. First we read (p. 291), “Haroldus, Rex Anglorum, in borealibus Angliæ partibus constitutus, atque apud Eboracum civitatem contra fratrem dimicans, fratricida infeliciter evasit.” Again (p. 293), “Haroldo itaque apud Eboracum constituto, et post multum laborem detestandumque fratricidium modicum respirante, fama Normannorum advolat.” Lastly, William of Malmesbury, who in his account of Stamfordbridge had spoken as an Englishman, turns about and muses in this fashion (iii. 239); “Interea Haroldus de pugnâ Noricorum revertebatur, suâ æstimatione felix quod vicerat; meo judicio contra, quod parricidio victoriam comparârat.”

The force of party prejudice can really not go further than this kind of talk. We can better forgive the Welsh writer who (Brut y Tywysogion, 1066) tells us how “Harold, King of Denmark, meditated the subjection of the Saxons; whom another Harold, the son of Earl Godwin, who was then King in England, surprised, unwarned and unarmed, and by sudden attack, aided by national treachery, struck to the ground and caused his death.” Still the Welshman’s notions of national treachery must have been strange, and this lament or invective is oddly thrust into the colourless narrative of the Annales Cambriæ. On the other hand Snorro is never carried away in this sort. His mythical details represent Harold as offering quarter to his brother and to his enemies over and over again. Thus even fable bears witness to the general character of our great King, and William of Malmesbury had himself once (ii. 228) praised Harold’s clemency in his dealings with his conquered enemies; “Rex Harvagre et Tostinus interempti; Regis filius cum omnibus navibus domum clementer remissus.”

And now, for the last time, we come back for a moment to our old companion, the Biographer of Eadward. His direct narrative has long since failed us, but in one of his poetical flights (p. 426) he has a very distinct allusion to the fight of Stamfordbridge. He thinks the whole thing very wicked, but the subject of William and laureate of Eadgyth takes care not to commit himself between Harold and Tostig personally. He spares the Lady’s feelings the details of the warfare between her brothers, but one or two of his expressions are remarkable;

“Quis canet æquoreo vastum fervore tumentem
Humbram congressum Regibus æquivocis?
Sanguine barbarico per millia multa marinos
Tinxisse fluctus, flente polo facinus,
Quis demum scribet? quo mens languescit et horret
Auditus, tanti fama pudet sceleris.”

Presently (p. 427) the Muse warns him;

“Si non describis hostilia bella Griphini,
Vel busam vetitum corporibus fluere.”

The idea that the _busses_ or keels could not pass for the dead bodies is the same poetical common-place which we have met with several times. See pp. 351, 369. We find it also, of all places, in Arrian, ii. II. 11; Λέγει Πτολεμαῖος ὁ Λάγου, ξυνεπισπόμενος τότε Ἀλεξάνδρῳ, τοὺς μετὰ σφῶν διώκοντας Δαρεῖον, ὡς ἐπὶ φάραγγί τινι ἐν τῇ διώξει ἐγένοντο, ἐπὶ τῶν νεκρῶν διαβῆναι τὴν φάραγγα. Cf. Polybios, xii. 20, where there is something like a discussion of the subject. Grote, Hist. Greece, xii. 167.

NOTE DD. p. 411.

WILLIAM’S RAVAGES IN SUSSEX.

The ravages of William’s army in Sussex stand confessed in the Norman writers, and there can be little doubt that they were systematic ravages done with the settled object of bringing Harold to a battle. The lasting nature of the destruction wrought at this time is shown by the large number of places round about Hastings which are returned in Domesday as “wasta.” As many of these as can be identified I have marked in the map.

On the other hand Mr. Hayley, a South-Saxon antiquary, who is quoted by Sir Henry Ellis (i. 314) and Mr. Taylor (Wace, 262), strangely attributes the harrying of those places which lie at all near the line of Harold’s march to the English, and not to the Norman army. This notion would hardly have needed any answer except from the sort of sanction given to it by the two writers who quote Mr. Hayley. I do not suppose that any army of any age ever passed through a district without doing some damage, but to suppose that Harold systematically harried his own Kingdom, and not only his own Kingdom, but a shire specially attached to his house and which contained a large portion of his private estates, does seem to me the height of absurdity. A King who was, as William of Poitiers tells us (see p. 412), hastening to save the country from ravage, who, as Wace tells us (see p. 437), indignantly refused to inflict the slightest unavoidable damage on any of his people, was certainly not likely to mark his course by systematic devastation. And, what is more, on such a hasty march as Harold’s evidently was, Swend himself could not have done the sort of permanent damage which is implied in the lands being returned as “wasta” twenty years after. The ravaging must have been something complete and systematic, like the ravaging of Northumberland a few years later. Such ravaging could only have been done by an army permanently encamped in the country, as William’s was at Hastings. Also if Harold had ravaged, he would have ravaged along his whole line of march, and not have waited till he was within a few miles of Senlac. But Mr. Hayley does not produce a single instance of a return of “wasta” along the early part of Harold’s march; all the points are near either to Hastings or to Senlac. I have no doubt that all these entries record ravages inflicted by the army of William.

NOTE EE. p. 425.

NAMES OF ENGLISHMEN AT SENLAC.

I have risked the conjecture that the Ansgardus of Guy of Amiens (690 et seq.) is no other than Esegar the Staller, the well-known grandson of Tofig the Proud. In this conjecture I find that I have been forestalled by M. de Bonnechose (ii. 287). At least I presume that he means Esegar by “le riche personnage dont le nom est accompagné du titre de Stellarius [sic] (_Comes stabuli_) ou connétable dans le Domesday book.” Thierry, in the second note to his fourth book, takes Ansgardus for the name of an office, the _Hansward_, which he fancies to be the title of some magistrate, seemingly the chief magistrate of the City of London. But I know of no municipal magistrate bearing the name of _Hansward_, and the chief magistrate of London in these times is always called the Port-Reeve. Ansgardus is clearly a proper name, and Esegar, who was evidently a man of great importance at the time, bears a name which comes nearer to the form used by Guy than that of any other eminent Englishman. Indeed in Domesday, 129 _b_, he appears as “Ansgarus.” Esegar moreover was Sheriff of Middlesex, which makes it still more likely that he should have been in command of the forces of London. He is addressed (Cod. Dipl. iv. 211) in a writ of Eadward for Middlesex along with Bishop William, Earl Harold, and all the Thegns of the shire. In another writ (iv. 221) his connexion with London is still more distinctly marked. “Eadward King gret Ælfwold Bisceop and Esgár Stallere and alle mine burhðegnes on Lundne freóndlíce.” He was therefore Staller, and seemingly Sheriff, as early as 1045. See vol. ii. p. 63.

The other names which I have introduced come from entries in Domesday. These entries are of course quite incidental, but, like the mention of Æthelric (see above, p. 717), they have another kind of importance which I shall discuss in another volume. Most of the men spoken of were tenants of religious houses, but this does not seem to have been the case with the two nameless Hampshire freemen, whose land at the time of the Survey was in the hands of a King’s Thegn, an Englishman named Ælfwig. The entry, as far as we are now concerned with it, runs thus (Domesday, 50); “Alwi filius Turber tenet de Rege Tederlec. Tres liberi homines tenerunt in alodium de Rege E.... Duo ex his qui tenuerunt occisi fuerunt in bello de Hastinges.”

The case of Ælfric of Huntingdonshire (Domesday, 208) is very clear; the entry is as follows; “Terram Alurici de Gellinge et Emingeforde testantur fuisse Sancti Benedicti.... Ipse autem Aluricus occisus fuit in bello apud Hastinges.” The nameless Norfolk man (Domesday, ii. 275 _b_) seems to have been a case of the same kind. But Breme of Suffolk was a freeman of King Eadward, and there is no mention of any connexion of his with any religious house. The entry (Domesday, ii. 409 _b_) is as follows; “In Dagaworda tenuit Breme liber homo regis E. qui fuit occisus in bello Hastingensi.”

Godric the Sheriff and Thurkill of Berkshire are better ascertained persons. Their deaths are recorded in the history of Abingdon (vol. i. p. 484, and again p. 490). Of Thurkill we read, “Quidam dives Thurkillus nomine, sub Haroldi Comitis testimonio et consultu, de se cum suâ terrâ quæ Kingestun dicitur, ecclesiæ Abbendonensi et Abbati Ordrico homagium fecit” (see vol. ii. p. 42, and on _commendation_ vol. i. p. 129). The place is Kingston Bagpuze in Berkshire, of which we read in Domesday (60 _b_), “Stanchill tenuit T. R. E.,” whom Sir Henry Ellis (ii. 227) is no doubt right in identifying with Thurkill. It is singular that Thurkill should also have held of the King another lordship of the name of Kingston in the same shire (see Domesday, 61). Godric the Sheriff held various possessions in Berkshire, partly of the King, partly of the Abbey (see Domesday, 60 _b_, where he appears as “Godricus Vice-Comes”). He is also addressed in a writ of Eadward for Berkshire (Cod. Dipl. iv. 200) along with Bishop Hermann and Earl Harold and all the Thegns of the shire. The possession specially spoken of in the Abingdon History is Fifhide or Fifield, near Abingdon, where an ancient manor-house of the fourteenth century no doubt marks the site of Godric’s dwelling. Fifield was granted to the Abbey by King Eadgar (see the charter in Hist. Ab. i. 323), and was held by Godric on the common tenure for three lives. Domesday says (60 _b_), “Godricus Vice-Comes tenuit de Abbate et non potuit ire quolibet cum istâ terrâ.” As Thurkill had another Kingston, so Godric had another Fifhide, held of the King. Of another Berkshire Godric (60 _b_), “Godricus unus liber homo,” probably the Sheriff’s son, I shall have to speak elsewhere.

The mention of Eadric the Deacon comes from Domesday, ii. 449; “In Kanavadisc [Cavendish in Suffolk] tenet Radulfus de Limesi, unus liber homo Heroldi, quam tenuit Edricus Diaconus, qui fuit mortuus cum eo in bello.” Surely the words “unus liber homo Heroldi” ought to be transposed so as to apply to Eadric.

The presence of the Abbots Leofric and Ælfwig is well known. The following is the local account (Mon. ii. 437) of the coming of Ælfwig and his twelve monks. The first words I have quoted already in vol. ii. p. 644.

“Rex Haraldus habuit avunculum, nomine Godwynum, qui adduxit secum contra Willielmum Bastard in suo adventu in Angliam in subsidio nepotis sui Haraldi, de domo suâ duodecim monachos et viginti milites, pro servitio; quibus occisis et spoliatis, inventi sunt memorati Abbas et monachi sub armis militaribus in habitu monachili, et de Novo Wintoniæ Monasterio, videlicet de Hidâ, cœnobitas esse.”

NOTE FF. pp. 400, 437.

THE DATES OF THE EVENTS BETWEEN THE TWO GREAT BATTLES.

The day of William’s landing seems distinctly fixed by the testimony of the Worcester and Peterborough Chronicles. The former says, “Ða com Wyllelm eorl of Normandige into Pefnesea on Sc̃e Michaeles mæsse æfen, and sona þæs hi fere wæron, worhton castel æt Hæstinga port.” That is, they landed on the morning of Thursday, September 28th, and, as we may suppose, reached Hastings the next day. This becomes still clearer from the words of the Peterborough Chronicler, who says, “And þa hwile com Willelm eorl upp æt Hestingan, on sc̃e Michaeles mæssedæg.” That is, he leaves out the landing at Pevensey, but brings William to Hastings on the day when he must have come there according to the other account. Orderic is therefore wrong when he says (500 B), “Normannicus itaque exercitus iii. Kal. Octobr. mare transfretavit, nocte quâ memoriam Sancti Michaelis Archangeli Catholica Ecclesia festivè peragit.” The mistake arose from some confusion between Saint Michael’s mass-day and Saint Michael’s eve.

On the other hand, there is no doubt as to the day of the Battle of Senlac. The Worcester Chronicle says expressly, “þis gefeoht wæs gedon on þone dæg Calesti pape.” So Orderic (501 A), “Bellum secundo Idus Octobr. horâ tertiâ commissum est.” It is strange that so accurate a writer as Florence should have given a wrong date, placing the battle on the 21st or 22nd, “xi. Kal. Novembris Sabbato.” William of Jumièges (vii. 36) gives the right date, “Pridie Idus Octobris.” But he makes (vii. 34) the strange mistake of placing the Battle of Stamfordbridge only one week before the Battle of Senlac (“Hæc pugna Nonis Octobris in die Sabbati facta est”). I have no doubt that Harold reached Senlac the day before the battle, that is on Friday, October 13th (see p. 446). William was thus a fortnight at Hastings, which agrees with the “quindecim dies” of William of Malmesbury (iii. 238).

Of the dates of Harold’s movements during this time our accounts are much less certain. We are told on authority which is not first rate that Harold spent five or six days in London whilst his troops were coming in. “Deinde per sex dies innumeram multitudinem Anglorum contraxit,” says William of Jumièges (vii. 35). So Gaimar (5257), “Cinc jurs i mist al asembler.” The statement however is probable enough, and, in default of any better authority, we may accept it. We have then to arrange the other events accordingly. We may give two days to the march from London to Senlac, making Harold leave London on Thursday the 12th. He would thus have reached London on the 5th. This puts Harold’s arrival in London exactly a week after William’s landing at Pevensey, allowing three days for the messenger’s hasty ride from Pevensey to York, and four days for the King’s somewhat slower march from York to London. Sunday, October 1, would seem to have been the day on which Harold heard the news of William’s landing. The speed with which events followed one another is almost miraculous, but that is the main characteristic of these two wonderful campaigns.

The following may serve as an approximate calendar of these events;

Wednesday, Sept. 20. Battle of Fulford.
Sunday, ” 24. Surrender of York.
Monday, ” 25. Battle of Stamfordbridge.
Wednesday, ” 27. William sets sail.
Thursday, ” 28. William at Pevensey.
Friday, ” 29. William at Hastings.
Sunday, October 1. News brought to York.
Thursday, ” 5. Harold in London.
Wednesday, ” 11. Harold leaves London.
Friday, ” 13. Harold at Senlac.
Saturday, ” 14. Battle of Senlac.

NOTE GG. p. 431.

THE MESSAGES BETWEEN HAROLD AND WILLIAM.

I have spoken in the text of the extraordinary confusions and contradictions which are found in the accounts of the messages which are said to have passed between Harold and William before the arrival of the English army at Senlac.

According to William of Poitiers (128), a monk, sent as an ambassador from Harold, reached William’s camp at Hastings while the Duke was inspecting his ships (“Dum custodiam navium viseret Dux, indicatum est fortè spatianti prope navalia monachum Heraldi legatum adesse”), which therefore, it is plain, were not burned. William talks with him, and pretends to be the Duke’s seneschal, saying that the messenger cannot obtain an interview with the Duke except through him. He bids the monk tell his story to him, promising to bring it to his master’s ears. The monk obeys, and is hospitably received and lodged that night. The next day the monk is brought before a gathering of the Norman chiefs, among whom he finds the supposed seneschal of yesterday to be no other than the Duke himself. William bids him (“In crastino discumbens in medio primatum suorum, cucullato advocato dixit”) tell his story to the whole company. He then delivers Harold’s message, which is much the same as I have given in p. 432. Now, this message of Harold is obviously out of place as the first of a series. Harold would never put arguments into William’s mouth in the way in which he is made to do in this account. But it is equally obvious that the latter part of the speech is thoroughly in place as an answer to a great part of the Norman case. It is clear that the order of the messages has been transposed, and that the first message was sent by William to Harold, and not by Harold to William. And indeed, to say nothing of the particular arguments in either message, it was far more natural for the claimant to send a first message to the actual possessor than for the actual possessor to send a first message to the claimant. And this is actually the order in which the story is told in Wace, whom I have therefore not scrupled to follow. In his account (11891 et seqq.), as soon as William hears that Harold has reached London, he sends the monk of Fécamp, Hugh Margot, of whose speech I have given the substance in p. 431. Harold is represented as being kindled almost to madness at the message, and as being kept back from personal violence to the messenger only by the interference of Gyrth. This is doubtless a mere piece of Norman scandal akin to the other stories which I have mentioned in p. 436. The alleged violence is quite out of character with all that we know of Harold, and the introduction of Gyrth, to whose exaltation Wace is so strangely devoted, casts a further doubt on the story. But these mythical details in no way affect the probability of the order which Wace gives to the messages. When Hugh Margot is gone, Harold sends his own messenger, an Englishman who could speak French (11949);

“Donc a Heraut pris un message
Ki de France sont li langage.”

The speech put into his mouth is an answer to the Norman claims, but it takes a rather different line from the speech in William of Poitiers. While the latter chiefly deals with the respective claims of William and Harold to the Crown, the speech in Wace chiefly deals with the question of the oath, which Harold maintains to be of no force, as having been obtained by compulsion (11956);

“Se jo li ait fet folement,
Se jo unkes rien li pramis,
Por ma délivrance le fis;
Por mei délivrer li jurai,
Quant k’il me quist li otréai.
Ne me deit estre reprocé,
Quer nel’ fist nient de mon graé;
La force ert soe, si cremeie,
Se sa volonté ne faseie,
Ke jo jamaiz ne revertisse,
Et toz tems là remainsisse.”

The message winds up with the challenge for the battle on Saturday. It is added that William treated the messenger well, and gave him a horse and garments (“cheval è dras li fist doner,” 12026), on which Harold regretted his own ill-treatment of Hugh Margot.

I ought however to mention that Guy of Amiens (197 et seqq.) gives a version of these messages in which their substance differs altogether from the version either of William of Poitiers or of Wace, but which agrees in its order with William of Poitiers. Harold’s messenger is sent from York. At the meeting of the English captains, which I have described in p. 420, the King determines, as the first step, to send a messenger to William. An eloquent monk is chosen by the common voice of the assembly (203);

“Æquo consultu majorum necne minorum
Providus eloquio monachus eligitur.”

The message which he carries is simply a rhetorical demand that William shall leave the country. Peace is offered if he will go quietly, and restore his captives and plunder; otherwise Harold threatens war. The last words enlarge on the vast numbers at Harold’s disposal, which he could not, if he would, keep back from battle. England contained six hundred thousand fighting men (221), all eager for fight.

“Militiam vix ipse suam populumque coercet:
Gens est quæ nullum novit habere modum.
Nam, Dominum testor, bis sex sibi millia centum
Sunt pugnatorum, prœlia qui sitiunt.”

William’s answer is also little more than a rhetorical statement of his own right, and of Harold’s perjury, but it contains one expression which is worth notice. William thus (231) sets forth his rights;

“Excessi puerum, leviter nec regna petivi
Defunctis patribus debita jure mihi.”

This strong expression of William’s hereditary right may perhaps be taken in connexion with the strange boast which the poet afterwards puts into the mouth of another messenger of William (331);

“Normannos proavus superavit, avusque Britannos;
Anglorum genitor sub juga colla dedit.”

William’s answer winds up by offering mercy to Harold if he will repent and submit, and promising him his father’s Earldom on his again becoming William’s man (243);

“Si quærit pacem, si vult delicta fateri,
Indulgens culpæ parcere promptus ero;
Terram quam pridem tenuit pater, hanc sibi reddam,
Ut meus ante fuit si meus esse velit.”

Now Wace clearly distinguishes between these messages, which he describes as being exchanged while Harold was still in London, and other messages, which he describes as being exchanged after Harold had already encamped on Senlac. It is probable that messages would be interchanged at both stages; when William of Poitiers rolls the two stages into one, he only displays his usual disregard of chronology, while Guy seems equally careless of geography. Harold is first at York and then at Senlac, without a word about the march or the sojourn in London. The Archdeacon makes his monk, who is evidently the same as Wace’s Hugh Margot, go to Harold, with the statement of William’s rights which I have given in vol. ii. p. 302, and with the offer which I have given in p. 431. But he also offers, in the interests of humanity, a decision of the quarrel by single combat (“at si conditionem hanc repudiaverit, non duco justum ut homines mei vel sui concidant prœliando, quorum in lite nostrâ culpa nulla est. Ecce paratus ego sum capite meo contra caput illius asserere, quod mihi potiùs quam illi jure cedat regnum Anglicum”). The Archdeacon now bursts forth into a panegyric on his master’s skill in argument and on his hatred of bloodshed; he then gives us Harold’s answer. His description is certainly graphic. For a while Harold cannot speak (“stupore expalluit, atque diu ut elinguis obticuit”); when he does speak, the monk, to repeated questions, gets no answer beyond threats of immediate battle (“pergimus continenter,” “pergimus ad prœlium”). At the final offer of the single combat, Harold lifts up his face to heaven, and says that God shall judge between him and William (“tum levato Heraldus in cœlum vultu, ait: Dominus inter me et Willelmum hodie quod justum est decernat”). All this happens while Harold is not far off from Hastings (“mandata Heraldo appropinquanti per monachum sunt relata”), and the battle seems to begin almost directly after.

The same kind of confusion prevails in Guy’s account. The message which I have already quoted is sent by Harold from York; but immediately on the departure of its bearer we find a state of things implying that the English army has already reached Senlac. When the monk is gone, William makes a speech to his followers, whom he addresses (250) as

“Francia quos genuit nobilitate cluens.”

And among them, besides Apulians and Calabrians (see p. 305), he does not forget (258) the men of his great continental conquest;

“Viribus illustres Cenomanni, gloria quorum
Bello monstratur per probitatis opem.”

He expects a sudden attack of the English upon his camp, it being, according to this account, the custom of the victor of Stamfordbridge to conquer, not by force, but by fraud (264);

“Ejus enim mos est non vi, sed vincere fraude,
Spondendoque fidem porrigit ore necem.
Ergo cavere decet ne decipiamur ab illo,
Ni simus risus ludus et in populo.
Mandamus vobis quapropter castra tueri,
Irruat in castris ne malus ille latro.”

He therefore sends a monk, seemingly half as spy, half as ambassador, who reaches the English camp just as Harold was setting out for a night attack on the camp of William (281);

“Rex acies armare jubet, Ducis atque latenter
Mandat ut invadant agmina, si valeant.
Æstimat in vigiles prosternere fraudibus hostes
Fallere dum quærit, fallitur atque ruit.”

The monk now once more sets forth to Harold how William had been appointed heir to the Crown by Eadward with the assent of the Witan, and how Harold had himself been the bearer to William of a sword and a ring as witnesses of William’s election by King and people (291);

“Hoc quia perplures testantur, et asserit idem
Assensu populi, consilio procerum,
Etguardus quod rex ut ei succederet hæres
Annuit, et fecit teque favente sibi.
Annulus est illi testis concessus et ensis,
Quæ per te nôsti missa fuisse sibi.”

Harold not unnaturally returns (301) an answer as indignant as that which Wace puts into his mouth on the earlier occasion. God shall judge between him and William on the morrow. All this is therefore conceived as happening on the night of Friday, October 13th;

“Heraldus vultu distorto colla retorquens,
Legato dixit, ‘Vade retro, stolide.
Judice cras Domino, regni pars justa patebit,
Dividet ex æquo sacra manus Domini.’”

The monk goes back to his master and gives him a report of what he had seen in the English camp, some expressions of which I have already quoted here and there. It is remarkable also (323) for speaking of the English in a contemptuous way of which there is no trace when Guy comes to the actual battle, and which oddly enough forestalls the description which we have of Norman fashions in the next generation (see Ord. Vit. 701 A; Eadmer, 23);

“Fors numerum metues: numerus sed viribus expers
Plurimus a minimo sæpe repulsus abit.
Est sibi milities unctis depexa capillis,
Fœminei juvenes Martis in arte pigri;
Et quot sunt, ovibus totidem sunt æquiparandi,
Ut vulpes pavidi fulguris ad sonitum.”

These two descriptions of the final message and the final answer of Harold are evidently the same as those which Wace (12254 et seqq.) describes as taking place after the English were encamped on the hill. The accounts are essentially the same; both contain the same offer of single combat, which seems more appropriate now than before. I have therefore followed Wace in making two sets of messages, one exchanged in London, the other (see p. 447) on the day before the battle. William of Malmesbury also (iii. 239–240) brings in a message and an answer at this stage. But he also brings in here the proposal of Gyrth that Harold should fall back on London (see p. 434). He adds also, like Guy, some expressions borrowed from the earlier message in William of Poitiers, the talk namely about the grant of the Crown by Eadward with the consent of the Earls, and also the story of the hostages. Both Wace and William make the Duke offer Harold a choice of three things, the single combat being the last alternative. The only difference is that in Wace the offer that Harold should hold the Kingdom under William (“ut [regnum] sub eo regnaturus teneret”) is made at a second and final message, after Harold had refused any of the three alternatives. The division of the Kingdom between Harold and Gyrth, as I have described it in p. 448, is clearly marked in Wace, 12340;

“E li Dus à Heraut manda,
Se son covenant li teneit,
Northonblonde tut li donreit,
E kank ultre le Humbre aureit,
Ki à cel regne aparteneit;
E poiz donreit à Guert son frere
La terre Gwigne lor pere.”

In both accounts there is a mention of the Pope and his clergy, but with the very important difference which I have noted in pp. 449–450.

With all these contradictions before me, I do not pretend to have reached any certainty as to details; but I think that we may safely accept two sets of messages, and I hope that I have fairly given their general tenor.

NOTE HH. pp. 423, 438, 445.

THE ENGLISH NUMBERS AT SENLAC.

The two passages which I have quoted at p. 445 from the Worcester Chronicle and from Florence distinctly charge Harold with fighting a battle with insufficient numbers. The passage from the Worcester Chronicle follows immediately on the words “Wyllelm him com ongean on unwær, ær his folc gefylced wære.” So the Peterborough writer, “Harold com norðan, and him wið gefeaht éar þan þe his here com eall.” Florence is still fuller;

“Licet ... bene sciret ... mediam partem sui exercitûs nondum convenisse, quam citiùs tamen potuit, in Suth-Saxoniâ suis hostibus occurrere non formidavit, et novem milliariis ab Hæstinga ubi sibi castellum firmaverant, priusquam tertia pars sui exercitûs ordinaretur ... cum eis prœlium commisit.”

So William of Malmesbury, as quoted at p. 423 (ii. 228), says that Harold had with him very few troops except the Housecarls. Presently he adds, “pauci et manu promptissimi fuere, qui, caritati corporum renuntiantes, pro patriâ animas posuere.” And again in iii. 2393 “Haroldus ... paucissimo stipatus milite, Hastingas protendit.” So the writer De Inventione, c. 20;

“Modico stipatus agmine Rex properat ad expugnandas gentes exteras, heu nimis animosus, minùs quidem quam expediret circumspectus, propriis quidem magis quam suorum confidens viribus.... Non potuit de pari contendere, qui modico stipatus agmine, quadruplo congressus exercitui, sorti se dedit ancipiti.”

The Norman writers, on the other hand, can hardly find words strong enough to set forth the countless numbers of the English host. William of Poitiers (132) rises, as might have been expected, to one of his grandest flights; “Scribens Heraldi agmen illud veterum aliquis in ejus transitu flumina epotata, silvas in planum redactas fuisse memoraret. Maximæ enim ex omnibus undique regionibus copiæ Anglorum convenerant.” A little way on (133) he talks of their “ingens numerositas.” Guy enlarges throughout on the numbers of the English. He makes William’s monk say (321),

“Quo graditur, silvas planis deducit adesse,
Et per quæ transit flumina sicca facit.”

And afterwards (441) we read,

“Anglorum populus, numero superante, repellit
Hostes.”

But I presume that the twelve hundred thousand men of whom the English monk is made to speak (223) means the whole military population of England and not the host actually encamped on Senlac;

“Nam Dominum testor, bis sex sibi millia centum
Sunt pugnatorum, prœlia qui sitiunt.”

So Orderic (500 D) and William of Jumièges (vii. 35) speak of an “innumera multitude.”

Wace makes Harold boast (12999) that he has four hundred thousand men;

“Ke chevaliers ke paisanz
Par quatre foiz chent mil armez.”

But when he speaks in his own person (12913) he speaks with his usual good sense;

“Heraut out grant pople è estult,
De totes parz en i vint mult;
Maiz multitude petit vaut
Se la virtu du ciel i faut.
Plusor è plusor unt poiz dit
Ke Heraut aveit gent petit,
Por ço ke à li meschaï;
Maiz plusors dient è jel di,
Ke cuntre un home altre envéia,
La gent al Duc poi foisonna,
Maiz li Dus aveit veirement
Plusors baronz è meillor gent.”

Wace here rebukes the English exaggerations; so William of Malmesbury (ii. 228) rebukes the Norman exaggerations; “Sed mihi videntur errare qui Anglorum numerum accumulant et fortitudinem extenuant; ita Normannos, dum laudare intendunt, infamiâ respergunt.”

My own ideas I have set forth pretty plainly in the text. It is very likely that Harold, by waiting longer, might have gathered a larger army, but, as far as a civilian may venture to judge of such a matter, it seems to me that a larger army would not have been of any use. Harold clearly had men enough to defend the hill. If indeed he could have exchanged his irregular levies for the Thegns and Housecarls of Eadwine and Morkere, that might have made a difference, but that is not a question of numbers. We must allow for obvious exaggeration on both sides, and perhaps Wace strikes as good a balance between the two as any. It is impossible to go over the battle-field with the Norman accounts in one’s hand and not to feel the consummate generalship which led Harold to the choice and defence of the post which he chose. And this time I venture to appeal from Harold’s admirers and censurers to Harold himself.

NOTE II. p. 428.

THE MIRACULOUS WARNING GIVEN TO HAROLD BEFORE THE BATTLE.

I have given in the text the legend of the miraculous warning given to Harold by the Holy Rood at Waltham, because there is probably thus much of truth in the story, that Harold really visited Waltham in the interval between the two battles. But when the notion of a miraculous interposition had once got afloat, the story, as usual, took various forms. According to the legend preserved by the Hyde writer (p. 293), Harold, on his march from London to Senlac, entered a church to pray. As soon as he left the building, the tower fell; this of course portended the fall of Harold’s Kingdom (“fertur etiam quod in ipso itinere, ecclesiam illo introeunte orandi gratiâ, turris ejusdem post exeuntem solo tenus corruit, regnumque Anglorum quam citiùs corruere designaverit”). There is nothing to remark in this story, unless it be that the notion of Harold entering a church on his journey may be taken from the picture of his entering Bosham church on his earlier journey (Tapestry, plate 1), where the church is, strangely enough, represented without a tower.

The other version is found in the anonymous continuation of Wace’s Brut (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, i. 70, quoted also in Taylor’s Wace, 289). The two armies are encamped near Hastings;

“A Hastinges sunt encontré
Li rois e li dux par grant fierté.”

Harold rises in the morning, and goes to hear mass in a church near the battle-field (“assez près à un moster”). The priests have consecrated the host and sung the _Pater Noster_, when a cry comes, “The Duke is upon us!” The King at once leaves the church, and rushes to the battle. If, the poet adds, he had waited for the _Agnus Dei_ and the _Pax_, he would have vanquished the Duke in battle or would have held his Kingdom in peace.

“Si le _Agnus Dei_ eust atendu
E la pais eust recéu,
Par pais eust la terre tenu
U par bataille le dux vencu.”

This story seems to come from the account of the battle of Ashdown in Asser (M. H. B. 476 C, copied also by Florence, 871), where the Danes attack the English while Æthelred and his brother Ælfred are hearing mass. Ælfred rushes out at once to the battle, while Æthelred waits for the end of the service. But the myth-maker now goes on to add the Waltham legend itself, strangely translated from its natural place. After the King has left the church—seemingly the church near Senlac—the stone cross gives the same marvellous sign which it gives in the Waltham story; and to confirm our faith in the tale, we are bidden to go to Waltham and see the cross behind the high altar, and Harold lying in the choir;

“Quant il issit del moster,
La croiz, ke fu fait de père,
Après le rois ad encliné
C’onques puis la teste levé.
Ki ke volt ceo saver,
A Walteham, ultre le halt auter,
Meimes cel croiz purra trover
E roi Haraud gisant en quer.”