Danes, Saxons and Normans; or, Stories of our ancestors

X.
DUKE WILLIAM AND HIS DIFFICULTIES

IT was early one day, about the opening of the year 1066, and the ground was hard with frost, when William the Norman left the palace of Rouen, and crossed the Seine to test some new arrows in the park of Rouvray. While the duke was occupied in stringing that mighty bow which, save himself, no man then living could bend, a messenger from England reached him with tidings of such import, that his colour changed, and his lip quivered with emotion. It was to the effect that Edward the Confessor was dead, and that Harold, son of Godwin, had seized the English crown.

Giving his bow to an attendant, William walked to the margin of the Seine, stepped into his barge, and, without speaking, indicated by a gesture his wish to return to Rouen. On reaching the castle, he entered the great hall, and paced up and down with a restless and excited step, "often," say the chronicles, "changing posture and attitude, and oft loosening and tightening the strings of his mantle." Such, indeed, seemed his agitation, that no member of his household ventured for some time to ask the cause.

Meantime, rumours of the intelligence brought by the messenger from England began to creep about, and a Norman noble, probably William Fitzosborne, the duke's seneschal, and the proudest of Norman magnates, presented himself to learn the actual state of affairs. Fitzosborne, who was Count of Breteuil, and destined one day to higher rank, had such a reputation for hauteur that he was surnamed "The Proud Spirit." Without any of that hesitation exhibited by others, he approached William the Norman, and inquired the cause of his emotion.

"My lord," said he, "pray communicate your news. It is bruited about that the King of England is dead, and that Harold, breaking faith with you, has usurped the crown."

"They say truly who so report," answered the duke; "and my grief is touching the death of Edward, and my anger is touching the wrong done me by Harold."

"Sir," said Fitzosborne, "chafe not at what may be amended. For Edward's death, it is true, there is no remedy; but there is a remedy for the injury done you by Harold. Yours is the right, and you have stout warriors. Strike with courage: the work is already half done."

Genius, however, is generally patient; and William was too crafty to spoil his game by indiscreet haste. He went cautiously and gradually to work; and not till he had twice, in courteous phrase, required Harold to fulfil the treaty so solemnly concluded, did he threaten the Saxon with invasion and punishment. Then, however, he cast hesitation to the winds, and resolved on inflicting a signal chastisement. "I doubt not," he said, "of finding that man a feeble foe, who has proved so faithless a friend."

In the meantime negotiations were vigorously commenced at Rome, and Harold was charged before the pontifical court with perjury and sacrilege. The Saxon king was summoned to defend himself, and endeavoured to escape by refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court. But this did not serve his purpose. The conclave assembled at the Lateran, under the inspiration of the famous Hildebrand, decided that William should enter England, and bring that kingdom back to the Holy See; and a papal bull, directed against Harold and his adherents, was presented to William, along with a consecrated banner, an agnus of gold, and a ring which contained a hair of St. Peter, set in a diamond of great price.

A council of high Norman nobles was now convened at Rouen; and William, addressing his friends, demanded counsel and aid. There was no difference of opinion. All were ready to take part with their duke in the invasion of England, and each man present delighted his soul with visions of rich manors on the Thames or the Mersey. However, they advised him to consult the general feeling of the community; and, accordingly, the merchants and traders of Normandy, as well as the lords and knights, were summoned to confer with the duke.

Lillebonne was the place appointed for this memorable assembly, and thither came all the wealthiest and most important subjects of Normandy. William, after opening his heart to them, explained his views and craved pecuniary aid, and they then withdrew to deliberate in freedom. The result was not quite satisfactory. The Normans were greatly divided in opinion. Some were anxious to aid the duke with men and money; but others positively objected, declaring that they had already more debts than they could pay.

It was now that William Fitzosborne did better service than a hundred knights could have rendered to his liege lord. Raising his voice above the tumult, he exerted that eloquence for which the Norman nobles were so remarkable.

"Why this confusion and discord?" asked Fitzosborne. "Why dispute thus among ourselves? The duke hath need of us, and he is our lord – "

"William is our lord; but we owe him no aid beyond the seas," interrupted the assembly.

"It is our duty to make offers of aid, rather than to wait his requests," continued Fitzosborne. "He hath need of us now; and if we fail him, and he gains his end, he will remember it to our disadvantage. Let us, then, prove by our acts that we love him, and let us entitle ourselves to his gratitude."

"Doubtless, William is our lord," cried the Normans; "but is it not enough for us to pay him his dues? We owe him no aid beyond the seas. He hath already oppressed us enough with his wars; let him fail in this new enterprise, and our country is undone."

"Well," said Fitzosborne, changing his plan, "let us return to the duke; and I, as knowing the position of each man present, will take upon me to excuse the limited offers of the assembly."

"So be it," was the answer; and the Normans, with Fitzosborne at their head, returned to Duke William's presence.

"Sire," said Fitzosborne, addressing William, "I do not believe that there are in the whole world people more zealous than yours. You know the aids they have given you – the onerous services they have rendered. Well, sire, they will do more. They offer to serve you beyond the seas as they have done here."

"No, no!" cried the Normans, "we did not charge you with such an answer."

"For my own part," continued Fitzosborne, "I will, out of love to you, give sixty well-appointed ships, each charged with fifty fighting men. Forward, then, and spare us in nothing! He who hath hitherto only supplied you with two good mounted soldiers will now supply four."

"We did not say that," cried the Normans, "and it shall not be so. In things within his own country, we will serve the duke, as is due; but we are not bound to assist him to conquer another man's country. Besides, if once we rendered double service, and followed him across the sea, he would make it a right and a custom for the future; he would burden our children with it."

"It shall not be – it cannot be!" shouted the assembled Normans vociferously; and, after forming themselves into groups of ten, twenty, and thirty, they declaimed tumultuously, and then separated.

William was enraged beyond measure – the blood of Rolfganger boiled in his veins – and the spirit of Robert the Devil flashed from his eyes. Nevertheless, by such an effort as only such a man is capable of, he exercised sufficient command over himself to control his temper, bow his pride, and resort to artifice. Summoning separately the men with whom in a body he had failed, he requested the support of each as a personal favour. This plan of proceeding proved completely successful. No Norman, when alone with the duke, and under the influence of his eloquence and his eye, had the courage to refuse; and every one of those who had shouted "It cannot be!" consented to give to the full extent of his means.

With the papal bull in his hands, and promises of aid from his subjects, carefully registered when they had been made, William summoned the Normans to the consecrated banner, and published his ban in the neighbouring countries, with promises of pay and pillage. Both Normans and foreigners answered his call. From all directions martial adventurers crowded to his standard. The papal bull and the promises of plunder did their work. From France and Flanders; from Maine, and Aquitaine, and Brittany, and from Anjou, ruled by the ancestors of the Plantagenets – from the Alps, and from the banks of the Rhine – multitudes crowded, with sword and cross-bow, to range themselves under the consecrated banner, and to aid in the conquest and share in the plunder of England.

XI.
TOSTIG, SON OF GODWIN

In the spring of 1066, when the crown of Edward the Confessor was placed on the head of Harold the Saxon; and when the news of the coronation, carried to Rouen, kindled the ire of William the Norman, there was living in Flanders, musing over the past, watching events with a keen eye, an English exile, who was Harold's brother and his sworn foe. This exile was Tostig, the third son of Godwin and Githa.

When the riot between the townsmen of Dover and the train of Eustace of Boulogne resulted in the dispersion of the family of Godwin, Tostig, then in the pride of early manhood, accompanying his father to Flanders, wedded Judith, daughter of Count Baldwin, and sister of Matilda, whom William the Norman, after vanquishing so many obstacles, received as his bride. This high alliance would seem to have rendered Tostig's pride intolerable; and he returned to England with ridiculous notions of his hereditary claims, and absurd ideas of his personal importance. It was a period, however, when the members of Godwin's house were encouraged to conduct themselves as if England had existed solely for their advantage; and when Siward died, leaving one son too young to succeed to his authority, Tostig claimed and received the earldom of Northumberland.

Accustomed to the sway of such chiefs as Uchtred and Siward, the men of the north were not perhaps particularly pleased with their new earl. But whether or not, Tostig soon gave them cause to be discontented. Cruel and tyrannical in his notions, he appeared at York with the tax-gatherer on one hand, and the executioner on the other, and treated the Northumbrians as if he had been a conqueror, and they had been the inhabitants of a conquered province. Brooking no restraint, he violated old customs and laws, levied enormous imposts, and violently put to death those who refused to submit to his exactions. Gamel, the son of Orm, and Ulf, the son of Dolphin, are mentioned as among the thanes of high rank whom, with fell treachery, he allured to the castle of York, and caused to be put to death, under his own roof, and in his own chamber.

Of all people, the Northumbrians were the least likely to tolerate such tyranny. Meeting at Gamelburn, Dunstan, son of Agelnoth, and Gloricern, son of Eadulf, with two hundred soldiers, raised the standard of insurrection; and, under the command of their native chiefs, the men of the north sprang to arms to avenge their slaughtered countrymen and fight for their ancient liberties. Marching to York, Dunstan and Gloricern prepared to seize the tyrant in his castle.

Tostig was in the capital of the north, when he suddenly became aware that armed men were approaching with hostile intent. Unprepared for resistance, and shrinking from the peril he had defied, the son of Godwin resolved to fly; and, escaping with some of the chief ministers of his violence and injustice, he left his officers and servants to contend with the men whom he had exasperated. The Northumbrians, taking possession of York, seized the arsenal and treasury, and, assembling a council, formally deposed Tostig, and elected Morkar, one of the sons of Algar, and one of the grandsons of Leofric and Godiva, in his stead.

When news of the tumult in Northumberland, and of the expulsion of Tostig, reached the Confessor's court, Harold mustered an army and marched northward to deal with the insurgents. This, however, he soon found would be no easy operation. The Northumbrians met him at Oxford, and in such a way as convinced him of the expediency of listening to their complaints. A conference was consequently held, and Harold endeavoured to exculpate his brother and to soften the Northumbrians.

"If," said Harold, "you will receive Tostig again as your earl, I promise that he will govern with equity, and according to law."

"No!" cried the Northumbrians with one voice, and with that Danish burr which their descendants have inherited; "we were born free; we were brought up free; and a haughty ruler we cannot abide. We have been taught by our ancestors to live free or to die. We have said. Bear thou our answer to Edward the king."

Harold could not dispute the justice of the complaints of the Northumbrians. Without delay he went to explain their grievances to the king; and Edward sent him back to give the royal sanction to Tostig's deposition, and to the election of Morkar, the grandson of Leofric.

Henceforth, it was not so much against the Northumbrians as against Harold that Tostig's wrath burned fiercely; and when the brothers soon after met at Windsor, at Edward's board, a scene was enacted which made the blood of the saintly king run cold. Harold, it appears, pledged Edward in a cup of wine; and Tostig, exclaiming that such familiarity with the king was unseemly, pulled Harold by the hair of his head. A scuffle immediately ensued, and but for the presence of the king would have ended in bloodshed.

"It is notorious," said Edward, raising his hands in holy horror, "that all the sons of Godwin are so transcendently wicked, that if they see any house which they covet, they will murder the owner in the night-time, and destroy his children, to get possession. Verily, they will one day destroy each other."

After this outrageous scene at Windsor, Harold and Tostig were at deadly feud; and when Harold, somewhat later, was on his way to Hereford with the king, Tostig, going thither and entering his brother's house, attacked the servants, who were preparing a great feast. Killing the unoffending men, and severing the heads and hewing the limbs from the bodies, he put the corpses into the winecasks, and then, riding forth as if to meet the king and his party, he hinted at the brutal enormity he had perpetrated.

"Harold," he said, as he turned away, "you will find the meat for your feast well powdered."

And, as Tostig spoke these words, the brothers parted, not to meet again till that day when they met face to face as foes, each with a weapon in his hand and an army at his back.

After the massacre at Hereford, Tostig, with revenge gnawing at his heart, and threats on his lips, sailed from England and repaired to the court of Flanders. For a time he remained brooding in silence over his wrongs, and watching his opportunity. No sooner, however, did he receive intelligence of Edward's death and Harold's coronation, than he sprang to action, and cried that the time for vengeance had arrived. Mounting in haste, he made his way without delay to Normandy, and urged Duke William, his brother-in-law, to lose no time in hurling Harold from the throne.

"Be not so impatient, brave Tostig," said William.

"Why," asked Tostig, excitedly, "should a perjurer be allowed to reign in peace? Have not I more credit and power in England? Yea, and I can assure possession of the country to any one who will unite with me to make the conquest."

But William was not the man to be imposed upon by vain boasts; and Tostig was somewhat mortified at the reception with which his proposals were met. Willing, however, to test the banished Saxon's influence, the duke furnished him with some ships to make a descent. But Tostig, instead of sailing for England, sailed to the Baltic trusting to secure the aid of his uncle, Sweyn, King of Denmark. This attempt, however, failed. Sweyn gave Tostig a harsh refusal; and the nephew, leaving his uncle in discontent, but still breathing threats of revenge against his brother, made for Norway, where a king reigned more likely than Sweyn to take part in a bold adventure, and better qualified to conduct a bold adventure to a triumphant conclusion.

XII.
HAROLD HARDRADA

When Tostig's ships came to anchor, and when Tostig, landing at Drontheim, presented himself at the rude palace of the old kings of Norway, the crown of that northern realm was worn by the last of those heroes who called the ocean their home and the tempest their servant. This was Harold Hardrada, a warrior of high renown, who had fought countless battles on the sea as well as on the land, who had probably seen more of the world than any man then living, and who, in every respect, looked worthy of the fame he had won. His height exceeded seven feet; and, though the hands and feet appeared somewhat large, the whole person was fairly proportioned. He had a short beard, a long moustache, and fair hair falling over his shoulders. His aspect was, on the whole, pleasing, and would always have been so but for the circumstance of one eyebrow being somewhat higher than the other, and giving a sinister expression to his face when he frowned.

Hardrada was son of Sigurd and brother of Olaf – that King of Norway who established Christianity in his kingdom by the strong hand. Hardrada, however, appears to have been more of a sea-king than a saint.

At an early age, Hardrada fought by the side of Olaf in the sanguinary battle of Stiklestad. The elder brother fell, but the younger escaped, after his body had been covered with wounds, and his blood freely poured out. Taking to the forest, he was received into the cottage of a woodman, and there lay concealed till his wounds were healed and his spirits revived.

Restored to health and hope, Hardrada left his lurking-place, and turned his face eastward. Faring forth with a brave band of comrades on a career of adventure, he set foot, after many romantic wanderings, on the banks of the Bosphorus, and, halting with his comrades at Constantinople, took service, as a varing, in the bodyguard then maintained by the Emperor of the East.

The varings were of high account at the Imperial Court. Generally Danes, Swedes, or Germans, they exhibited the courage characteristic of Northmen, and wore their hair long, after the fashion of their native countries. Armed with huge axes, which they were in the habit of carrying on their shoulders, they stood as guards at the door of the emperor's chamber, and paraded his capital, imposing respect and awe.

Among the varings, Hardrada, though the brother of a king, did not disdain to enrol himself and his comrades. But his wild and free spirit could ill brook the necessary subordination, and, after some quarrel with a Greek commander, he repaired to Africa. Fighting there with the Saracens, and despoiling them of gold and jewels, he became celebrated and rich. Turning to Sicily, he increased his fame and his wealth; and then, as if to consecrate his deeds of violence, he made an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem, not yet visited by Peter the Hermit; and, sweeping Moslem and marauder from his path, ascended Mount Calvary, and knelt at the Holy Sepulchre.

From Jerusalem Hardrada returned to Constantinople, and there became enamoured of Maria, a niece of the Empress Zoe, while he himself became dear to the heart of the empress. The predicament was perplexing, and might have baffled the ingenuity of another man. But Hardrada was equal to the occasion, and freed himself by a romantic elopement from the snares by which he was surrounded.

It appears that Olaf, the brother of Hardrada, though deemed worthy of canonization, had been somewhat general in his attentions to the fair sex; and, among other consequences of his amours, was an illegitimate son, named Magnus. In the absence of Hardrada, Magnus contrived to win the sovereignty of Norway from the heir of Canute; and no sooner did Hardrada hear of his nephew's elevation than he determined to assert his own superior claim.

But Hardrada had scarcely intimated his intention of returning to Norway, when he found there was a lioness in the way. Eager to detain the varing who had won her heart, the empress caused him to be charged with some irregularity, and imprisoned. Hardrada was accordingly incarcerated. But a Greek lady, incited by a dream, resolved to attempt his deliverance, and lowered ropes from the roof of a tower to the dungeon in which he lay. Escaping in this way, Hardrada hastily roused his varings, proceeded to the palace of Maria, niece of the empress, bore off the princess in his strong arms to the quay, embarked with her in his galley, and gave his sails to the wind.

At length, Hardrada, with the bride and the wealth he had won, set his foot on the shores of Norway, and, raising an army, made an effort to grasp the crown. Magnus, however, proved a formidable adversary; and Hardrada, perceiving the difficulty of a complete triumph, made a compromise, and agreed to share the kingdom with his nephew.

On the death of Magnus, however, Hardrada became king of all Norway. Such he was, and highly considered among European sovereigns on account of his experience, his prowess, and his wealth, when Tostig, with the proposals which had been coldly treated in Normandy and scornfully repelled in Denmark, reached Drontheim, appeared at the log palace, and approached him with honeyed words. "The world knows well," said the banished son of Godwin, "that there lives no warrior worthy to be compared to thee. Thou hast only to will it, and England will be thine."

Hardrada was neither insensible to such flattery, nor proof against such a temptation. Allowing himself to be persuaded, he promised to put to sea whenever the ice should melt and the ocean become navigable, and commenced preparations for the grand expedition.

Tostig, however, was much too impatient to await the convenience of his Norwegian ally. With his own fleet he set out to prepare the way, and, with a band of men recruited in Flanders, Holland, and Friesland, he made a descent on the northern coast of England. But the inhabitants, roused at the news of villages pillaged, and granges burned, rose in such numbers that he was compelled to make for Scotland, and, anchoring off the Orkney Islands, he waited till the winds should blow the Norwegian ships to his aid.

Hardrada, meanwhile, fitted out several hundred ships of war; and the Norwegians, encamped on their coast, waited the signal to embark. Their enthusiasm was not excessive. Vague presentiments of evil pervaded their ranks, and the sleep of many of the warriors was broken by ill-omened visions. One dreamed that, the fleet having put to sea, flocks of vultures perched on the masts and sails; and that a woman, sword in hand, sitting on a rock, cried to the birds with a loud voice, "Go without fear; you shall have enough to eat and to choose from, for I go with them." Another dreamed that he saw his comrades land in England, and encounter an English army, in front of which was a woman of gigantic stature, riding on a wolf, and giving it human bodies to devour.

The imaginations of the Norwegian warriors were disagreeably influenced by these presages; and more threatening than either of the dreams appeared an incident that occurred as the Norwegian king, with his son Olaf, and his war-steed black as a raven, and his banner, "The Ravager of the World," embarked. As Hardrada set foot in the royal barge, the weight of his body pressed the boat so much down in the water, as to cause general apprehension. But, undismayed, Hardrada set sail, touched at the Orcades, and joined his fleet with that of Tostig, who was all impatience for carnage and revenge.