FOOTNOTES:
[5] The inscription reads "AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN," or "Alfred had me made."
[6] Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Bucks, Middlesex, Hertfordshire.
CHAPTER V.
THE DAYS OF CNUT AND EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.
For a full century (871-975) England had been under the rule of a series of kings of marked ability. Only the short reign of the unfortunate Eadwig interrupts the succession of strong rulers. We have seen how in that century England fought down all her troubles, and, after appearing for a time to be on the brink of destruction, emerged as a strong and united power. But on the death of Eadgar a new problem had to be faced—the kingdom passed to two young boys, of whom the second proved to be one of the most unworthy and incompetent monarchs that England was ever to know.
Edward the Martyr. 975-978.—Insubordination of the great ealdormen.
Edward the Younger, or the Martyr, as after-generations called him, only sat for three years on his father's throne. He endeavoured to follow in Eadgar's steps, and retained Dunstan as his chief councillor. But he found the great ealdormen unruly subjects; they would not obey a young boy as they had obeyed the great Eadgar. Dunstan was made the chief mark of their envy, because he represented the policy of a firm central government and a strong monarchical power. Probably they would have succeeded in getting him dismissed at the Witan held at Calne, if a supposed miracle had not intervened to save him. While his adversaries were pleading against him, the floor of the upper chamber where the Witan was sitting gave way, owing to the breaking of a beam, and they were precipitated into the room below, some being killed and others maimed. But the piece of flooring where Dunstan stood did not fall with the rest, so that he remained unharmed amid the general destruction, wherefore men deemed that God had intervened to bear witness to his innocence.
But Dunstan was not to rule much longer. In 978 his young master was cruelly murdered by his step-mother, Queen Aelfthryth, who knew that the crown would fall to her own son if Edward died. For one day the king chanced to ride past her manor of Corfe, and, stopping at the door, craved a cup of wine. She brought it out to him herself, and while he was drinking it to her health, one of her retainers stabbed him in the back. His horse started forward, and he lost his seat and was dragged some way by the stirrup ere he died. The queen's friends threw the body into a ditch, and gave out that he had perished by an accidental fall, but all the realm knew or suspected the truth.
Aethelred the Redeless, 978-1016.—Decline of the kingly power.
Nevertheless, Aelfthryth's boy Aethelred got the profit of his mother's wicked deed, for the Witan crowned him as the sole heir to King Eadgar. His long reign was worthy of its evil commencement, for it proved one unbroken series of disasters, and brought England at last to the feet of a foreign conqueror. He ruled for thirty-eight years of misery and trouble, for which he was himself largely responsible, for he was a selfish, idle, dilatory, hard-hearted man, and let himself be guided by unworthy flatterers and favourites, who sought nothing but their own private advantage. Wherefore men called him Aethelred the Redeless, that is the ill-counselled, because he would always choose the evil counsel rather than the good. Yet the king was not wholly to blame for the misfortunes of his reign, for the great ealdormen had their share in the guilt. Freed from the strong hand of Dunstan, who was soon driven away from the court, they acted as independent rulers, each in his own ealdormanry, quarrelled with each other, and disobeyed the king's commands. It was their divisions and jealousies and selfishness that made the king's weakness and idleness so fatal, for, when they refused to obey, he neither could nor would coerce them.
Viking invasions.—The Danegelt.
The curse of the reign of Aethelred the Redeless was the second coming of the Danes and Northmen to England. For many years they had avoided this island, because they knew that only hard blows awaited them there. But they swarmed all over the rest of Europe, won Normandy from the kings of the West Franks, and pushed their raids as far as the distant shores of Andalusia and Italy. But the news that a weak young king, with disobedient nobles to rule under him, sat on Eadgar's seat, soon brought them back to England. First there came mere plundering bands, as in the old days of the eighth century; but Aethelred did not deal with them sharply and strongly. He bade the ealdormen drive them off; but they were too much occupied with their own quarrels to stir. Then the invaders came in greater numbers, and Aethelred thought to bribe them to go away by giving them money, and raised the tax called the Danegelt to satisfy their rapacity. But it seemed that the more that gold was given the more did Danes appear, for the news of Aethelred's wealth and weakness flew round the North, and brought swarm after swarm of marauders upon him. Then followed twenty miserable years of desultory fighting and incessant paying of tribute. Sometimes individual ealdormen fought bravely against the Danes, and held them at bay for a space; sometimes the king himself mustered an army and strove to do something for the realm; sometimes he tried to hire one band of Vikings to fight against another, with the deplorable results that might have been expected. His worst and most unwise action was the celebrated massacre of St. Brice's Day, in 1002, when he caused all the Danes on whom he could lay hands to be killed. In this case it was not open enemies whom he slew, for it was a time of truce, but Danish merchants and adventurers who had settled down in England and done him homage. By this cruel deed Aethelred won the deadly hatred of Swegen, King of Denmark, whose sister and her husband had been among the slain.
Ravages of Swegen of Denmark.—Eadric "the Grasper."
Swegen became Aethelred's bitterest foe, and repeatedly warred against him, not with mere Viking bands, but with the whole force of Denmark at his back, a great national army bent on serious invasion of the land, not on transient raiding. The English were driven to despair by Swegen's ravages, and the king did nothing to save them. He had now fallen entirely into the hands of an unscrupulous favourite, named Eadric Streona, or the Grasper, and was guided in all things by this low-born adventurer. He even created him Ealdorman of Mercia, and made him the second person in the land. Eadric cared only for ruining any noble who could possibly be his rival, and for enlarging his ealdormanry; of the defence of England he took no more thought than did his master.
Swegen chosen king by the Witan.
At last, in 1013, there came a Danish invasion of exceptional severity. The marauders dashed through the country from end to end; they took Canterbury and slew the good Archbishop Elfheah (St. Alphege), because he refused to pay them an exorbitant ransom. Then Eadric gathered together the Witan, without the king's presence, and, with infamous treachery to his benefactor, proposed to them to submit entirely to the Danes. So when Swegen came over again in the next year, the whole realm bowed before him, and the great men, headed by the traitor Eadric, offered him the crown. Only London held out for King Aethelred, and stood a long siege, till its citizens learnt that their master had deserted them and fled over sea to the Duke of Normandy, whose sister Emma he had married. Then they too yielded, and the Witan of all England took Swegen as their king. But the Dane died immediately after his election, and then the majority of the English refused to choose his son Cnut as his successor. They sent to Normandy for their old king, and did homage once more to Aethelred; but the traitor Eadric resolved to adhere to Cnut, because he had lately murdered the thegns of the Five Boroughs, and dreaded the wrath of their followers. So Eadric's Mercian subjects and some of the men of Wessex joined the Danes, and there was civil war once more in England, till Aethelred the Ill-counselled died in 1016.
Edmund Ironside and Cnut, 1016.
Then his followers chose in his stead his brave son Edmund II., who was called Ironside because of his prowess in war. The new king was a worthy descendant of Alfred, and would have made no small mark in better times, but he spent his short reign in one unceasing series of combats with Cnut, a man as able and as warlike as himself. The two young kings fought five pitched battles with each other, and fortune swayed to Edmund's side; but in the sixth, at Assandun (Ashington, in Essex), he was defeated, owing to the treachery of the wretched Eadric the Grasper, who first joined him with a large body of Mercian troops, and then turned against him in the heat of the battle (1016).
Then Edmund and Cnut, having learnt to respect each other's courage, met in the Isle of Alney, outside the walls of Gloucester, and agreed to divide the realm between them. Cnut took, as was natural, the Anglo-Danish districts of Northumbria and the Five Boroughs, together with Eadric's Mercian ealdormanry. Edmund kept Wessex, Kent, London, and East Anglia. But this partition was not destined to endure. Ere the year was out the foul traitor Eadric procured the murder of King Edmund, and then the Witan of Wessex chose Cnut as king over the south as well as the north. The late king's young brothers and his two little sons fled to the Continent.
The empire of Cnut.
So Cnut the Dane became King of all England, and ruled it wisely and well for nineteen years (1016-35). He proved a much better king than people expected, for, being a very young man and easily impressed, he grew to be more of an Englishman than a Dane in all his manners and habits of thought. He ruled in Denmark and Norway as well as in this island, but he made England his favourite abode, and regarded it as the centre and heart of his empire. The moment that he was firmly established on the throne, he took measures for restoring the prosperity of the land, which had been reduced to an evil plight by forty years of ill-governance and war. He swept away the great ealdormen who had been such a curse to the land, slaying the traitor Eadric the Grasper, and Uhtred the turbulent governor of Northumbria. Then he divided England into four great earldoms, as these provinces began to be called, for the Danish name jarl (earl) was beginning to supersede the Saxon name ealdorman. Of these he entrusted the two Anglo-Danish earldoms, Northumbria and East Anglia, to men of Danish blood, while he gave Wessex and Mercia to two Englishmen who had served him faithfully, the earls Godwine and Leofric. The confidence in the loyalty of his English subjects which Cnut displayed was very marked: he sent home to Denmark the whole of his army, save a body-guard of two thousand or three thousand house-carles, or personal retainers, and did not divide up the lands of England among them. He kept many Englishmen about his person, and even sent them as bishops or royal officers to Denmark, a token of favour of which the Danes did not altogether approve. He endeavoured to connect himself with the old English royal house, by marrying Emma of Normandy, the widow of King Aethelred, though she was somewhat older than himself, so Cnut's younger children were the half-brothers of Aethelred's.
He gives Lothian to the King of Scotland.
Cnut gave England the peace which she had not known since the death of Eadgar, for no one dared to stir up war against a king who was not only Lord of Britain, but ruled all the lands of the Northmen, as far as Iceland and the Faroes and the outlying Danish towns in Ireland. The Welsh and Scots served Cnut as they had served Aethelstan and Eadgar, and were his obedient vassels. In reward of the services of Malcolm of Scotland Cnut gave him the district of Lothian, the northern half of Bernicia, to hold as his vassal. This was the first piece of English-speaking land that any Scottish king ruled, and it was from thence that the English tongue and manners afterwards spread over the whole of the Lowlands beyond the Tweed.
The rapid recovery of prosperity which followed on Cnut's strong and able government is the best testimony to his wisdom. The wording of the code of laws which he promulgated is a witness to his good heart and excellent purposes. His subjects loved him well, and many tales survive to show their belief in his sagacity, such as the well-known story of his rebuke to the flattering courtiers who ascribed to him omnipotence by the incoming waves of Southampton Water.
The sons of Cnut, 1035-1042.
Cnut died in 1035, before he had much passed the boundary of middle age. He left two sons, Harold and Harthacnut, the former the child of a concubine, the latter the offspring of Queen Emma. With his death his empire broke up, for Norway revolted, and the Danes of Denmark chose Harthacnut as their king, while those of England preferred the bastard Harold. Only Godwine, the great Earl of Wessex, declared for Harthacnut, and made England south of the Thames swear allegiance to him. So Harold reigned for a space in Northumbria and Mercia, while Denmark and Wessex obeyed his younger brother. The two sons of Cnut were rough, godless, unscrupulous young men, and hated each other bitterly, for each thought that the other had robbed him of part of his rightful heritage. Moreover, Harold enraged Harthacnut by catching and slaying his elder half-brother Alfred, the son of Aethelred and Emma, whom he enticed over to England by fair words, and then murdered by blinding him with hot irons.
After a space Harold overran Wessex, which Earl Godwine surrendered to him because Harthacnut sent no aid from Denmark, where he tarried over-long. But just after he had been saluted as ruler of all England, Harold died, and his realm fell to his absent brother. Harthacnut then came over with a large army, and took possession of the land. He ruled ill for the short space of his life; it was with horror that men saw him exhume his half-brother's corpse and cast it into a ditch. He raised great taxes to support his Danish army, and dealt harshly with those who did not pay him promptly. But just as all England was growing panic-stricken at his tyranny, he died suddenly. He was celebrating the marriage of one of his followers, Osgood Clapa, at the thegn's manor of Clapham, in Surrey, when, as he raised the wine-cup to drink the bridegroom's health, he fell back in an apoplectic fit, and never spoke again (1042).
Edward the Confessor, 1042-1066.
The English Witan had now before them the task of choosing a new king. Cnut's house was extinct, and with it died all chance of the perpetuation of a northern empire in which England and Denmark should be united. It was natural that the council should cast their eyes back on the old royal house of Alfred, for its eldest member was at this time in England. Harthacnut had called over from Normandy Edward, his mother's second son by King Aethelred, the younger brother of that Etheling Alfred whom Harold had murdered five years before.
It was with little hesitation, therefore, that the Witan, led by Earl Godwine, the greatest of the rulers of the realm, elected Edward to fill the vacant throne. The prince's virtues were already known and esteemed, and his failings had yet to be learnt. Edward was now a man of middle age, mild, pious, and well-meaning, but wanting in strength and vigour, and needing some strong arm on which to lean. He had spent his whole youth in Normandy, at the court of Duke Richard, his mother's brother, and had almost forgotten England and the English tongue during his long exile. Just as Cnut had become an Englishman, so Edward had become for all intents and purposes a Norman.
Godwine, Earl of Wessex.—The king's Norman favourites.
During the first few years of his reign in England, the new king was entirely in the hands of Godwine, the great Earl of Wessex. He married the thegn's daughter Eadgyth (Edith), and entrusted him with the greater part of the administration of the realm. But Edward and Godwine were not likely to remain friends; there were several causes of dispute between them. The most important was the fact that the king secretly believed that Godwine had been a consenting party to the murder of his brother Alfred by King Harold. But the most obvious was Godwine's dislike for the Norman favourites of the king. For Edward sent for all the friends of his youth from Normandy, and gave them high preferment in England, making Robert of Jumièges Archbishop of Canterbury, and bestowing bishoprics on other Norman priests, and an earldom on Ralf of Mantes, his own nephew. He also showed high favour to two more of his continental kinsmen, Eustace, Count of Boulogne, and William the Bastard, the reigning duke of Normandy. William declared that Edward had even promised to leave the crown of England to him at his death; and it is possible that the king may have expressed some such wish, but he had not the power to carry it out, for the election of the English kings lay with the Witan, and not with the reigning sovereign.
Exile and return of Godwine.
The troubles of Edward's reign began in 1050, starting from a chance affray at Dover. Eustace of Boulogne was landing to pay a visit to the king, when some of his followers fell into a quarrel with some of the citizens. Men were slain on both sides, and the count was chased out of the town with hue and cry. The king took this ill, and bade Godwine—in whose earldom Dover lay—to punish the men who had insulted his noble kinsman. But Godwine refused, saying—what was true enough—that the count's followers were to blame, and the burghers in the right. Edward was angry at the earl's disobedience, and called to him in arms those of the English nobles who were jealous of Godwine, especially Leofric, the Earl of Mercia, and Siward, the Earl of Northumbria. Godwine also gathered a host of the men of Wessex, and it seemed that civil war would begin. But the earl was unwilling to fight the king, and when the Witan outlawed him, he fled over seas to Flanders with his sons, Harold, Swegen, and Tostig. Edward then fell entirely into the hands of his Norman favourites. He sent his wife, Godwine's daughter, to a nunnery, and disgraced all who had any kinship with the exiled earl. But the governance of the Norman courtiers was hateful to the English, and when Godwine and his sons came back a year later, and sailed up the Thames with a great fleet, the whole land was well pleased. No one would fight against him, and the Norman bishops and knights about the king's person had to fly in haste to save their lives. Then the Witan inlawed Godwine again, and Edward was obliged to give him back his ancient place (1052). So the great earl once more ruled England, holding Wessex himself, while his second son Harold ruled as earl in East Anglia, and his third son Tostig became the king's favourite companion, though he was a reckless, cruel man, very unlike the mild and pious Edward.
Death of Godwine.—His son Harold takes his place.
The house of Godwine kept a firm control over the realm during the last fourteen years of Edward's reign. When Godwine died suddenly at a great feast at Winchester, [7] his son Harold succeeded both to his earldom of Wessex and to his preponderant power in England. The years of Harold's governance were on the whole a time of prosperity, for he was a busy, capable man, much liked by all the English of the south, though the Mercians and Northumbrians did not love him so well.
Harold knew how to make the authority of the King of England over his smaller neighbours respected. It was during his tenure of power that Siward, earl of Northumbria, was sent into Scotland to put down Macbeth, the lord of Moray, who had murdered King Duncan and seized his crown. Siward slew Macbeth in battle at Lumphanan, and restored to the throne of Scotland Malcolm, the eldest son of the late king (1054). A little later Harold himself took the field to put down Gruffyd, the King of North Wales, who had risen in rebellion. He drove the Welsh up into the crags of Snowdon, and besieged them there till they slew their own king and laid his head at the earl's feet.
Harold's detention in Normandy.
It was somewhere about this time that a misfortune fell upon Harold. He was sailing in the Channel, when a storm arose and drove his ship ashore on the coast of Ponthieu, near the Somme-mouth. Wido, the Count of Ponthieu, an unscrupulous and avaricious man, threw the earl into prison, and held him to ransom. But William, Duke of Normandy, who was Wido's feudal superior, delivered him from bonds, and brought him to his court at Rouen. Harold abode with the duke for some time, half as guest, half as hostage, for William would not let him depart. He went on an expedition against Brittany with the Normans, and received knighthood at the duke's hands. After a time he was told that he might return home if he would engage to use all his endeavours to get William elected King of England at the death of Edward. The duke said that he had gained such a promise from Edward himself, and thought he could make sure of the prize with Harold's aid. Thus tempted, the earl consented to swear this unwise and unjust oath, and in presence of the whole Norman court vowed to aid William's candidature. When he had sworn, the duke showed him that the shrine at which he had pledged his faith was full of the bones of all the saints of Normandy, which had been secretly collected to make the oath more solemn.
Dissensions in England.—Eadwine and Morcar.
So Harold returned to England, and—as it would appear—soon forgot his oath altogether, or thought of it only as extorted by force and fear. He had anxieties enough to distract his mind to other subjects. First Mercia gave trouble, because Aelfgar, the son of Earl Leofric, was jealous of Harold's predominance in the realm. He twice took arms and was twice outlawed for treason. Nevertheless, Harold confirmed his son Eadwine in the possession of the Mercian earldom. Next, Northumbria broke out into armed rebellion. The king had made his favourite Tostig, Harold's younger brother, earl of the great northern province when the aged Siward, the conqueror of Macbeth, died. But Tostig ruled so harshly and so unjustly, that the Anglo-Danes of Yorkshire rose in rebellion, put Morcar, the son of Aelfgar of Mercia, at their head, and drove Tostig away. When Harold investigated the matter, he found that Tostig was so much in the wrong that he advised the king to banish his brother, and to confirm Morcar in the Northumbrian earldom. This resolve, though just and upright, weakened Harold's hold on the land, for Mercia and Northumbria were thus put in the hands of the two brothers, Eadwine and Morcar, who worked together in all things and were very jealous of the great Earl of Wessex, in spite of his kindly dealings with them (1065).
Death of King Edward.
Less than a year after Tostig's deposition King Edward died. The English mourned him greatly, for, in spite of his weakness and his tendency to favour the Normans over-much, he was an upright, kindly, well-intentioned man, whom none could hate or despise. Moreover, his sincere piety made the English revere him as a saint; it was said that he had divine revelations vouchsafed to him, and that St. Peter had once appeared to him in a vision and given him a ring. It is, at any rate, certain that he built the Abbey of Westminster in St. Peter's honour, and lavished on it a very rich endowment. The English looked back to Edward's reign as a kind of golden age in the evil times that followed, and worshipped him as a saint; but the good governance of the realm owed far more to Godwine and Harold than to the gentle, unworldly king.
Harold elected king by the Witan.
On Edward's death the Witan had to choose them a king. The next heir of the house of Alfred was a child, Eadgar the Etheling, the great-nephew of the deceased monarch. He was only ten years of age, and there was no precedent for electing so young a boy to rule England. Outside the royal line there were two persons who were known to desire the crown: the first was the man who had for all practical purposes governed England for the last fourteen years, Earl Harold of Wessex, the late king's brother-in-law; the other was William the Norman. It was said that Edward had once promised to use his influence in his Norman cousin's favour, but it is certain that on his death-bed he recommended Harold to the assembled thegns and bishops. The Witan did not waver for a minute in their decision; they chose Harold, and he accepted the crown without any show of hesitation. Yet it was certain that his elevation would bring on him the bitter jealousy of the young Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, who regarded themselves as his equals, in every respect. And it was equally clear that William of Normandy, who had counted on Harold's assistance in his candidature for the throne, would vent his wrath and disappointment on the new king's head (Jan., 1066).
Claim of William of Normandy to the crown.
Harold attempted to conciliate the sons of Aelfgar by paying them every attention in his power, and by marrying their sister Ealdgyth. But to appease the stern Duke of Normandy he knew was impossible, and he looked for nothing but war from that quarter. Indeed, he was hardly mounted on the throne before William sent over ambassadors to formally bid him fulfil his oath and resign the crown, or take the consequences. It need hardly be added that Harold replied that the Witan's choice was his mandate, and that his oath had been extorted by force.
He prepares to invade England.
The Duke of Normandy was firmly resolved to assert his baseless claim to the throne by force of arms. He had a large treasure and many bold vassals, but he knew that his own strength was insufficient for such an enterprise as the invasion of England. Accordingly, he proclaimed his purpose all over Western Europe, and offered lands and spoil in England to every adventurer who would take arms in his cause. William's military reputation was so great, that he was able to enlist thousands of mercenaries from France, Brittany, Flanders, and Aquitaine. Of the great army that he mustered at the port of St. Valery, only one-third were native Normans. William took six months for his preparation; he had to build a fleet, since Harold had a navy able to keep the Channel, and to beat up every freelance that could be hired to take service with him. Nor did he neglect to add spiritual weapons to temporal: he won over the Pope to give his blessing on the invasion of England, because Harold had broken the oath he swore on the bones of all the saints, and had become a perjurer. There were other reasons for Pope Alexander's dislike for the English. Stigand, Harold's Archbishop of Canterbury, had acknowledged an anti-Pope, and Rome never forgave schism; moreover, the house of Godwine had not been friendly to the monks, but had been patrons of Dunstan's old foes, the secular canons. Alexander therefore sent William his blessing, and a consecrated banner to be unfurled when he should land in England.
Hearing of William's vast preparations, Harold arrayed a fleet to guard the narrow seas, and bade the fyrd of all England to be ready to muster on the Sussex coast. He was prepared to defend himself, and only wondered at the delay in his adversary's sailing, a delay which was caused by north-westerly winds, which kept the Normans storm-bound.
Harald Hardrada invades Northumbria.
Suddenly there came to Harold disastrous and unexpected news from the north. His exiled brother Tostig had chosen this moment to do him an ill turn. He had gone to the north, and persuaded Harald Hardrada, the King of Norway, to invade England. Hardrada was the greatest Viking that ever existed, the most celebrated adventurer by sea and land of his age. When Tostig offered him the plunder of England, he took ship with all his host and descended on Northumbria. Morcar, the young earl of that region, came out to meet him, with his brother Eadwine at his side. But Hardrada defeated them with fearful slaughter before the gates of York, and took the city.
Harold marches northward.—Battle of Stamford Bridge.
When Harold of England heard this news he was constrained to leave the south, and risk the chance of William's landing unopposed. He took with him his house-carles, the great band of his personal retainers, and marched in haste on York, picking up the levies of the midland shires on the way.
So rapidly did Harold move, that he caught the Northmen quite unprepared, and came upon them at Stamford Bridge, close to York, when they least expected him. There he defeated the invaders in a great battle. Its details are unfortunately lost, for the noble Norwegian saga that gives the story of Hardrada's fall was written too long after to be trusted as good history. It tells how the English king rode forward to the invading army, and, calling to his brother, offered him pardon and a great earldom. But Tostig asked what his friend Harald of Norway should receive. "Seven feet of English earth, seeing that he is taller than other men," answered Harold of England. Then Tostig cried aloud that he would never desert those who had helped him in his day of need, and the fight began. We know that both the rebel earl and the Norse king fell, that the raven banner of the Vikings was taken, and that the remnant only of their host escaped. It is said that they came in three hundred ships, and fled in twenty-four.
Landing of the Normans.
Harold of England was celebrating his victory at York by a great feast a few nights after the battle of Stamford Bridge, when a message was brought him that William of Normandy had crossed the Channel and landed in Sussex with a hundred thousand men at his back. Harold hurried southward with his house-carles, bidding the Earls Eadwine and Morcar bring on the levies of Mercia and Northumbria to his aid as fast as they might. But the envious sons of Aelfgar betrayed their brother-in-law, and followed so slowly that they never overtook him. Harold marched rapidly on London, and gathered up the fyrd of East Anglia, Kent, and Wessex, so that he reached the coast with a considerable army, though it was one far inferior in numbers to William's vast host. Not a man from Mercia or Northumbria was with him; but the levies of the southern shires, where the house of Godwine was so well loved, were present in full force.
The battle of Hastings.
William had now been on shore some ten or twelve days, and had built himself a great intrenched camp at Hastings. But the King of England, as befitted the commander of the smaller host, came to act on the defensive, not on the offensive. He took post on the hill of Senlac, where Battle Abbey now stands, and arrayed his army in a good position, strengthened with palisades. He was resolved to accept battle, though his brother Gyrth and many others of his council bade him wait till Eadwine and Morcar should come up with the men of the north, and meanwhile, to sweep the land clear of provisions and starve out William's army. The Norman duke desired nothing more than a pitched battle; he knew that he was superior in numbers, and believed that he could out-general his adversary. When he heard that Harold had halted at Senlac, he broke up his camp at Hastings, and marched inland. The English were found all on foot, for they had not yet learnt to fight on horseback, drawn up in one thick line on the hillside, around the dragon-banner of Wessex and the standard of the Fighting Man, which was Harold's private ensign. The king's house-carles, sheathed in complete mail, and armed with the two-handed Danish axe, were formed round the banners; on each flank were the levies of the shires, an irregular mass where well-armed thegns and yeomen were mixed with their poorer neighbours, who bore rude clubs and instruments of husbandry as their sole weapons.
William's army was marshalled in a different way. The flower of the duke's host was his cavalry, and the Norman knights were the best horse-soldiery in Europe. His army was drawn up in three great bodies, the two wings composed of his French, Flemish, and Breton mercenaries, the centre of the native Normans. In each body the mounted men were preceded by a double line of archers and troops on foot.
The two hosts joined in close combat, and for some hours the fighting was indecisive. Neither the arrows of the Norman bowmen, nor the charges of their knights, could break the English line of battle. The invaders were driven back again and again, and the axes of the men of Harold made cruel gaps in their ranks, cleaving man and horse with their fearful blows. At last William bade his knights draw off for a space, and bade the archers only continue the combat. He trusted that the English, who had no bowmen on their side, would find the rain of arrows so insupportable that they would at last break their line and charge, to drive off their tormentors. Nor was he wrong; after standing unmoved for some time, the English could no longer contain themselves, and, in spite of their king's orders and entreaties, the shire-levies on the wings rushed down the hill in wild rage and fell upon the Normans. When they were scattered by their fiery charge, the duke let loose his horsemen upon them, and the disorderly masses were ridden down and slain or driven from the field. The house-carles of Harold still stood firm around the two standards, from which they had not moved, but the rest of the English army was annihilated. Then William led his host against this remnant, a few thousand warriors only, but the pick of Harold's army. Formed in an impenetrable ring, the king's guards held out till nightfall, in spite of constant showers of arrows, alternating with desperate cavalry charges. But Harold himself was mortally wounded by an arrow in the eye, and one by one all his retainers fell around him, till, as the sun was setting, the Normans burst through the broken shield-wall, hewed down the English standards, and pierced the dying king with many thrusts. With Harold there fell his two brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, his uncle Aelfwig, most of the thegnhood of Wessex, and the whole of his heroic band of house-carles.
THE ENGLISH KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF ECGBERT.
| Ecgbert, 800-836. | |||||||
| Aethelwulf, 836-858. | |||||||
| Aethelbald, 855-860. | Aethelbert, 860-866. | Aethelred I., 866-871. | Alfred, 871-901. | ||||
| Edward the Elder, 901-925. | Aethelflaed, Lady of Mercia = Aethelred. | ||||||
| Aethelstan, 925-940. | Edmund I., 940-946. | Eadred, 946-955. | |||||
| Eadwig, 955-959. | Eadgar, 959-975. | ||||||
| Edward the Martyr, 975-979. | Aethelred II., 979-1016. | ||||||
| Edmund II, 1016. | Alfred the Etheling, slain 1036. | Edward III., the Confessor, 1042-1066. | |||||
| Edward the Etheling. | |||||||
| Eadgar the Etheling. | Margaret = Malcom, King of Scots. | ||||||