Plate I.
King Edward gives instruction to two persons, of whom one is Harold; Edward’s clothes are richly embroidered. He is seated on a throne and has a crown and sceptre.
The scene shows a room in Edward’s castle; a portion of the outside wall is given; but the rest is cut away to give a view of the interior in a manner very common in mediæval art. It will be seen that the castle is in the Norman style. On the left is a round Norman window and there are Norman turrets above. The throne on which Edward is sitting is typical of the art of the period, the animal’s head which forms the right arm being a common decoration. In an Anglo-Saxon calendar of the 11th century (the MS. Cotton and Julius A VI.) a drinking party is shown on a large daïs, the two ends of which are in form like the head and front legs of two great dogs.
As to the nature of the communications passing between Edward the Confessor and Harold, it may be added that three reasons are given of Harold’s journey to Normandy in different versions: (1) To release his brother and nephew from imprisonment; (2) that, owing to a storm when out fishing, he was shipwrecked on the coast of France; (3) to impart to William Edward’s intention of making him his heir. The third was the Norman method of explaining what happened and is apparently the one accepted by the designer of the Tapestry.