CHAPTER IX.
THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.—PART II.
“But bloody, bloody was the field,
Ere that lang day was done.”
Hardyknute.
“King William bithought him alsoe of that
Folke that was forlorne,
And slayn also thoruz him
In the bataile biforne.
And ther as the bataile was,
An abbey he lite rere
Of Seint Martin, for the soules
That there slayn were.
And the monkes well ynoug
Feffed without fayle,
That is called in Englonde
Abbey of Bataile.”
Immediately after the solemn ceremony described in the foregoing chapter, Harold is depicted as returning to England and presenting himself before the king, Edward the Confessor. “But the day came that no man can escape, and King Edward drew near to die.” His deathbed and his funeral procession are both wrought in the tapestry, but by some accident have been transposed. His remains are borne in splendid procession to the magnificent house which he had builded (i.e. rebuilded), Westminster Abbey; over which, in the sky, a hand is seen to point as if in benediction. It is well known that the Abbey was barely finished at the time of the pious monarch’s death, and this circumstance is intimated in an intelligible though homely manner in the tapestry by a person occupied in placing a weathercock on the summit of the building.
The first pageant seen within its walls was the funeral array of the monarch who so beautifully rebuilt and so amply endowed it. Before the high altar, in a splendid shrine, where gems and jewelry flashed back the gleams of innumerable torches, and amid the solemn chant of the monks, whose “Miserere” echoed through the vaulted aisles, interrupted but by the subdued wail of the mourners, or the emphatic benediction of the poor whose friend he had been, were laid the remains of him who was called the Sainted Edward; whose tomb was considered so hallowed a spot that the very stones around it were worn down by the knees of the pilgrims who resorted thither for prayer; and the very dust of whose shrine was carefully swept and collected, exported to the continent, and bought by devotees at a high price.
We next see in the tapestry the crown offered to Harold (a circumstance to be peculiarly remarked, since thus depicted by his opponent’s wife), and then Harold shows right royally receiving the homage and gratulations of those around.
But the next scene forbodes a change of fortune: “Isti mirant stella,” is the explanation wrought over it. For there appeared “a blasing starre, which was seene not onelie here in England, but also in other parts of the world, and continued the space of seven daies. This blasing starre might be a prediction of mischeefe imminent and hanging over Harold’s head; for they never appeare but as prognosticats of afterclaps.”
Popular belief has generally invested these ill-omened bodies with peculiar terrors. “These blasing starres—dreadful to be seene, with bloudie haires, and all over rough and shagged at the top.” They vary, however, in their appearance. Sometimes they are pale, and glitter like a sword, without any rays or beams. Such was the one which is said to have hung over Jerusalem for near a year before its destruction, filling the minds of all who beheld it with awe and superstitious dread. A comet resembling a horn appeared when the “whole manhood of Greece fought the battaile of Salamis.” Comets foretold the war between Cæsar and Pompey, the murder of Claudius, and the tyranny of Nero. Though usually, they were not invariably, considered as portents of evil omen: for the birth and accession of Alexander, of Mithridates, the birth of Charles Martel, and the accession of Charlemagne, and the commencement of the Tátár empire, were all notified by blazing stars. A very brilliant one which appeared for seven consecutive nights soon after the death of Julius Cæsar was supposed to be conveying the soul of the murdered dictator to Olympus. An author who wrote on one which appeared in the reign of Elizabeth was most anxious, as in duty bound, to apply the phenomenon to the queen. But here was the puzzle. “To have foretold calamities might have been misprision of treason; and the only precedent for saying anything good of a comet was to be drawn from that which occurred after the death of Julius Cæsar;” but it so happened that at this time Elizabeth was by no means either ripe or willing for her apotheosis.[38]