Hereward, the Last of the English

by Charles Kingsley

Then how Tosti had been to Norway, to Harold Hardraade, and asked him why he had been fighting fifteen years for Denmark, when England lay open to him. And how Harold of Norway had agreed to come; and how he had levied one half of the able-bodied men in Norway; and how he was gathering a mighty fleet at Solundir, in the mouth of the Sogne Fiord. Of all this Hereward was well informed; for Tosti came back again to St. Omer, and talked big. But Hereward and he had no dealings with each other. But at last, when Tosti tried to entice some of Hereward’s men to sail with him, Hereward sent him word that if he met him, he would kill him in the streets.

Then Tosti, who (though he wanted not for courage) knew that he was no match for Hereward, went off to Bruges, leaving his wife and family behind; gathered sixty ships at Ostend, went off to the Isle of Wight, and forced the landsfolk to give him money and food. And then Harold of England’s fleet, which was watching the coast against the Normans, drove him away; and he sailed off north, full of black rage against his brother Harold and all Englishmen, and burned, plundered, and murdered, along the coast of Lincolnshire, out of brute spite to the Danes who had expelled him.

Then came news how he had got into the Humber; how Earl Edwin and his Northumbrians had driven him out; and how he went off to Scotland to meet Harold of Norway; and how he had put his hands between Harold’s, and become his man.

And all the while the Norman camp at St. Pierre-sur-Dive grew and grew; and all was ready, if the wind would but change.

And so Hereward looked on, helpless, and saw these two great storm-clouds growing,—one from north, and one from south,—to burst upon his native land.

Two invasions at the same moment of time; and these no mere Viking raids for plunder, but deliberate attempts at conquest and colonization, by the two most famous captains of the age. What if both succeeded? What if the two storm-clouds swept across England, each on its own path, and met in the midst, to hurl their lightnings into each other? A fight between William of Normandy and Harold of Norway, on some moorland in Mercia,—it would be a battle of giants; a sight at which Odin and the Gods of Valhalla would rise from their seats, and throw away the mead-horn, to stare down on the deeds of heroes scarcely less mighty than themselves. Would that neither might win! Would that they would destroy and devour, till there was none left of Frenchmen or of Norwegians!

So sang Hereward, after his heathen fashion; and his housecarles applauded the song. But Torfrida shuddered.

“And what will become of the poor English in the mean time?”

“They have brought it on themselves,” said Hereward, bitterly. “Instead of giving the crown to the man who should have had it,—to Sweyn of Denmark,—they let Godwin put it on the head of a drivelling monk; and as they sowed, so will they reap.”

But Hereward’s own soul was black within him. To see these mighty events passing as it were within reach of his hand, and he unable to take his share in them,—for what share could he take? That of Tosti Godwinsson against his own nephews? That of Harold Godwinsson, the usurper? That of the tanner’s grandson against any man? Ah that he had been in England! Ah that he had been where he might have been,—where he ought to have been but for his own folly,—high in power in his native land,—perhaps a great earl; perhaps commander of all the armies of the Danelagh. And bitterly he cursed his youthful sins as he rode to and fro almost daily to the port of Calais, asking for news, and getting often only too much.