Of his visit we only read that “William Earl came from beyond sea with mickle company of Frenchmen, and the king him received, and as many of his comrades as to him seemed good, and let him go again.” Another account adds that William received great gifts from the King. But William himself in several documents speaks of Edward as his lord; he must therefore at some time have done to Edward an act of homage, and there is no time but this at which we can conceive such an act being done. Now for what was the homage paid? Homage was often paid on very trifling occasions, and strange conflicts of allegiance often followed. No such conflict was likely to arise if the Duke of the Normans, already the man of the King of the French for his duchy, became the man of the King of the English on any other ground. Betwixt England and France there was as yet no enmity or rivalry. England and France became enemies afterwards because the King of the English and the Duke of the Normans were one person. And this visit, this homage, was the first step towards making the King of the English and the Duke of the Normans the same person. The claim William had to the English crown rested mainly on an alleged promise of the succession made by Edward. This claim is not likely to have been a mere shameless falsehood. That Edward did make some promise to William—as that Harold, at a later stage, did take some oath to William—seems fully proved by the fact that, while such Norman statements as could be denied were emphatically denied by the English writers, on these two points the most patriotic Englishmen, the strongest partisans of Harold, keep a marked silence. We may be sure therefore that some promise was made; for that promise a time must be found, and no time seems possible except this time of William’s visit to Edward. The date rests on no direct authority, but it answers every requirement. Those who spoke of the promise as being made earlier, when William and Edward were boys together in Normandy, forgot that Edward was many years older than William. The only possible moment earlier than the visit was when Edward was elected king in 1042. Before that time he could hardly have thought of disposing of a kingdom which was not his, and at that time he might have looked forward to leaving sons to succeed him. Still less could the promise have been made later than the visit. From 1053 to the end of his life Edward was under English influences, which led him first to send for his nephew Edward from Hungary as his successor, and in the end to make a recommendation in favour of Harold. But in 1051–52 Edward, whether under a vow or not, may well have given up the hope of children; he was surrounded by Norman influences; and, for the only time in the last twenty-four years of their joint lives, he and William met face to face. The only difficulty is one to which no contemporary writer makes any reference. If Edward wished to dispose of his crown in favour of one of his French-speaking kinsmen, he had a nearer kinsman of whom he might more naturally have thought. His own nephew Ralph was living in England and holding an English earldom. He had the advantage over both William and his own older brother Walter of Mantes, in not being a reigning prince elsewhere. We can only say that there is evidence that Edward did think of William, that there is no evidence that he ever thought of Ralph. And, except the tie of nearer kindred, everything would suggest William rather than Ralph. The personal comparison is almost grotesque; and Edward’s early associations and the strongest influences around him, were not vaguely French but specially Norman. Archbishop Robert would plead for his own native sovereign only. In short, we may be as nearly sure as we can be of any fact for which there is no direct authority, that Edward’s promise to William was made at the time of William’s visit to England, and that William’s homage to Edward was done in the character of a destined successor to the English crown.
William then came to England a mere duke and went back to Normandy a king expectant. But the value of his hopes, to the value of the promise made to him, are quite another matter. Most likely they were rated on both sides far above their real value. King and duke may both have believed that they were making a settlement which the English nation was bound to respect. If so, Edward at least was undeceived within a few months.
The notion of a king disposing of his crown by his own act belongs to the same range of ideas as the law of strict hereditary succession. It implies that kingship is a possession and not an office. Neither the heathen nor the Christian English had ever admitted that doctrine; but it was fast growing on the continent. Our forefathers had always combined respect for the kingly house with some measure of choice among the members of that house. Edward himself was not the lawful heir according to the notions of a modern lawyer; for he was chosen while the son of his elder brother was living. Every English king held his crown by the gift of the great assembly of the nation, though the choice of the nation was usually limited to the descendants of former kings, and though the full-grown son of the late king was seldom opposed. Christianity had strengthened the election principle. The king lost his old sanctity as the son of Woden; he gained a new sanctity as the Lord’s anointed. But kingship thereby became more distinctly an office, a great post, like a bishopric, to which its holder had to be lawfully chosen and admitted by solemn rites. But of that office he could be lawfully deprived, nor could he hand it on to a successor either according to his own will or according to any strict law of succession. The wishes of the late king, like the wishes of the late bishop, went for something with the electors. But that was all. All that Edward could really do for his kinsmen was to promise to make, when the time came, a recommendation to the Witan in his favour. The Witan might then deal as they thought good with a recommendation so unusual as to choose to the kingship of England a man who was neither a native nor a conqueror of England nor the descendant of any English king.
When the time came, Edward did make a recommendation to the Witan, but it was not in favour of William. The English influences under which he was brought during his last fourteen years taught him better what the law of England was and what was the duty of an English king. But at the time of William’s visit Edward may well have believed that he could by his own act settle his crown on his Norman kinsman as his undoubted successor in case he died without a son. And it may be that Edward was bound by a vow not to leave a son. And if Edward so thought, William naturally thought so yet more; he would sincerely believe himself to be the lawful heir of the crown of England, the sole lawful successor, except in one contingency which was perhaps impossible and certainly unlikely.
The memorials of these times, so full on some points, are meagre on others. Of those writers who mention the bequest or promise none mention it at any time when it is supposed to have happened; they mention it at some later time when it began to be of practical importance. No English writer speaks of William’s claim till the time when he was about practically to assert it; no Norman writer speaks of it till he tells the tale of Harold’s visit and oath to William. We therefore cannot say how far the promise was known either in England or on the continent. But it could not be kept altogether hid, even if either party wished it to be hid. English statesmen must have known of it, and must have guided their policy accordingly, whether it was generally known in the country or not. William’s position, both in his own duchy and among neighbouring princes, would be greatly improved if he could be looked upon as a future king. As heir to the crown of England, he may have more earnestly wooed the descendant of former wearers of the crown; and Matilda and her father may have looked more favourably on a suitor to whom the crown of England was promised. On the other hand, the existence of such a foreign claimant made it more needful than ever for Englishmen to be ready with an English successor, in the royal house or out of it, the moment the reigning king should pass away.
It was only for a short time that William could have had any reasonable hope of a peaceful succession. The time of Norman influence in England was short. The revolution of September 1052 brought Godwine back, and placed the rule of England again in English hands. Many Normans were banished, above all Archbishop Robert and Bishop Ulf. The death of Godwine the next year placed the chief power in the hands of his son Harold. This change undoubtedly made Edward more disposed to the national cause. Of Godwine, the man to whom he owed his crown, he was clearly in awe; to Godwine’s sons he was personally attached. We know not how Edward was led to look on his promise to William as void. That he was so led is quite plain. He sent for his nephew the Ætheling Edward from Hungary, clearly as his intended successor. When the Ætheling died in 1057, leaving a son under age, men seem to have gradually come to look to Harold as the probable successor. He clearly held a special position above that of an ordinary earl; but there is no need to suppose any formal act in his favour till the time of the King’s death, January 5, 1066. On his deathbed Edward did all that he legally could do on behalf of Harold by recommending him to the Witan for election as the next king. That he then either made a new or renewed an old nomination in favour of William is a fable which is set aside by the witness of the contemporary English writers. William’s claim rested wholly on that earlier nomination which could hardly have been made at any other time than his visit to England.
We have now to follow William back to Normandy, for the remaining years of his purely ducal reign. The expectant king had doubtless thoughts and hopes which he had not had before. But we can guess at them only: they are not recorded.
CHAPTER IV.
THE REIGN OF WILLIAM IN NORMANDY.
A.D. 1052–1063.
If William came back from England looking forward to a future crown, the thought might even then flash across his mind that he was not likely to win that crown without fighting for it. As yet his business was still to fight for the duchy of Normandy. But he had now to fight, not to win his duchy, but only to keep it. For five years he had to strive both against rebellious subjects and against invading enemies, among whom King Henry of Paris is again the foremost. Whatever motives had led the French king to help William at Val-ès-dunes had now passed away. He had fallen back on his former state of abiding enmity towards Normandy and her duke. But this short period definitely fixed the position of Normandy and her duke in Gaul and in Europe. At its beginning William is still the Bastard of Falaise, who may or may not be able to keep himself in the ducal chair, his right to which is still disputed. At the end of it, if he is not yet the Conqueror and the Great, he has shown all the gifts that were needed to win him either name. He is the greatest vassal of the French crown, a vassal more powerful than the overlord whose invasions of his duchy he has had to drive back.
These invasions of Normandy by the King of the French and his allies fall into two periods. At first Henry appears in Normandy as the supporter of Normans in open revolt against their duke. But revolts are personal and local; there is no rebellion like that which was crushed at Val-ès-dunes, spreading over a large part of the duchy. In the second period, the invaders have no such starting-point. There are still traitors; there are still rebels; but all that they can do is to join the invaders after they have entered the land. William is still only making his way to the universal good will of his duchy: but he is fast making it.