The foremost vessel contains Harold alone, as the superscription, HAROLD, informs us. He is in full dress, ready to pay his respects to the Count of Ponthieu. He is, however, armed with a spear, which evidently indicates that he has reason to fear that he is in an enemy’s country.
The next group of figures reveals the plot. Guy, accompanied by a troop of horsemen bearing sword and shield and spear, orders the arrest of Harold and his companions. The Count is simply clad, but well armed; he has not only a sword of portentous size attached to his side, but a basilard, or hunting knife, suspended from his saddle. “As an instance of that peculiar accuracy which is observed by the designer of the Tapestry, even in seemingly unimportant particulars, and which makes the work so much more interesting as a faithful depiction of the various circumstances of the times, we find the Norman horses of this and other groups are represented as being larger than the Anglo-Saxon. The hair of the mane is also uncut, and falls on the neck; the saddle and its accoutrements are similar.”[40] Harold, stripped, as before, for disembarkation, is immediately seized. The first impression on the minds of the party evidently is to resist. Their ordinary weapons, which have for the moment been laid aside, are not at hand; but that weapon which a Saxon never laid aside—that weapon, half knife, half dagger, with which he divided his food at meals, which he had by him even during the hours of sleep, and which was deposited in his grave when his warfare was o’er—that weapon, the saxe, from which, according to the mediæval rhymer Gotfridus Viterbiensis, the Saxons derived their name—
“Ipse brevis gladius apud illos Saxo vocatur,
Unde sibi Saxo nomen peperisse notatur.”[41]
—is clutched and drawn.
The latter figures of the group, by the hesitancy of their manner, seem to say that resistance is useless; each has instinctively laid hold of his weapon, but it rests midway in his girdle.
The inscription over this group is, HIC APPREHENDIT WIDO HAROLDUM ET DUXIT EUM AD BELREM ET IBI EUM TENUIT.—Here Guy seized Harold, and led him to Beaurain, where he detained him prisoner. The modern Beaurain is situated a short distance from Montreuil, the capital of the ancient province of Ponthieu. A tree closes the scene.
In the solitude of his prison Harold must have reflected bitterly upon his rashness in committing himself to the hands of Guy without having accurately ascertained his feelings towards him. Instead of a friend he found in him a foe. Instead of furthering his views he involved him in almost inextricable difficulties. The Count, probably, had too keen a sense of William’s power again to run the risk of incurring his wrath; he therefore resolved, to avoid all appearance of ambiguity, to detain Harold as a prisoner, and to extract from his friends as large a sum as possible in the shape of ransom. It gives us a curious insight into the state of society in those days, to observe that no one disputed the right of Guy to seize the person and property of a stranger, who, without hostile intent, had ventured upon his shores, or, as some believe, had been driven there by mischance. Harold had no friend at hand to release him from his unpleasant position. His active and clever rival, William of Normandy, hearing of his circumstances, immediately put forth the most strenuous and apparently generous efforts to effect his enlargement, thereby laying him under very serious obligations. It is the object of the succeeding portions of the Tapestry to place these efforts in a strong light, and by implication to show the ingratitude of Harold in opposing William’s claims to the English throne.
The first scene represents Harold proceeding to the residence of his captor. The expression given to the unlucky Earl is one of deep dejection. He is stripped of the cloak which marked his nobility; and though he carries his hawk upon his fist, its usual posture is reversed, an intimation that his hawking days are over. Harold is well guarded by a party of armed horsemen. Guy rides before, clad in the decorative mantle of his rank, and having the falcon upon his fist, with its head advanced as if ready to take wing. The artist has very successfully portrayed in the countenance of Guy the chuckling conceit of this heartless chieftain in the possession of so rich a prize as Harold.
The next group of standing figures is supposed to represent some of Harold’s party, distinguished by the mustache, in custody of Guy’s soldiers.
Harold, indignant at the unjust treatment which he had received,