The Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated

by J. Collingwood Bruce

We next meet with the funeral of the King. The circumstance which chiefly strikes us in it is its simplicity. No gilded cross is borne before the body. No candles, lighted or unlighted, are carried in procession. The attendants, clerical and lay, wear their ordinary dresses. Two youths go by the side of the bier, ringing bells. That the persons who follow the bearers are ecclesiastics is evident from their shaven crowns. Two of them have books, from

which they chant some requiem. Only one of them has a mantle, betokening him to be a person of importance. The body, agreeably to the Saxon custom, has been wound up in a cloth, fastened with transverse bandages.[62] It is carried head-foremost. At a date not long subsequent to the Conquest it was usual to carry the bodies of princes to the grave fully exposed to view, dressed in all the habiliments of state. The body, on arriving at the place of sepulture, would be deposited in the stone coffin that was prepared to receive it.[63] The legend here is, HIC PORTATUR CORPUS EADWARDI REGIS AD ECCLESIAM SANCTI PETRI APOSTOLI—Here the body of King Edward is carried to the church of St. Peter the Apostle.

On proceeding to the next compartment we are surprised at being introduced into the chamber of the dying King, whose remains we have already seen conducted to the grave. Some writers think that here the artist has been guilty of an oversight, or that the fair ladies who carried out his design have been very inattentive to their instructions. The seeming inconsistency is very easily explained. A new subject is now entered upon, and that subject is the right of succession. One important element in it is the grant of the King. The historian of the Tapestry, in discussing this very important part of his design, found it necessary to revert to the scenes which preceded the death of the Confessor, and to the directions which in his last moments he had given.

The narrative which Wace gives us of the last hours of the King agrees well with the Tapestry. “The day came that no man can escape, and King Edward drew near to die. He had it much at heart that William should have his kingdom, if possible; but he was too far off, and it was too long to tarry for him, and Edward could not defer his hour. He lay in heavy sickness, in the illness whereof he was to die; and he was very weak, for death pressed hard upon him. Then Harold assembled his kindred, and sent for his friends and other people, and entered into the King’s chamber, taking with him whomsoever he pleased. An Englishman began to speak first, as Harold had directed him, and said, ‘Sire, we sorrow greatly that we are about to lose thee; and we are much alarmed, and fear that great trouble may come upon us. No heir of thine remains who may comfort us after thy death. ....On this account the people weep and cry aloud, and say they are ruined, and that they shall never have peace again, if thou failest them. And in this I trow they say truly; for without a king they will have no peace, and a king they cannot have, save through thee.... Behold the best of thy people, the noblest of thy friends; all are come to beseech thee, and thou must grant their prayer before thou goest hence, or thou wilt not see God. All come to implore thee that Harold may be King of this land. We can give thee no better advice, and no better canst thou do.’ As soon as he had named Harold, all the English in the chamber cried out that he said well, and that the King ought to give heed to him. ‘Sire!’ they said, ‘if thou dost it not we shall never in our lives have peace.’ Then the King sat up in his bed, and turned his face to the English there, and said, ‘Seigniors! you well know, and have oft-times heard, that I have given my realm at my death to the Duke of Normandy; and as I have given it, so have some among you sworn that it shall go.’ But Harold, who stood by, said, ‘Whatever thou hast heretofore done, sire! consent now that I shall be King, and that your land be mine. I wish for no other title, and want no one to do any thing more for me.’ So the King turned round and said, whether of his own free will I know not,—‘Let the English make either the Duke or Harold king, as they please; I consent.’ So he let the barons have their own will.”[64] This narrative bears all the marks of probability, and is quite consistent with the representations of the Tapestry. The circumstance of the dying monarch’s having been clamorously assailed, at a time when peace is most required, by the adherents of Harold, in order to induce him to alter the arrangements he had already made respecting the succession, was calculated to win for the Duke the sympathy of all right-minded persons.

Still, the question remains, why should Harold have been so anxious to be nominated the successor of the Confessor?

Three circumstances seem to have constituted a legal claim to the throne among the Anglo-Saxons—heirship, the appointment of the departed monarch, and the election of the nobles.

That heirship alone did not constitute a valid claim to the throne is plain from the will of King Alfred, which has been preserved by Asser. He there styles himself king of the whole of Wessex, by the consent of the nobility, nobilitatis consensu pariter et assensu rex; and in the same public act declares that he inherited the kingdom, after his two brothers Ethelbald and Ethelred, by the will of his father, de hereditate, quam pater meus Ethelwulphus ... delegavit. It is quite evident, therefore, that a thoroughly valid claim to the crown was of the triple nature now represented. As neither Harold nor William belonged to the royal line of England, the remaining sources of right became of the more importance to them.

Let us now revert to the Tapestry. The feeble condition of the King is well represented. An attendant is supporting him behind with a pillow, whilst he makes an attempt to speak. The blackness of death has settled upon his shrunken countenance. A priest dressed in canonicals stands by, whose uplifted hand and sorrow-stricken face seem to say that the grand climax is at hand. A lady at the foot of the bed weeps; she is doubtless the wife of the Confessor, the sister of Harold. Harold is eagerly pressing his claim. The legend here is, HIC EADWARDUS REX IN LECTO ALLOQUIT: FIDELES—Here King Edward on his bed addresses his faithful attendants. Underneath is a scene, which the inscription explains, ET HIC DEFUNCTUS EST—And here he is dead. A priest in canonicals is again present, probably the one we saw above, and two attendants wrap up the body for burial.