PREFACE.
England has performed, and is probably destined yet to perform, an important part in the history of nations. The era treated of in this work was doubtless the crisis of her fate. Happily, she survived the shock of the Conquest, and was benefited by its rough discipline. All true-hearted Englishmen must read with peculiar feeling this portion of our country’s annals. Surrounding nations, too, have their share of interest in it. When the Society of Antiquaries published the beautiful copy of the Bayeux Tapestry, made, at their request, by Mr. Charles Stothard, they testified the importance which they attached to the document. As yet they have published no explanation of it. The world still expects it at their hands. To supply, meanwhile, some little assistance to the student of history, this work is published. It was suggested by a holiday ramble in Normandy, amidst the scenes rendered famous by the career of William the Conqueror. The plates have been carefully reduced from those published by the Society of Antiquaries, by Mr. Mossman, and printed in colours by the Messrs. Lambert, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These gentlemen, and the Printers, have spared no pains to render the volume creditable to the local press. In addition to the authorities cited in the course of the work, La Tapisserie de Bayeux, édition variorum, par M. Achille Jubinal, has been continually before the eye of the writer.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 13th of October, 1855,
(Eve of the Anniversary of the Battle of Hastings.)
THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY.
I. THE ROLL.
“There she weaves, by night and day,
A magic web with colours gay.”
Tennyson.
Master Wace, to whom we are indebted for “the most minute, graphic, and animated account of the transactions”[1] of the Norman Conquest, thus exalts the art of the chronicler—“All things hasten to decay; all fall; all perish; all come to an end. Man dieth, iron consumeth, wood decayeth; towers crumble, strong walls fall down, the rose withereth away; the war-horse waxeth feeble, gay trappings grow old; all the works of men perish. Thus we are taught that all die, both clerk and lay; and short would be the fame of any after death if their history did not endure by being written in the book of the clerk.”[2]
The pen of the writer of romance is not the only implement which confers immortality upon man. The chisel of the sculptor, the pencil of the painter, and the needle of the high-born dame, can confer a lasting renown upon those whose deeds are worthy of being remembered. The work which we are about to consider was effected by the simplest of these implements—the needle.