William the Conqueror / Makers of History

by Jacob Abbott

King Harold.

A.D. 1063-1066

Harold and William.

Harold, the son of the Earl Godwin, who was maneuvering to gain possession of the English throne, and William of Normandy, though they lived on opposite sides of the English Channel, the one in France and the other in England, were still personally known to each other; for not only had William, as was stated in the last chapter, paid a visit to England, but Harold himself, on one occasion, made an excursion to Normandy. The circumstances of this expedition were, in some respects, quite extraordinary, and illustrate in a striking manner some of the peculiar ideas and customs of the times. They were as follows:

Quarrel between Godwin and Edward.
Treaty between Godwin and Edward.

During the life of Harold's father Godwin, there was a very serious quarrel between him, that is, Godwin, and King Edward, in which both the king and his rebellious subject marshaled their forces, and for a time waged against each other an open and sanguinary war. In this contest the power of Godwin had proved so formidable, and the military forces which he succeeded in marshaling under his banners were so great, that Edward's government was unable effectually to put him down. At length, after a long and terrible struggle, which involved a large part of the country in the horrors of a civil war, the belligerents made a treaty with each other, which settled their quarrel by a sort of compromise. Godwin was to retain his high position and rank as a subject, and to continue in the government of certain portions of the island which had long been under his jurisdiction; he, on his part, promising to dismiss his armies, and to make war upon the king no more. He bound himself to the faithful performance of these covenants by giving the king hostages.

Hostages.

The hostages given up on such occasions were always near and dear relatives and friends, and the understanding was, that if the party giving them failed in fulfilling his obligations, the innocent and helpless hostages were to be entirely at the mercy of the other party into whose custody they had been given. The latter would, in such cases, imprison them, torture them, or put them to death, with a greater or less degree of severity in respect to the infliction of pain, according to the degree of exasperation which the real or fancied injury which he had received awakened in his mind.

The giving of hostages now abandoned.
Cruelties inflicted.
Canute's hostages.

This cruel method of binding fierce and unprincipled men to the performance of their promises has been universally abandoned in modern times, though in the rude and early stages of civilization it has been practiced among all nations, ancient and modern. The hostages chosen were often of young and tender years, and were always such as to render the separation which took place when they were torn from their friends most painful, as it was the very object of the selection to obtain those who were most beloved. They were delivered into the hands of those whom they had always regarded as their bitterest enemies, and who, of course, were objects of aversion and terror. They were sent away into places of confinement and seclusion, and kept in the custody of strangers, where they lived in perpetual fear that some new outbreak between the contending parties would occur, and consign them to torture or death. The cruelties sometimes inflicted, in such cases, on the innocent hostages, were awful. At one time, during the contentions between Ethelred and Canute, Canute, being driven across the country to the sea-coast, and there compelled to embark on board his ships to make his escape, was cruel enough to cut off the hands and the feet of some hostages which Ethelred had previously given him, and leave them writhing in agony on the sands of the shore.