The great council of state.
The embassy to Harold.
William revolved the subject in his mind for a few days, during which the exasperation and anger which the first receipt of the intelligence had produced upon him was succeeded by calm but indignant deliberation, in respect to the course which he should pursue. He concluded to call a great council of state, and to lay the case before them—not for the purpose of obtaining their advice, but to call their attention to the crisis in a formal and solemn manner, and to prepare them to act in concert in the subsequent measures to be pursued. The result of the deliberations of this council, guided, doubtless, by William's own designs, was, that the first step should be to send an embassy to Harold to demand of him the fulfillment of his promises.
Harold reminded of his promises.
The messenger was accordingly dispatched. He proceeded to London, and laid before Harold the communication with which he had been intrusted. This communication recounted the three promises which Harold had made, namely, to send his daughter to Normandy to be married to one of William's generals; to marry William's daughter himself; and to maintain William's claims to the English crown on the death of Edward. He was to remind Harold, also, of the solemnity with which he had bound himself to fulfill these obligations, by oaths taken in the presence of the most sacred relics of the Church, and in the most public and deliberate manner.
Harold replied,
His replies.
1. That as to sending over his daughter to be married to one of William's generals, he could not do it, for his daughter was dead. He presumed, he said, that William did not wish him to send the corpse.
2. In respect to marrying William's daughter, to whom he had been affianced in Normandy, he was sorry to say that that was also out of his power, as he could not take a foreign wife without the consent of his people, which he was confident would never be given; besides, he was already married, he said, to a Saxon lady of his own dominions.
3. In regard to the kingdom: it did not depend upon him, he said, to decide who should rule over England as Edward's successor, but upon the will of Edward himself, and upon the English people. The English barons and nobles had decided, with Edward's concurrence, that he, Harold, was their legitimate and proper sovereign, and that it was not for him to controvert their will. However much he might be disposed to comply with William's wishes, and to keep his promise, it was plain that it was out of his power, for in promising him the English crown, he had promised what did not belong to him to give.
4. As to his oaths, he said that, notwithstanding the secret presence of the sacred relics under the cloth of gold, he considered them as of no binding force upon his conscience, for he was constrained to take them as the only means of escaping from the duress in which he was virtually held in Normandy. Promises, and oaths even, when extorted by necessity, were null and void.