Harold's vigilance.
While adopting these measures, however, which he thought the comfort and safety of his army required, Harold did not relax his vigilance in watching, as well as he could, the designs and movements of his enemy. He kept his secret agents on the southern coast, ordering them to observe closely every thing that transpired, and to gather and send to him every item of intelligence which should find its way by any means across the Channel. Of course, William would do all in his power to intercept and cut off all communication, and he was, at this time, very much aided in these efforts by the prevalence of the storms, which made it almost impossible for the fishing and trading vessels of the coast to venture out to sea, or attempt to cross the Channel. The agents of Harold, therefore, on the southern coast of England, found that they could obtain but very little information.
He sends spies into Normandy.
At length the king, unwilling to remain any longer so entirely in the dark, resolved on sending some messengers across the sea into Normandy itself, to learn positively what the true state of the case might be. Messengers going thus secretly into the enemy's territory, or into the enemy's camp, become, by so doing, in martial law, spies, and incur, if they are taken, the penalty of death. The undertaking, therefore, is extremely hazardous; and as the death which is inflicted in cases of detection is an ignominious one—spies being hung, not shot—most men are very averse to encountering the danger. Still, desperate characters are always to be found in camps and armies, who are ready to undertake it on being promised very extraordinary pay.
Harold's spies.
They are detected.
Harold's spies contrived to make their way across the Channel, probably at some point far to the east of Normandy, where the passage is narrow. They then came along the shore, disguised as peasants of the country, and they arrived at St. Valery while William's fleets were there. Here they began to make their observations, scrutinizing every thing with close attention and care, and yet studiously endeavoring to conceal their interest in what they saw. Notwithstanding all their vigilance, however, they were discovered, proved to be spies, and taken before William to receive their sentence.
William dismisses the spies.
Instead of condemning them to death, which they undoubtedly supposed would be their inevitable fate, William ordered them to be set at liberty. "Go back," said he, "to King Harold, and tell him he might have saved himself the expense of sending spies into Normandy to learn what I am preparing for him. He will soon know by other means—much sooner, in fact, than he imagines. Go and tell him from me that he may put himself, if he pleases, in the safest place he can find in all his dominions, and if he does not find my hand upon him before the year is out, he never need fear me again as long as he lives."
His confidence in his cause.
Nor was this expression of confidence in the success of the measures which he was taking a mere empty boast. William knew the power of Harold, and he knew his own. The enterprise in which he had embarked was not a rash adventure. It was a cool, deliberate, well-considered plan. It appeared doubtful and dangerous in the eyes of mankind, for to mere superficial observers it seemed simply an aggressive war waged by a duke of Normandy, the ruler of a comparatively small and insignificant province, against a king of England, the monarch of one of the greatest and most powerful realms in the world. William, on the other hand, regarded it as an effort on the part of the rightful heir to a throne to dispossess a usurper. He felt confident of having the sympathy and co-operation of a great part of the community, even in England, the moment he could show them that he was able to maintain his rights; and that he could show them that, by a very decisive demonstration, was evident, visibly, before him, in the vast fleet which was riding at anchor in the harbor, and in the long lines of tents, filled with soldiery, which covered the land.