[XIX.]
THE BODY OF HAROLD.
NO sooner did Sunday morning dawn than William, having first evinced his gratitude to Heaven for the victory gained, applied himself to ascertain the extent of his loss. Having vowed to erect on the field of battle an abbey, to be dedicated to St. Martin, the patron saint of the warriors of Gaul, the Conqueror drew up his troops, and called over the names of all who had crossed the sea, from a list made at St. Valery.
While this roll was being called over, many of the wives and mothers of the Saxons who had armed in the neighbourhood of Hastings to fight for King Harold appeared on the field to search for and bury the bodies of their husbands and sons. William immediately caused the corpses of the men who had fallen on his side to be buried, and gave the Saxons leave to do the same for their countrymen.
For some time, however, no one had the courage to mention the propriety of giving Christian burial to the Saxon king; and the body of Harold lay on the field without being claimed or sought for. At length Githa, the widow of Godwin, sent to ask the Conqueror's permission to render the last honours to her son, but William sternly refused.
"The mother," said the messengers, "would even give the weight of the body in gold."
"Nevertheless," said William, "the man, false to his word and to his religion, shall have no other sepulchre than the sands of the shore."
William, however, relented. It happened that Harold had founded and enriched the abbey of Waltham, and that the abbot felt himself in duty bound to obtain Christian burial for such a benefactor. Accordingly he deputed Osgod and Ailrik, two Saxon monks, to demand permission to transfer the body of Harold to their church; and the Conqueror granted the permission they asked.
But Osgod and Ailrik found their mission somewhat difficult to fulfil. So disfigured, in fact, were most of the dead with wounds and bruises, that one could hardly be known from another. In vain the monks sought among the mass of slain, stripped as they were of armour and clothing. The monks of Waltham could not recognise the corpse of him whom they sought, and, in their difficulty, they resolved to invoke female aid.