[284] Near Chichester.
[285] It was customary for the king to wear his crown on the solemn festivals of Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas: it being placed on his head in due form by the archbishop.
[286] “Westminster Abbey was consecrated on the 28th of December, 1065. Ailred of Rievaulx, in his Life of Edward, states that the church had been commenced some years before, in performance of a vow the king had made to go to Rome; but being dissuaded from it, he sent to the pope to obtain his dispensation from that journey; the pope granted it, on condition that Edward should, with the money he would have spent in that voyage, build a monastery in honour of St. Peter.”—Hardy.
[287] The battle of Stanford-bridge was fought on the 25th of September, 1066. See Saxon. Chron. p. 440.
[288] What Malmesbury here relates is highly probable, from the shortness of the time which elapsed from William’s landing, to the battle of Hastings,—only fifteen days. In this period, therefore, the intelligence was to be conveyed to York, and Harold’s march into Sussex to be completed; of course few could accompany him, but such as were mounted.
[289] Will. Pictaviensis, to whom he seems here to allude, asserts that Harold had collected immense forces from all parts of England; and that Denmark had supplied him with auxiliaries also. But the circumstances mentioned in the preceding note show the absurdity of this statement.
[290] “Robert’s expedition to Jerusalem was in 1035,” (Bouq. 14, 420.)
[291] Ecclesiast. x. 16.
[292] Geoffrey II., son of Foulques III., earl of Anjou, whom he succeeded, A.D. 1040.
[293] “He was the son of Hugh de Montgomery and Jemima his wife, daughter of Turolf of Pont-Andomare, by Wora, sister of Gunnora, great-grandmother to the Conqueror. He led the centre of the army at the battle of Hastings, and was afterwards governor of Normandy. William the Conqueror gave him the earldoms of Arundel and Shrewsbury. See more of him in Sir H. Ellis’s Introduction to Domesday, vol. i. p. 479.”—Hardy.