[304] Lib. v. c. 14.
[305] This is from W. Pictaviensis, who puts it in the mouth of the conqueror, but it is evidently false; for Godwin died A.D. 1053, Siward A.D. 1055, and in 1054 we find Edward the Confessor sending for his nephew from Hungary, to make him his successor in the kingdom, who, accordingly, arrives in A.D. 1057, and dies almost immediately after. He could not, therefore, have made the settlement as here asserted.
[306] As the armour of that time was of mail, this might easily happen.
[307] What this was is not known; but it is supposed to have been a ballad or romance, commemorating the heroic achievements of the pretended nephew of Charlemagne.
[308] “There seems to have been a fabulous story current during the twelfth century, that Harold escaped from the battle of Hastings. Giraldus Cambrensis asserts, that it was believed Harold had fled from the battle-field, pierced with many wounds, and with the loss of his left eye; and that he ended his days piously and virtuously, as an anchorite, at Chester. Both Knighton and Brompton quote this story. W. Pictaviensis says, that William refused the body to his mother, who offered its weight in gold for it, ordering it to be buried on the sea-coast. In the Harleian MS. 3776, before referred to, Girth, Harold’s brother, is said to have escaped alive: he is represented, in his interview with Henry II. to have spoken mysteriously respecting Harold, and to have declared that the body of that prince was not at Waltham. Sir H. Ellis, quoting this MS., justly observes, that the whole was, probably, the fabrication of one of the secular canons, who were ejected at the re-foundation of Waltham Abbey in 1177.”—Hardy.
[309] Four manuscripts read Exoniam, and one, namely, that which was used by Savile, read Oxoniam. But Matthew Paris also seems to have read Exoniam, for such is the text of the two best MSS. of that author. (Reg. 14, c. vii. and Cott. Nero, D. V.) Upon a passage in the Domesday Survey, describing Oxford as containing 478 houses, which were so desolated that they could not pay gold, Sir H. Ellis remarks: “The extraordinary number of houses specified as desolated at Oxford, requires explanation. If the passage is correct, Matthew Paris probably gives us the cause of it, under the year 1067, when William the Conqueror subdued Oxford in his way to York:—‘Eodem tempore rex Willielmus urbem Oxoniam sibi rebellem obsidione vallavit. Super cujus murum quidam, stans, nudato inguine, sonitu partis inferioris auras turbavit, in contemptum videlicet Normannorum; unde Willielmus in iram conversus, civitatem levi negotio subjugavit.’ (Matt. P. ed. Watts, sub ann. 1067, p. 4.) The siege of Exeter in 1067 is also mentioned by Simeon of Durham, col. 197; Hoveden, col. 258; Ralph de Diceto, col. 482; Flor. of Worces. fol. Franc. 1601, p. 635; and by Ordericus Vitalis, p. 510.”—Hardy.
[310] Domesday Book bears ample testimony to this statement; and that which closely follows, viz. that the resources of this once-flourishing province were cut off by fire, slaughter, and devastation; and the ground, for more than sixty miles, totally uncultivated and unproductive, remains bare to the present day. The land, which had belonged to Edwin and Morcar in Yorkshire, almost everywhere in the Survey is stated to be wasta; and in Amunderness, after the enumeration of no fewer than sixty-two places, the possessions in which amounted to one hundred and seventy carucates, it is said, ‘Omnes hæ villæ jacent ad Prestune, et tres ecclesiæ. Ex his 16 a paucis incoluntur, sed quot sint habitantes ignoratur. Reliqua sunt wasta.’ Moreover, wasta is added to numerous places belonging to the archbishop of York, St. John of Beverley, the bishop of Durham, and to those lands which had belonged to Waltheof, Gospatric, Siward, and Merlesweyne!—Hardy.
[311] Fordun has a story of Edgar’s being cleared from an accusation of treason against W. Rufus, by one Godwin, in a duel; whose son, Robert, is afterwards described as one of Edgar’s adherents in Scotland. L. v. c. 27–34. “The Saxon Chronicle states, that in the year 1106, he was one of the prisoners taken at the battle of Tinchebrai, in Normandy. Edgar is stated, by Dr. Sayers, in his Disquisitions, 8vo, 1808, p. 296, upon the authority of the Spelman MSS., to have again visited Scotland at a very advanced period of life, and died in that kingdom in the year 1120. If this date can be relied upon, the passage above noted would prove that Malmesbury had written this portion of his history before the close of that year.”—Hardy.
[312] “Earl Waltheof, or Wallef, as he is always styled in Domesday Book, was, according to the Saxon Chronicle, beheaded at Winchester on the 31st May, 1076. The Chronicle of Mailros and Florence of Worcester, however, assign this event to the preceding year.”—Hardy.
[313] “Harold’s master of the horse. He was killed in 1068, in opposing the sons of Harold, when they came upon their expedition from Ireland.”—Hardy.