What was the precise part taken by Harold in this revolution, which implied in some degree the depression of the house of Godwine and the elevation of the rival house of Leofric, it is very difficult now to discover. Everything that he did may be fully accounted for and justified by a patriotic abhorrence of civil war, a recognition of the fact that his brother’s government had been arbitrary and unpopular, and a noble willingness to place the welfare of England before the private advantage of his own family. On the other hand, there are curious traditions as to an enmity subsisting from boyhood between the two brothers, Harold and Tostig, and some even of their contemporaries averred that the whole revolution was planned by Harold for the overthrow of his brother. This suggestion seems most improbable, but it is evident that, whether as a cause or consequence of the disgrace of Tostig, Harold does from this time forward unite himself more closely to the house of Leofric, whose granddaughter, Aldgyth, widow of the Welsh king, Griffith, and sister of Edwin and Morkere, he seems to have married about this time. This marriage, which rendered it impossible for him to fulfil one at least of the articles of his covenant with William of Normandy, may have been the first intimation to his great rival that Harold regarded the promise made to him as of none effect.
Whatever may have been Harold’s feelings as to his brother’s disgrace, there can be no doubt that it cut King Edward to the heart, and probably, as one of his biographers hints, hastened his end. He was now apparently a little over sixty years of age, a man of moderate stature, with milk-white hair and beard, with broad and rosy face, white and slender hands and a certain royalty of aspect. Already perhaps that belief in the healing efficacy of his touch had begun to spread among the multitude, which engendered the mass of miracles wherewith his memory was afterwards loaded. These miracles being strangely supposed to be in some way specially connected with the royal office, led to the practice of “touching for the King’s evil,” which was continued till the reign of the last Stuart.
Through all these later years of his reign he had been intently watching the progress of his great church in the Island of Thorney by the Thames. Its foundations of large square blocks of greystone, its apsidal end, its central tower and two towers at the west end with their beautiful bells, and the long rows of its columns with their richly adorned bases and capitals, are enthusiastically described by his biographer. He came to Westminster on December 21, 1065, “and caused the minster to be hallowed which he had himself built to the glory of God and St. Peter and all God’s saints, and the hallowing of this church was on Childmass day” (December 28), but he was not himself present at the hallowing, and his death took place on Twelfth night (January 5, 1066).
The death-bed sayings of the old king, as reported by his biographer, are perhaps best known in Tennyson’s poetical version of them, but have, even unparaphrased, a poetical beauty of their own. After describing the vengeance of God which was coming upon England for her sins, and his pitiful prayer to the Most High that this punishment might not endure for ever, he repeats the words which he has heard from the saints whom he has seen in vision: “The green tree which springs from the trunk, when it has been severed thence and removed to a distance of three acres, shall return to its original trunk and shall join itself to its root whence first it sprang. Then shall the head again be green and bear fruit after its flower; and then may you certainly hope for better times.” Most of the bystanders listened with awe and wonder to the dying king’s prophecy, but Archbishop Stigand, with his hard worldly wisdom, said: “The old man is in his dotage”.
But Edward not only uttered this perplexing prophecy; he also, there can be little doubt, uttered some words which amounted to a bequest of his crown, as far as he had power to bequeath it, not to William but to Harold. There seems no reason why we should reject the story told in the quaint verses of the Chronicle—
Nathless, that wisest man, Dying made fast the realm
To a high-risen man, Even to Harold’s self,
Who was a noble earl: He did at every tide
Follow with loyal love All of his lord’s behests,
Both in his words and deeds: Naught did he e’er neglect