The Saints are one, ...”
yet immediately falls into the absurd blunder he rebukes by adding:
“But those (Saints) of Normanland
Are mightier than our own.”
While witnessing the battle of Hastings Stigand cries out in an ecstasy of admiration at Harold’s prowess: “War-woodman of old Woden!” Could any Christian man, Catholic or non-Catholic, couple a Christian warrior’s name with the detestable deity of the pagan North?
The character of Harold, too, is incongruous. He is represented as a most brave, wise, and honorable man, incapable of fear or falsehood: “broad and honest, breathing an easy gladness.” He weakens in many places. We cannot here go into a historical inquiry respecting the alleged oath of Harold on the relics of saints to help William to the crown of England. Much is made of it by Tennyson; so let us take all the facts for granted. A man such as Harold is here represented to be would rather have died than taken the oath, if he never meant to keep it. On the other hand, once taken, and knowing it to be false, we doubt whether the resolute Saxon soldier would have troubled himself much about the matter. He acts as a coward throughout while in William’s power. A strong man would not rail in secret at William for forcing him to take an oath which the swearer knew to be a lie. He would take it or not take it with the best grace possible. “Horrible!” exclaims Harold when the relics on which he has sworn are exposed. Harold was sufficiently man of the world—a man who had passed his life in camp and court—to have uttered no such weak cry. In the first place, if he swore falsely, such an exclamation showed at once that he never intended to keep his promise. In the second place, it would have been perfectly plain to William that he could place no reliance on the oath of such a poltroon. The same failure to apprehend the character of the man is apparent in the womanish tirade into which Harold breaks after William has left him: “Juggler and bastard—bastard: he hates that most—William the tanner’s bastard! Would he heard me!” A moment before he might have heard him, but Harold dared not speak his thoughts. Certainly the man who never lost a battle save the one in which he lost all—the man who conquered Wales, crushed the terrible invasion of Harold Hardrada and Tostig, braved his own sovereign, seized on the English throne with a grasp that only death could shake off, and died so gloriously on Hastings—never “played the woman with his eyes and the braggart with his tongue” in this poor fashion. Here again speaks the reader of modern infidel literature in the mouth of the unspeculative soldier of the eleventh century:
“I cannot help it, but at times
They seem to me too narrow, all the faiths
Of this grown world of ours, whose baby eye
Saw them sufficient.”