Li rois féruz en l'oil d'unt dart
Chet e tost est défulez,
Périz, ocist e adirez;
E sun estandart abatuz,
E li ostz d'Engleiz vencus;
E murut i quens Gruith si frère,
E quens Leuwine.
[PAGE 258.] Benoit's account of Harold's interment:
Li reis Heraut fu séveliz;
E si me retrait li escriz
Que sa mère por lui aveir
Vout au due doner grant aveir;
Mais n'en vout unques dener prendre
Ne por riens nule le cors rendre;
Mais à un Guillaume Malet,
Qui n'ert tosel pas ne vaslet,
Mais chevaliers dura e vaillanz.
Icist l'en fu taut depreianz
Qu'il li dona à enfoïr
Là où li vendreit à plaisir.
The continuer of Wace's Brut says:
Ki ke volt ceo saver
A Walteham, ultra le haut auter,
Meimes cel croiz purra trover,
E roi Harau gisant en quer;
and afterwards,
Heraud a Walteham fu porté
Ilokes gist enterré.
Ilokes gist enterré.
The following is the account in L'Estoire de Seint Ædward le rei:
Le cors le roi Haraud unt quis
E truvé entre les ocis;
E pur ço ke il rois esteit,
Granté est k'enterrez seit.
Par la prière sa mère,
Porté fu le cors en bère,
A Wautham est mis en carcu;
Kar de la maisun fundur fu.
The life of Harold in the Harl. MSS. 3776, will, we believe, be given in the Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, now publishing at Rouen. It is a very interesting story; though, as to the tale it records of Harold's escape, we may say with Knyghton, 'de istâ opinione fiat qualiter poterit.' It may be worth while to quote the following summary of that part of the legend which relates to this subject. "Harold was thought by his companions to be mortally wounded, and was, to all appearance, dead; but when the field of battle was examined, by some women searching for their friends, it was discovered that life still lingered in the body. By the care of two English franklins he was removed to Winchester, where his wounds were healed by the surgical skill of a certain cunning woman of oriental extraction; and, during two long years, he remained in concealment in an obscure dwelling. With the return of his wonted strength of body and energy of mind, a melancholy spectacle presented itself to him. He saw his kingdom under the dominion of a foreign enemy; he noticed the firmness with which the policy and courage of William had established him on the throne; and he every where marked the wide-spreading ramifications of the feudal system; attaching, by military tenure and self-interest, a sturdy Norman holder to each rood of subjugated England. His nobles were now petty franklins; his subjects were hereditary bondsmen. They had lost much of that independence of spirit which is born and dies with liberty; and they were contented hewers of wood, and drawers of water, for their new masters. They had made no effort to throw off the yoke which had been placed on their necks; town after town, and county after county, had submitted without opposition; and William, the conqueror of England, was now its crowned and acknowledged sovereign. Harold saw that foreign assistance was necessary, ere he could hope to redeem his country from the bondage of the invaders. His first attempt was to obtain aid from Saxony: in this he was unsuccessful. Thence he proceeded to Denmark, but found that a mission from William had secured the good graces, or, at least, the neutrality of that kingdom. The bitter disappointment originating in this ruin of his hopes was succeeded by another feeling; he recognised, in these baffled attempts, the workings of a superior power, admonishing him to abandon all idea of a restoration to the throne of England. New ideas and feelings awoke in his heart; his dreams of ambition and revenge were succeeded by humiliation and penance; he threw the helmet from his brow, and the mail from his breast, and went, a barefooted pilgrim, to the land of Palestine. During many years spent in this pious occupation, he subjected himself to the greatest privations and austerities. Warned by the approaching weakness of old age that his dissolution was at hand, he yielded to the desire which now haunted him of dying in the island which gave him birth. He landed at Dover; he climbed the lofty cliff; and again he saw the land which was once his own. Our legend does not expatiate upon the feelings which must have swelled within his breast as he gazed: we are told, however, that they were checked and subdued by the pre-dominating influence of religion, which had taught him to understand the relative happiness of his former and his present condition. Having assumed the name of Christian, and concealed his scarred features beneath a cowl, he journeyed through Kent, and arrived at a secluded spot in Shropshire, which the legend names Ceswrthin. Here he constructed himself a cell, in which he remained ten years; but at length he was compelled to seek some other abode; 'not,' says the legend, 'because he shrank from enduring the annoyances to which the Welsh frequently exposed him by beating him and stealing his clothes, but because he wished to devote the remainder of his existence to undisturbed meditation and prayer.' He left this cell without any definite idea as to his future residence; but having wandered to Chester, he there received a supernatural intimation that he would find a dwelling prepared for him in the chapel of St. James, within the churchyard of St. John the Baptist, situated upon the banks of the river Dee, a little beyond the walls of that city. Upon arriving at the spot thus pointed out, he found that a hermit, the late tenant of the cell, had recently expired, and he gladly took possession of the new residence thus provided for him. During the space of seven years which he spent in Chester, circumstances occurred which originated and gradually strengthened into certainty the suspicion that this recluse was a Saxon chief of former importance, if not Harold himself. When questioned as to his name and origin, he returned evasive answers, but never a direct negative to those who asserted that he was once the king of England. He admitted that he had been present at the battle of Hastings; and that no one was nearer or dearer to Harold the king than was Christian the hermit. But the approach of death revealed the secret, and converted doubt into certainty; for he acknowledged in his last confession that he was indeed the last Saxon king of England."