Each of these districts was ruled by an earl[1] invested with almost royal power. For a time the arrangement worked well, but eventually discord sprang up and imperiled the unity of the kingdom. After Canute's death two of his sons divided England between themselves; both were bad rulers.
[1] Earl ("chief" or "leader"): a title of honor and of office. The four earldoms established by Canute remained nearly unchanged until the Norman Conquest, 1066.
65. Restoration of the Saxon or English Kings; Edward the Confessor (1042–1066).
On the occasion of the Danish conqueror Sweyn (S63), Ethelred II, the English King, sent his French wife Emma back to Normandy for safety. She took her son, Prince Edward, then a lad of nine, with her. He remained at the French court nearly thirty years, and among other friends to whom he became greatly attached was his second cousin, William, Duke of Normandy.
The oppressive acts of Canute's sons (S64) excited insurrection (1042), and both Danes and English joined in the determination to restore the English line. They invited Prince Edward to accept the crown. He returned to England, obtained the throne, and pledged himself to restore the rights of which the people had been deprived. By birth King Edward was already half Norman; by education and tastes he was wholly so.
It is very doubtful whether he could speak a word of English, and it is certain that from the beginning he surrounded himself with French favorites, and filled the Church with French priests. Edward's piety and blameless life gained for him the title of "the Confessor," or, as we should say to-day, "the Christian."
He married the daughter of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, the most powerful noble in England. Godwin really ruled the country in the King's name until his death (1053), when his son Harold (S67) succeeded him as earl.
66. Edward the Confessor builds Westminster Abbey.
During a large part of his reign the King was engaged in building an abbey or monastery at the west end of London, and hence called the Westminster.[2] He had just completed and consecrated this great work when he died, and was buried there. We may still see a part of the original building in the crypt or basement of the abbey, while the King's tomb above is the center of a circle of royal graves.
[2] Minster: a name given originally to a monastery; next, to a church connected with a monastery; but now applied to several large English cathedrals.
Multitudes made pilgrimages to King Edward's tomb, for the Pope had enrolled him among the saints. Even now a little band of devoted Catholics gather around his shrine every year. They go there to show their veneration for the virtues and the piety of a ruler who would have adorned a monastery, but had not breadth and vigor to fill a throne.
67. Harold becomes King (1066).
On his deathbed, King Edward, who had no children, recommended Harold, Earl of Wessex, as his successor (S65). But the Normans in France declared Edward had promised that his cousin William, Duke of Normandy (S65), should reign after him. The Witan, or National Council of England (S81), chose Harold. That settled the question, for the Council alone had the right to decide who should rule over the English people. Harold was soon afterward crowned (January 16, 1066).
68. Duke William prepares to invade England (1066).
William, Duke of Normandy, was getting ready for a hunting expedition when the news was brought to him of Harold's accession (S67). The old chronicler says that the Duke "stopped short in his preparations; he spoke to no man, and no man dared speak to him." Finally he resolved to appeal to the sword and take the English crown by force.
During the spring and summer of that year, he occupied himself in fitting out a fleet to invade England, and his smiths and armorers were busy making lances, swords, and coats of mail. The Pope favored the expedition and presented a banner blessed by himself, to be carried in the attack; "mothers, too, sent their sons for the salvation of their souls."
69. The Expedition Sails (1066).
William sailed on his great expedition in the autumn with a fleet of several hundred vesseles and a large number of transports. The Duke's ship, with the consecrated banner at the masthead, led the fleet.
His army consisted of archers and cavalry. Its strength has been variously estimated at from 14,000 men up to 60,000. They were partly his own subjects, and partly hired soldiers, or those who joined for the sake of plunder. William also carried a large force of smiths and carpenters, with timber ready cut and fitted to set up a wooden castle.
70. William lands at Pevensey.
The next day the fleet anchored at Pevensey, on the south coast of England, under the walls of an old Roman fortress which had stood, a vacant ruin, since the Saxons stormed it nearly six hundred years before. (See map facing p. 38.) Tradition says that as William stepped on shore he stumbled and fell flat with his face downward. "God preserve us!" cried one of his men; "this is a bad sign." But the Duke, grasping the pebbles of the beach with both his outstretched hands, exclaimed, "Thus do I seize the land!"
71. King Harold in the North.
There was, in fact, no power to prevent him from establishing his camp, for King Harold (S67) was in the north quelling an invasion headed by the King of the Norwegians and his brother Tostig, who hoped to secure the throne for himself. Harold had just sat down to a victory feast, after the battle of Stamford Bridge, Yorkshire, when news was brought to him of the landing of William.
It was this fatal want of unity in England which made the Norman Conquest possible. If Harold's own brother, Tostig, had not turned traitorously against him, or if the north country had stood squarely by the south, Duke William might have found his fall on the beach an omen full of disaster.
72. What Duke William did after Landing.
As there was no one to oppose him, William made a fort in a corner of the old Roman wall at Pevensey (S70), and then marched to Hastings, a few miles farther east, where he set up a wooden castle on that hill where the ruins of a later stone castle may still be seen. Having done this, he pillaged the country in every direction.
73. Harold marches to meet William.
King Harold, having gathered what forced he could, marched to meet William at a place midway between Pevensey and Hastings, about five miles back from the coast. Harold had the advantage of a stockaded fort he had built; William, that of a body of cavalry and archers, for the English fought on foot with javelins and battle-axes mainly. The Saxons spent the night in feasting and song, the Normans in prayer and confession; both were eager to fight.
74. The Great Battle of Hastings, 1066.
On the morning of the 14th of October the fight began. It lasted until dark, with heavy loss on both sides. At length William's strategy carried the day, and Harold and his brave followers found to their cost that then, as now, it is "the thinking bayonet" which conquers. The English King was slain and every man of his chosen troops with him. A monk who wrote the history of the period of the Conquest, says that "the vices of the Saxons had made them effeminate and womanish, wherefore it came to pass that, running against Duke William, they lost themselves and their country with one, and that an easy and light, battle." Doubtless the English had fallen off in many ways from what hey had been generations earlier; but the record at Hastings shows that they had lost neither strength, courage, nor endurance, and a harder battle ws never fought on British soil.
75. Battle Abbey; Harold's Grave; the Beyeu^x Tapestry.
A few years later, the Norman Conqueror built the Abbey of Battle on the spot to commemorate the victory by which he gained his crown. He directed that the monks of the abbey should chant perpetual prayers over the Norman soldiers who had fallen there. Here, also, tradition represents him as having buried Harold's body, just after the fight, under a heap of stones by the seashore. Some months later, it is said that the friends of the English King removed the remains