“Nay, the future is with God and his saints;” answered Edward, feebly. “But Godwin is old—older than I, and bowed by many storms.”
“Ay, his sons are more to be dreaded and kept aloof—mostly Harold!”
“Harold,—he was ever obedient, he alone of his kith; truly my soul mourns for Harold,” said the King, sighing.
“The serpent’s egg hatches but the serpent. Keep thy heel on it,” said William, sternly.
“Thou speakest well,” said the irresolute prince, who never seemed three days or three minutes together in the same mind. “Harold is in Ireland—there let him rest: better for all.”
“For all,” said the Duke; “so the saints keep thee, O royal saint!”
He kissed the King’s hand, and strode away to the hall where Odo, Fitzosborne, and the priest Lanfranc awaited him. And so that day, halfway towards the fair town of Dover, rode Duke William, and by the side of his roan barb ambled the priest’s palfrey.
Behind came his gallant train, and with tumbrils and sumpter-mules laden with baggage, and enriched by Edward’s gifts; while Welch hawks, and steeds of great price from the pastures of Surrey and the plains of Cambridge and York, attested no less acceptably than zimme, and golden chain, and embroidered robe, the munificence of the grateful King. 68
As they journeyed on, and the fame of the Duke’s coming was sent abroad by the bodes or messengers, despatched to prepare the towns through which he was to pass for an arrival sooner than expected, the more highborn youths of England, especially those of the party counter to that of the banished Godwin, came round the ways to gaze upon that famous chief, who, from the age of fifteen, had wielded the most redoubtable sword of Christendom. And those youths wore the Norman garb: and in the towns, Norman counts held his stirrup to dismount, and Norman hosts spread the fastidious board; and when, at the eve of the next day, William saw the pennon of one of his own favourite chiefs waving in the van of armed men, that sallied forth from the towers of Dover (the key of the coast) he turned to the Lombard, still by his side, and said:
“Is not England part of Normandy already?”
And the Lombard answered:
“The fruit is well nigh ripe, and the first breeze will shake it to thy feet. Put not out thy hand too soon. Let the wind do its work.”
And the Duke made reply:
“As thou thinkest, so think I. And there is but one wind in the halls of heaven that can waft the fruit to the feet of another.”
“And that?” asked the Lombard.
“Is the wind that blows from the shores of Ireland, when it fills the sails of Harold, son of Godwin.”
“Thou fearest that man, and why?” asked the Lombard with interest.
And the Duke answered:
“Because in the breast of Harold beats the heart of England.”
BOOK III.
THE HOUSE OF GODWIN
CHAPTER I
And all went to the desire of Duke William the Norman. With one hand he curbed his proud vassals, and drove back his fierce foes. With the other, he led to the altar Matilda, the maid of Flanders; and all happened as Lanfranc had foretold. William’s most formidable enemy, the King of France, ceased to conspire against his new kinsman; and the neighbouring princes said, “The Bastard hath become one of us since he placed by his side the descendant of Charlemagne.” And Mauger, Archbishop of Rouen, excommunicated the Duke and his bride, and the ban fell idle; for Lanfranc sent from Rome the Pope’s dispensation and blessing 69, conditionally only that bride and bridegroom founded each a church. And Mauger was summoned before the synod, and accused of unclerical crimes; and they deposed him from his state, and took from him abbacies and sees. And England every day waxed more and more Norman; and Edward grew more feeble and infirm, and there seemed not a barrier between the Norman Duke and the English throne, when suddenly the wind blew in the halls of heaven, and filled the sails of Harold the Earl.
And his ships came to the mouth of the Severn. And the people of Somerset and Devon, a mixed and mainly a Celtic race, who bore small love to the Saxons, drew together against him, and he put them to flight. 70
Meanwhile, Godwin and his sons Sweyn, Tostig, and Gurth, who had taken refuge in that very Flanders from which William the Duke had won his bride,—(for Tostig had wed, previously, the sister of Matilda, the rose of Flanders; and Count Baldwin had, for his sons-in-law, both Tostig and William,)—meanwhile, I say, these, not holpen by the Count Baldwin, but helping themselves, lay at Bruges, ready to join Harold the Earl. And Edward, advised of this from the anxious Norman, caused forty ships 71 to be equipped, and put them under command of Rolf, Earl of Hereford. The ships lay at Sandwich in wait for Godwin. But the old Earl got from them, and landed quietly on the southern coast. And the fort of Hastings opened to his coming with a shout from its armed men.
All the boatmen, all the mariners, far and near, thronged to him, with sail and with shield, with sword and with oar. All Kent (the foster-mother of the Saxons) sent forth the cry, “Life or death with Earl Godwin.” 72 Fast over the length and breadth of the land, went the bodes 73 and riders of the Earl; and hosts, with one voice, answered the cry of the children of Horsa, “Life or death with Earl Godwin.” And the ships of King Edward, in dismay, turned flag and prow to London, and the fleet of Harold sailed on. So the old Earl met his young son on the deck of a war-ship, that had once borne the Raven of the Dane.
Swelled and gathering sailed the armament of the English men. Slow up the Thames it sailed, and on either shore marched tumultuous the swarming multitudes. And King Edward sent after more help, but it came up very late. So the fleet of the Earl nearly faced the Julliet Keape of London, and abode at Southwark till the flood-tide came up. When he had mustered his host, then came the flood tide. 74
CHAPTER II
King Edward sate, not on his throne, but on a chair of state, in the presence-chamber of his palace of Westminster. His diadem, with the three zimmes shaped into a triple trefoil 75 on his brow, his sceptre in his right hand. His royal robe, tight to the throat, with a broad band of gold, flowed to his feet; and at the fold gathered round the left knee, where now the kings of England wear the badge of St. George, was embroidered a simple cross 76. In that chamber met the thegns and proceres of his realm; but not they alone. No national Witan there assembled, but a council of war, composed at least one third part of Normans—counts, knights, prelates, and abbots of high degree.
And King Edward looked a king! The habitual lethargic meekness had vanished from his face, and the large crown threw a shadow, like a frown, over his brow. His spirit seemed to have risen from the weight it took from the sluggish blood of his father, Ethelred the Unready, and to have remounted to the brighter and earlier sources of ancestral heroes. Worthy in that hour he seemed to boast the blood and wield the sceptre of Athelstan and Alfred. 77
Thus spoke the King:
“Right worthy and beloved, my ealdermen, earls, and thegns of England; noble and familiar, my friends and guests, counts