566 



HAROLD 



marked by no events of importance. He died at 

 Oxford in March 1040. 



Harold II., the last of the native English 

 kings, was the second son of Earl Godwin by his 

 Danish wife Gytha, the sister of Earl Ulf, and was 

 born about 1022. At an early age he was made 

 Earl of the East Angles, and he shared his father's 

 outlawry in 1051, finding a refuge in Ireland. Next 

 year, together with his brother Leofwin, he crossed 

 the Channel with nine ships, defeated the men of 

 Somerset and Devon at Porlock, and ravaged the 

 country, next joined his father at Portland, and 

 shared the triumph of his return. Harold was at 

 once restored to his earldom, and next year (1053) 

 succeeded to his father's earldom of the West 

 Saxons. Henceforward he was the right hand of 

 King Edward, and still more after the deaths of 

 the old Earls Leofric and Si ward, he directed the 

 whole affairs of the kingdom, with an unusual 

 union of gentleness and vigour. His brother 

 Tostig succeeded Siward as Earl of the North- 

 umbrians in 1055, and two years later two other 

 brothers were raised to earldoms : Gurth to that of 

 the East Anglians, Leofwin to one formed out of 

 Essex, Kent, and the other shires round about 

 London. Meantime Harold drove back the Welsh 

 marauders of King Griffith out of Herefordshire, 

 and added that post of danger to his earldom. 

 The death in 1057 of the ^Etheling Edward, the 

 son of Edmund Ironside, who had been brought 

 back from Hungary as heir to the throne, opened 

 up the path for Harold's ambition, and from this 

 time men's eyes rested on him as their future king. 

 And nature had equalled fortune in her kindness, 

 for his handsome and stalwart figure and his gentle 

 and conciliatory temper were kingly qualities that 

 sat well upon his sagacity, his military skill, and 

 his personal courage. Harold's policy throughout 

 was thoroughly English, contrary ' to the pre- 

 dominant French influences that had governed 

 the early part of Edward's reign. He was English 

 in everything, even to his preference for secular 

 priests to monks. He matte his pilgrimage to 

 Koine in 1058, and after his return completed his 

 church at Waltham, known later as Waltham 

 Abbey. In 1063, provoked by the fresh incursions 

 of Griffith, he marched against him, and by making 

 his men put off their heavy armour and weapons, 

 and adopt the Welshmen's own tactics, he was able 

 to traverse the whole country, and beat the enemy 

 at every point. Griffith was killed by his own 

 people, whereupon Harold gave the government to 

 the dead king's brothers, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, 

 who swore oaths of fealty both to King Edward and 

 to himself. 



It is im possible to say exactly at what date 

 occurred that famous visit of Harold to the court 

 of Duke William in Normandy, of the results of 

 which the Norman writers make so much, although 

 with many contradictions, while the English writers 

 with the most marked and careful unanimity say 

 nothing at all. It seems most likely that Harold 

 did make some kind of oath to William, most prob- 

 ably, under compulsion, when he had fallen into 

 his hands after being snipwrecked on the coast of 

 Ponthieu, and imprisoned by its Count Guy. Mr 

 Freeman thinks the most probable date to b'e 1064. 

 It is at least certain that Harold helped William in 

 a war with the Bretons, and in the Bayeux tapestry 

 we see his stalwart form lifting up two Normans at 

 once when they were in danger of being swept away 

 by the river Coesnon which divides Normandy from 

 Brittany. The Norman writers make Harold 

 formally swear fealty to William, promising to 

 marry one of his daughters, and we are told that 

 additional sanctity was given to this oath by its 

 being made upon a chest full of the most sacred 

 relics. 



In 1065 the Northumbrians rebelled against the 

 rule of Tostig, and Harold found himself compelled 

 between policy and a sense of justice to side with 

 them, and to acquiesce in their choice of Morcar 

 and the banishment of Tostig. At the beginning 

 of 1066 King Edward died, his last breath being to 

 recommend that Harold should be chosen king. 

 He was crowned on January 6, and at once set 

 himself with steadfast energy to consolidate his 

 kingdom. At York he won over the reluctant men 

 of Northumbria, and he next married Ealdgyth, 

 Griffith's widow, in order to secure the alliance of 

 her brothers, Morcar and Edwin. His short reign 

 of forty weeks and one day was occupied with 

 incessant vigilance against the attacks of two 

 formidable enemies at once. Duke William lost 

 no time in beginning his preparations for the in- 

 vasion of England, and Tostig, after trying the 

 Normans and the Scots, and filibustering along the 

 coasts on his own account, succeeded in drawing 

 to his side the famous Harold Hardrada, king of 

 Norway. In the month of September the two 

 reached the Humber, and Harold marched to meet 

 them, resting neither day nor night. The Icelandic 

 historian Snorro in his dramatic narrative of the 

 fight tells how Harold rode out accompanied with 

 twenty of his housecarls to have speech with Earl 

 Tostig and offer him peace, and when asked what 

 amends King Harold should have for his trouble in 

 coming, replied, ' Seven feet of the ground of Eng- 

 land, or more perchance, seeing he is taller than 

 other men.' At Stamford-bridge Harold overtook 

 his enemy, and after a bloody struggle won a 

 complete victory (September 25, 1066), both 

 Tostig and Harold Hardrada being among the 

 slain. But four days later Duke William landed 

 at Pevensey. Harold marched southwards with 

 the utmost haste, bringing with him the men of 

 Wessex and East Anglia and the earldoms of his 

 brothers ; but the two earls Edwin and Morcar held 

 aloof and kept back the men of the north, although 

 some of the men of Mercia, in the earldom of 

 Edwin, followed their king to the fatal struggle 

 which was fought out frbm nine in the morning till 

 past nightfall on the 14th October 1066. The Eng- 

 lish fought with the most stubborn courage, and the 

 battle was only lost by their allowing the pretended 

 flight of the Normans to draw them from their 

 impregnable position on the crest of the hill, ringed 

 with an unbroken shield wall. On its slope right 

 in front of the Norman army waved the golden 

 dragon of Wessex, as well as the king's own stand- 

 ard, a fighting man wrought upon it in gold. Here 

 Harold stood with his mighty two-handed axe, and 

 hewed down the Normans as they came. Before 

 nightfall he fell pierced through the eye with an 

 arrow. His housecarls fought where they stood till 

 they fell one by one ; his brothers Gurth and Leofwin 

 died beside him. The king's body was found 

 upon the field, recognised only by a former mis- 

 tress, the fair Eadgyth Swanneshals ( ' Edith of the 

 swan's neck'). At first William ordered it to be 

 buried on the rocks at Hastings, but seems after to 

 have permitted it to be removed to Harold's own 

 church at Waltham. Than Harold no braver or 

 more heroic figure ever filled a throne ; no king ever 

 fought more heroically for his crown. If he failed, 

 it was because he had to bow his head to fate, and 

 in his death he saved all the honour of his family 

 and his race. His tragic story has given a subject 

 For a romance to Lytton, and for a stately drama to 

 Tennyson. For the history, see vols. ii. and iii. of 

 Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest. 



Harold I., surnamed HAAEFAGER ('Falr- 

 liaired ' ), the first king of all Norway, was the 

 son of Halfdan the Black, the most powerful of 

 the jarls or petty kings of south-eastern Norway. 

 According to the popular story, he loved a high- 



