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 Now King Edward was at heart more a Norman than an Englishman, so pious that he was called ‘the Confessor’, always weeping over imaginary sins, and forgetting his real sin, which was the neglect of the defence of his island. Like the Normans, he despised his own people. He gave himself away to his young cousin, Duke William of Normandy, and would have liked to give the crown and land of England as well—in fact he made some sort of promise to do so—and he filled his court with Norman favourites and bishops. England had never yet been a united country. Ethelred, and Canute after him, had allowed great ‘aldermen’ or earls to govern it, one for Northumbria, one for Mercia, one for Wessex; Edward continued the same plan, and so these great earls were more powerful than the King himself. Northumbria and Mercia were largely Danish at heart and looked more to Denmark than to Wessex for a king. It was on Wessex, then, that the main resistance to Normandy would fall if the Normans attacked England.

Edward had no children, and as he drew towards his death, the great Earl Harold of Wessex had to make up his mind whether he would submit to Duke William of Normandy, or call in Danish help, or seize the crown of England for himself. Ambition and patriotism both said ‘Seize it’; and on Edward's death, in January 1066, Harold did so.

Danes and Norwegians were on the alert too; and it looked as if England might be crushed between two sets of enemies. For William had long been preparing for a spring at it: he had won the friendship of Flanders; and he had the Pope on his side, for the English Church was by no means too obedient to the Pope at this time.