Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/439

 sion. In the course of a second attack the duke pressed close to where the king stood, and slew Gyrth, whose death was followed by that of Leofwine. No great advantage, however, was gained until William, by ordering a pretended flight, tempted the right wing to break its order and pursue. This enabled the Norman cavalry to gain a portion of the hill and engage the English centre without having to charge up the ascent. They pressed on the English, who stood so closely that the slain could scarcely fall (, p. 134). The English were bigger and stronger than the Normans, and swung their battle-axes with deadly effect (ib. p. 133). Harold played the part of a warrior as well as of a general ; his strength and valour are freely acknowledged by Norman writers, and it is said no one escaped that came within reach of his arm ; one stroke of his battle-axe sufficed to fell both horse and rider (ib. p. 136; i. 227 ;  iii. 243).

Gradually the blows of the English waxed feebler, and their number dwindled, yet Harold still stood his ground. He and those who stood with him continued from time to time to beat back their assailants, and kept unbroken order. As evening came on the duke bade his archers shoot upwards so that their arrows might fall on the faces of the closely packed body of English (, p. 763). One of these arrows pierced Harold's eye and brought him to the ground (tapestry; iii. 242-3). At this moment a charge was made on the English by twenty knights, who had vowed to carry off the king's standard. Several of them were slain, but the rest succeeded in their attempt ; four of them, Eustace of Boulogne, Ivo, heir of Guy of Ponthieu, Hugh de Montfort, and Walter Giffard the younger, slew the dying king, each giving him a wound, and one hewing off his leg, an unknightly deed, for which the Conqueror turned him out of his service (, i. 537 sq. ; iii. 243). On the next day Harold's mother, Gytha, sent to the Conqueror, offering him the weight of the king's body in gold if he would allow her to bury it. He refused, declaring that Harold should be buried on the shore of the land which he sought to guard (, p. 502 :, i. 573 sq.) Search was made for his body by two of the priests of his church at Waltham, who had watched the fight, but they could not recognise it. Then they fetched Edith Swan-neck, his former love, who recognised the body, not by the face, for that was mangled, but by some marks known only to her (De Inventione, c. 21). By the Conqueror's order William Malet is said to have buried the corpse on the sea coast, and raised above the grave a cairn of stones. On the other hand, it is asserted by good authorities that Harold was buried at Waltham (De Inventione; ), and it seems fairly certain that this was the case, and that the two stories are to be reconciled by assuming that after his body had been buried by William Malet it was transferred to his church at Waltham (Norman Conquest, iii. 517-21, 781-4). His body was again translated in the twelfth century, when some alteration was made in the fabric of the church, and the writer of the 'De Inventione Crucis' records that he then saw and touched the king's bones. His tomb, which was in front of the high altar, is mentioned by Knighton (c. 2342) ; it was destroyed at the dissolution of the abbey, but some remains of it were to be seen when Fuller wrote his 'History of Waltham Abbey' (p. 259). As early as the date of the writing of the 'De Inventione' it was believed by some that Harold was not slain in the battle, that he was sorely wounded, but escaped and lived to a great age as a hermit at Chester, and there died (c. 21). The story is noticed by Giraldus Cambrensis (Itin. Kambriæ, vi. 140), by Ailred of Rievaulx (c. 394), by Ralph of Coggeshall (p. 1), who says that he lived until the last years of the reign of Henry II, and later writers, and it is given with many embellishments in the 'Vita Haroldi,' and is the principal subject of that book. Harold's widow, Ealdgyth, was sent by her brothers to Chester for safety about the time of his death ; nothing further is known about her (Norman Conquest, iv. 588). Harold had three sons and two daughters, probably by Edith Swan-neck, Godwine, Edmund, and Magnus, who took shelter in Ireland, and in 1066 gathered a fleet manned by Irish Danes, attacked Bristol, fought with Eadnoth the staller [q. v.] in Somerset, and ravaged the coast of Devonshire ; two of them repeated their ravages the following year (A.-S. Chron. Worcester;, p. 513; , vii. 41). The two daughters were Gunhild and Gytha (Norman Conquest, iv. 754-7). Ealdgyth had a son by him, born soon after his death, named Harold ( i. 276), who took part in the expedition of Magnus Barefoot in 1098 ( iv. 329;, William Rufus, ii. 134, 169). He also had another son named Ulf, who, it ia assumed (Norman Conquest, iv. 765), was a twin with Harold; for this, however, there seems to be no evidence ; he may have been a son of Edith Swan-neck, or of some third