Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/97

 HAROLD, KING OF ENGLAND 56 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 Rhiwal- lon, who swore oaths of fealty both to King Edward and to himself. It is impossible to say exactly at what date occurred that famous visit of Har- old to the court of Duke William, in Normandy, of the results of which the Nor- man 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 probably under compulsion, when he had fallen into his hands after being shipwrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, and imprisoned by its Count Guy. Mr. Freeman thinks the most probable date to be 1064. It is at least certain that Harold helped Will- iam 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 Nor- man 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 6th, 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 invasion 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 Har- old marched to meet them, resting neither day nor night. The Icelandic histo- rian, Snorro, in his dramatic narrative of the fight, tells how Harold rode out ac- companied with twenty of his housecarls to have speech with Earl Tostig, and offer him peace ; and when asked what amends King Hardrada should have for his trouble in coming, replied, " Seven feet of the ground of England, or more per- chance, seeing he is taller than other men." At Stamford Bridge Harold over- took 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 southward 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 earl- dom of Edwin, followed their king to the fatal struggle which was fought out