Chapter 25

Harold sailed from Ireland to meet his father by way of the English Channel. Godwine sailed up the Thames, and London declared for him. Panic reigned among the favourites of King Eadward. The foreigners took to flight, among the fugitives being Archbishop Robert and Bishop Ulf. The gemot met and decreed the restoration of the earl and the outlawry of many Normans. The king yielded, and accorded to Godwine the kiss of peace, and a revolution was accomplished of which England may well be proud.

But a tragedy soon followed, in the death of the most renowned Englishman of that generation. During a meal at the Easter festival Godwine fell from his seat, and died after lying insensible for three days. Great was the grief of the nation. Harold, in the years that followed, became so increasingly popular that he was virtually chief ruler of England, even before the death of Eadward, which happened on January 5, 1066. His burial was followed by the coronation of Harold. But the moment of struggle was now come. The English throne had become vacant, and the Norman duke knew how to represent himself as its lawful heir, and to brand the king of the nation's choice as an usurper. The days of debate were past, and the sword alone could decide between England and her enemy.

William found one Englishman willing to help him in all his schemes, in the person of Tostig, Harold's brother, who had been outlawed at the demand of the nation, owing to his unfitness to rule his province as Earl of Northumberland. He had sunk from bad to worse. Harold had done all he could for his fallen brother, but to restore him was impossible. Tostig was at the Norman court, urging William to the invasion of England. At his own risk, he was allowed to make an incursion on the English coast. Entering the Humber, he burned several towns and slew many men. But after these ravages Tostig repaired to ask help of Harold Hardrada, whom he induced to prepare a great expedition.

Harold Hardrada and Tostig landed and marched towards York. A battle was fought between the Mercians and Norwegians at Fulford, in which the former were worsted, but Harold was marching northward. In the fearful battle of Stamford Bridge both Harold Hardrada and Tostig were slain, and the Viking host was shattered. The victorious English king was banqueting in celebration of the great victory, when a messenger appeared who had come at fleetest pace from the distant coast of Sussex.

One blow had been warded off, but another still more terrible had fallen. Three days after the fight at Stamford Bridge, William, Duke of the Normans, once the peaceful guest of Edward, had again, but in quite another guise, made good his landing on the shores of England. It was in August 1066 that the Norman fleet had set sail on its great enterprise. For several weeks a south wind had been waited for at the mouth of the River Dive, prayers and sacred rites of every kind being employed to move Heaven to send the propitious breeze. On September 28 the landing was effected at Pevensey, the ancient Anderida. There were neither, ships nor men to resist the landing. The first armed man who set foot on English ground was Duke William himself, whose foot slipped, so that he fell with both hands on the ground.

A loud cry of grief was raised at the evil omen. But the ready wit of William failed him not. "By the splendour of God," he cried, "I have taken seizin of my kingdom; the earth of England is in my hands." The whole army landed in order, but only one day was spent at Pevensey. On the next day the army marched on eastward and came to Hastings, which was fixed on as the centre of the operations of the whole campaign.

It was a hard lot for the English king to be compelled to hasten southward to dislodge the new enemy, after scarcely a moment's rest from the toils and glories of Stamford Bridge. But the heart of Harold failed him not, and the heart of England beat in unison with the heart of her king. As soon as the news came, King Harold held a council of the leaders of Stamford Bridge, or perhaps an armed gemot. He told them of the landing of the enemy; he set before them the horrors which would come upon the land if the invader succeeded in his enterprise. A loud shout of assent rose from the whole assembly. Every man pledged his faith rather to die in arms than to acknowledge any king but Harold.

The king thanked his loyal followers, and at once ordered an immediate march to the south, an immediate muster of the forces of his kingdom. London was the trysting-place. He himself pressed on at once with his immediate following. And throughout the land awoke a spirit in every English heart which has never died out to this day. The men from various shires flocked eagerly to the standard of their glorious king. Harold seems to have reached London on October 5, about ten days after the fight at Stamford Bridge, and a week after the Norman landing at Pevensey. Though his royal home was now at Westminster, he went, in order to seek divine help and succour, to pray at Waltham, the home of his earlier days, devoting one day to a pilgrimage to the Holy Cross which gave England her war-cry.

Harold and William were now both eager for the battle. The king set out from London on October 12. His consummate generalship is nowhere more plainly shown than in this memorable campaign. He formed his own plan, and he carried it out. He determined to give battle, but only on his own ground, and after his own fashion. The nature of the post shows that his real plan was to occupy a position where the Normans would have to attack him at a great disadvantage.

William constrained Harold to fight, but Harold, in his turn, constrained William to fight on ground of Harold's own choosing. The latter halted at a point distant about seven miles from the headquarters of the invaders, and pitched his camp upon the ever-memorable heights of Senlac. It was his policy not to attack. He occupied and fortified a post of great natural strength, which he speedily made into what is distinctly spoken of as a castle.

The hill of Senlac, now occupied by the abbey and town of Battle, commemorates in its later name the great event of which it was the scene.

The morning of the decisive day, Saturday, October 14, at last had come. The duke of the Normans heard mass, and received the communion in both kinds, and drew forth his troops for their march against the English post. Then in full armour, and seated on his noble Spanish war-horse, William led his host forth in three divisions. The Normans from the hill of Telham first caught sight of the English encamped on the opposite height of Senlac.

First in each of the three Norman divisions marched the archers, slingers, and cross-bow men, then the more heavily-armed infantry, lastly the horsemen. The reason of this arrangement is clear. The light-armed were to do what they could with their missiles to annoy the English; the heavy infantry were to strive to break down the palisades of the English camp, and so to make ready the way for the charge of the horse.

Like the Normans, the English had risen early. The king, after exhorting his troops to stand firm, rode to the royal post; he there dismounted, took his place on foot, and prayed to God for help. The battle began at nine in the morning--one of the sacred hours of the church. The trumpet sounded, and a flight of arrows from all three Norman divisions--right, centre, and left,--was the prelude to the onslaught of the heavy-armed foot. The real struggle now began. The French infantry had to toil up the hill, and to break down the palisade, while a shower of stones and javelins disordered their approach, and while club, sword and axe greeted all who came within the reach of hand-strokes.

Both sides fought with unyielding valour. The war-cries rose on either side. The Normans shouted "God help us!" the English called on the "Holy Cross." The Norman infantry had soon done its best, but that best had been in vain. The choicest chivalry of Europe now pressed on to the attack. The knights of Normandy and of all lands from which men had flocked to William's standard, now pressed on, striving to make what impression they could with the whole strength of themselves and their horses on the impenetrable fortress of timber, shields, and living warriors.

But all was in vain. The English had thus far stood their ground well and wisely, and the tactics of Harold had so far completely answered. Not only had every attack failed, but the great mass of the French army altogether lost heart. The Bretons and the other auxiliaries on the left were the first to give way. Horse and foot alike, they turned and fled. The whole of William's left wing was thrown into utter confusion.

The strong heart of William, however, failed him not, and by his single prowess and presence of mind he recalled the fleeing troops. Order was soon restored, and the Norman host pressed on to a second and more terrible attack. The duke himself, his relics round his neck, sought out Harold. A few moments more, and the two might have come face to face, but Gyrth, the noble brother of the English king, hurled a spear at William. The missile narrowly missed the duke, but slew the Spanish steed, the first of three that died under him that day. But William could not fight on foot as well as on horseback. He rose to his feet, pressed straight to seek the man who had so nearly slain him, and the earl fell, crushed beneath the blow of William's mace. Nor did he fall alone, for his brother, Earl Leofwine, was smitten to the earth by an unknown assailant.

The second attack, however, failed, for the English lines were as unyielding as ever. Direct attack was unavailing. In the Norman character fox and lion were equally blended, as William now showed. He ventured on the daring stratagem of ordering a pretended flight, and the unwary English rushed down the slope, pursuing the fugitive with shouts of delight. The error was fatal to England. The tide was turned; the duke's object was now gained; and the main end of Harold's skilful tactics was frustrated. The English were no longer entrenched, and the battle fell into a series of single combats. As twilight was coming on an arrow, falling like a bolt from heaven, pierced Harold's right eye, and he sank in agony at the foot of the standard. Round that standard the fight still raged, till the highest nobility, the most valiant soldiery of England were slaughtered to a man.

Had Harold lived, had another like him been ready to take his place, we may well doubt whether, even after Senlac, England would have been conquered at all. As it was, from this moment her complete conquest was only a matter of time. From that day forward the Normans began to work the will of God upon the folk of England, till there were left in England no chiefs of the land of English blood, till all were brought down to bondage and sorrow, till it was a shame to be called an Englishman, and the men of England were no more a people.

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JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

History of England

James Anthony Froude was born at Darlington, England, April 23, 1818, and died on Oct. 20, 1894. He was educated at Westminster, and Oriel College, Oxford. Taking Holy Orders, he was, for a time, deeply influenced by Newman and the Tractarian movement, but soon underwent the radical revolution of thought revealed by his first treatise, the "Nemesis of Faith," which appeared in 1849, and created a sensation. Its tendency to skepticism cost him his fellowship, but its profound pathos, its accent of tenderness, and its fervour excited wide admiration. Permanent fame was secured by the appearance, in 1856, of the first two instalments of his magnificent work, "The History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada," the last volume appearing in 1870. This treatise on the middle Tudor period is one of the most fascinating historical treatises in the whole range of literature. It is written in a vivid and graphic prose, and with rare command of the art of picturesque description. Froude never accepted the doctrine that history should be treated as a science; rather he claimed that the historian should concern himself with the dramatic aspect of the period about which he writes. The student may disagree with many of Froude's points of view and portraitures, yet his men and women breathe with the life he endows them, and their motives are actuated by the forces he sets in motion. Of his voluminous works perhaps the most notable, with the exception of the "History," are his "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," 1871-74, and his "Short Studies on Great Subjects," the latter aptly exhibiting Froude's gifts of masterful prose and glittering paradox.

_I.--The Condition of England_

In periods like the present, when knowledge is every day extending, and the habits and thoughts of mankind are perpetually changing under the influence of new discoveries, it is no easy matter to throw ourselves back into a time in which for centuries the European world grew upon a single type, in which the forms of the father's thoughts were the forms of the son's, and the late descendant was occupied in treading into paths the footprints of his ancestors.

So absolutely has change become the law of our present condition, that to cease to change is to lose place in the great race. Looking back over history, we see times of change and progress alternating with other times when life and thought have settled into permanent forms. Such was the condition of the Greeks through many ages before the Persian wars, and such, again, became the condition of Europe when the Northern nations grafted religion and the laws of the Western empire on their own hardy natures.

A condition of things differing alike both inwardly and outwardly from that into which a happier fortune has introduced ourselves, is necessarily obscure to us. In the alteration of our own characters we have lost the key which would interpret the characters of our fathers. But some broad conclusions as to what they were are, however, at least possible to us. A rough census taken at the time of the Armada shows that it was something under five millions.

The feudal system, though practically modified, was still the organising principle of the nation, and the owner of land was bound to military service at home whenever occasion required. All land was held upon a strictly military principle. The state of the working classes can best be determined by a comparison of their wages with the price of food. Both were as far as possible regulated by Act of Parliament. Wheat in the fourteenth century averaged 10d. the bushel; beef and pork were 1/2d. a pound; mutton was 3/4d. The best pig or goose could be bought for 4d.; a good capon for 3d.; a chicken for 1d.; a hen for 2d. Strong-beer, which now costs 1s. 6d. a gallon, was then a 1d. a gallon, and table beer was less than 1/2d.

A penny at the time of which we write must have been nearly equal in the reign of Henry VIII. to the present shilling. For a penny the labourer could buy as much bread, beef, beer, and wine as the labourer of to-day can for a shilling. Turning then to the question of wages, by the 3d of the 6th of Henry VIII., it was enacted that the master, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, tilers, plumbers, glaziers, joiners, and others, employers of skilled workmen should give to each of their journeymen, if no meat and drink was allowed, sixpence a day for the half year, fivepence a day for the other half; or fivepence-half penny for the yearly average. The common labourers were to receive fourpence a day for the half year; for the remaining half, threepence.

The day labourer received what was equivalent to something near twenty shillings a week, the wages at present paid in English colonies; and this is far from being a full account of his advantages. The agricultural labourer held land in connection with his house, while in most parishes there were large ranges of common and unenclosed forest land, which furnished fuel to him gratis, where pigs might range, and ducks and geese, and where, if he could afford a cow, he was in no danger of being unable to feed it; and so important was this privilege considered, that when the commons began to be largely enclosed, Parliament insisted that the working man should not be without some piece of ground on which he could employ his own and his family's industry.

By the 7th of the 31st of Elizabeth it was ordered that no cottage should be built for residence without four acres of land at lowest being attached to it for the sole use of the occupants of such cottage.

The incomes of the great nobles cannot be determined for they varied probably as much as they do now. Under Henry IV. the average income of an earl was estimated at £2,000 a year. Under Henry VIII. the great Duke of Buckingham, the wealthiest English peer, had £6,000. And the income of the Archbishop of Canterbury was rated at the same amount. But the establishments of such men were enormous. Their retinues in time of peace consisted of several hundred persons, and in time of war a large share of the expenses was paid often out of private purses.

Passing down to the body of the people, we find that £20 a year and heavy duties to do for it, represented the condition of the squire of the parish. By the 2nd of Henry V. "the wages" of a parish priest were limited to £5 6s. 8d., except in cases where there was a special license from the bishop, when they might be raised as high as £6. Both squire and priest had sufficient for comfort. Neither was able to establish any steep difference between himself and the commons among whom he lived, so far as concerned outward advantages.

The habits of all classes were free, open, and liberal. In frank style the people lived in "merry England," displaying the "glory of hospitality," England's pre-eminent boast, by the rules according to which all tables were open to all comers without reserve. To every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it, there was free fare and free lodging. The people hated three things with all their hearts--idleness, want, and cowardice.

A change, however, was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction of which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to era. Chivalry was dying; the abbey and castle were soon together to crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, and convictions of the old world were passing away never to return. A new continent had arisen beyond the western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness of the universe. In the fabric of habit which they had so laboriously built for themselves mankind were to remain no longer.

_II.--The Fall of Wolsey's Policy_

Times were changed in England since the second Henry walked barefoot through the streets of Canterbury, and knelt while the monks flogged him on the pavement in the Chapter House, doing penance for Becket's murder. The clergy had won the battle in the twelfth century because they deserved it. They were not free from fault and weakness, but they felt the meaning of their profession. Their hearts were in their vows, their authority was exercised more justly, more nobly, than the authority of the crown; and therefore, with inevitable justice, the crown was compelled to stoop before them.

The victory was great, but, like many victories, it was fatal to the conquerors. It filled them with the vanity of power; they forgot their duties in their privileges, and when, a century later, the conflict recommenced, the altering issue proved the altering nature of the conditions under which it was fought. The nation was ready for sweeping remedies. The people felt little loyalty to the pope. The clergy pursued their course to its end. They sank steadily into that condition which is inevitable from the constitution of human nature, among men without faith, wealthy, powerful, and luxuriously fed, yet condemned to celibacy and cut off from the common duties and common pleasures of ordinary life.

Many priests spent their time in hawking or hunting, in lounging at taverns, in the dissolute enjoyment of the world. If, however, there were no longer saints among the clergy, there could still arise among them a remarkable man. In Cardinal Wolsey the king found an adviser who was essentially a transition minister, holding a middle place between an English statesman and a Catholic of the old order. Under Wolsey's influence, Henry made war with Louis of France in the pope's quarrel, entered the polemic lists with Luther, and persecuted the English Protestants.

Yet Wolsey could not blind himself to the true condition of the church, before which lay the alternative of ruin or amendment. Therefore he familiarised Henry with sense that a reformation was inevitable. Dreaming that it could be effected from within, by the church itself inspired with a wiser spirit, he himself fell the first victim of a convulsion which he had assisted to create, and which he attempted too late to stay.

Wolsey talked of reformation, but delayed its coming. The monasteries grew worse and worse. Favoured parish clergy held as many as eight benefices. Bishops accumulated sees, and, unable to attend to all, attended to none. Wolsey himself, the church reformer (so little did he really know what a reformation means), was at once Archbishop of York, Bishop of Winchester and of Durham, and Abbot of St. Albans. Under such circumstances, we need not be surprised to find the clergy sunk low in the respect of the English people.

Fish's famous pamphlet shows the spirit that was seething. He spoke of what he had seen and knew. The monks, he tells the king, "be they that have made a hundred thousand idle dissolute women in your realm." But Wolsey could interfere with neither bishops nor monks without a special dispensation from the pope. A new trouble arose from the nation in the desire of Henry to divorce Catherine of Aragon, who had been his deceased brother's wife, was six years older than himself, and was an obstacle to the establishment of the kingdom. Her sons were dead, and she was beyond the period when more children could be expected. Though descent in the female line was not formally denied, no queen regent had ever, in fact, sat upon the throne; nor was the claim distinctly admitted, or the claim of the House of York would have been unquestionable. It was, therefore, with no little anxiety that the council of Henry VIII. perceived his male children, on whom their hopes were centred, either born dead, or dying one after another within a few days of their birth.

The line of the Princess Mary was precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood. If she lived, her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she did not live, and the king had no other children, a civil war was inevitable. The next heir in blood was James of Scotland, and gravely as statesmen desired the union of the two countries, in the existing mood of the people, the very stones in London streets, it was said, would rise up against a king of Scotland who entered England as sovereign.