ENGLAND UNDER HAROLD HAREFOOT, HARDICANUTE, AND EDWARD THE CONFESSOR
CANUTE left three sons, by name SWEYN, HAROLD, and HARDICANUTE; but his Queen, Emma, once the Flower of Normandy, was the mother of only Hardicanute. Canute had wished his dominions1 to be divided between the three, and had wished Harold to have England; but the Saxon people in the South of England, headed by a nobleman with great possessions, called the powerful EARL GODWIN (who is said to have been originally a poor cow-boy), opposed this, and desired to have, instead, either Hardicanute, or one of the two exiled Princes who were over in Normandy. It seemed so certain that there would be more bloodshed to settle this dispute, that many people left their homes, and took refuge in the woods and swamps. Happily, however, it was agreed to refer the whole question to a great meeting at Oxford2, which decided3 that Harold should have all the country north of the Thames, with London for his capital city, and that Hardicanute should have all the south. The quarrel was so arranged; and, as Hardicanute was in Denmark troubling himself very little about anything but eating and getting drunk, his mother and Earl Godwin governed the south for him.
They had hardly begun to do so, and the trembling people who had hidden themselves were scarcely at home again, when Edward, the elder of the two exiled Princes, came over from Normandy with a few followers4, to claim the English Crown. His mother Emma, however, who only cared for her last son Hardicanute, instead of assisting him, as he expected, opposed him so strongly with all her influence that he was very soon glad to get safely back. His brother Alfred was not so fortunate. Believing in an affectionate letter, written some time afterwards to him and his brother, in his mother's name (but whether really with or without his mother's knowledge is now uncertain), he allowed himself to be tempted5 over to England, with a good force of soldiers, and landing on the Kentish coast, and being met and welcomed by Earl Godwin, proceeded into Surrey, as far as the town of Guildford. Here, he and his men halted in the evening to rest, having still the Earl in their company; who had ordered lodgings6 and good cheer for them. But, in the dead of the night, when they were off their guard, being divided into small parties sleeping soundly after a long march and a plentiful7 supper in different houses, they were set upon by the King's troops, and taken prisoners. Next morning they were drawn8 out in a line, to the number of six hundred men, and were barbarously tortured and killed; with the exception of every tenth man, who was sold into slavery. As to the wretched Prince Alfred, he was stripped naked, tied to a horse and sent away into the Isle9 of Ely, where his eyes were torn out of his head, and where in a few days he miserably10 died. I am not sure that the Earl had wilfully11 entrapped12 him, but I suspect it strongly.
Harold was now King all over England, though it is doubtful whether the Archbishop of Canterbury (the greater part of the priests were Saxons, and not friendly to the Danes) ever consented to crown him. Crowned or uncrowned, with the Archbishop's leave or without it, he was King for four years: after which short reign14 he died, and was buried; having never done much in life but go a hunting. He was such a fast runner at this, his favourite sport, that the people called him Harold Harefoot.
Hardicanute was then at Bruges, in Flanders, plotting, with his mother (who had gone over there after the cruel murder of Prince Alfred), for the invasion of England. The Danes and Saxons, finding themselves without a King, and dreading15 new disputes, made common cause, and joined in inviting16 him to occupy the Throne. He consented, and soon troubled them enough; for he brought over numbers of Danes, and taxed the people so insupportably to enrich those greedy favourites that there were many insurrections, especially one at Worcester, where the citizens rose and killed his tax-collectors; in revenge for which he burned their city. He was a brutal17 King, whose first public act was to order the dead body of poor Harold Harefoot to be dug up, beheaded, and thrown into the river. His end was worthy18 of such a beginning. He fell down drunk, with a goblet19 of wine in his hand, at a wedding-feast at Lambeth, given in honour of the marriage of his standard-bearer, a Dane named TOWED THE PROUD. And he never spoke20 again.
EDWARD, afterwards called by the monks21 THE CONFESSOR, succeeded; and his first act was to oblige his mother Emma, who had favoured him so little, to retire into the country; where she died some ten years afterwards. He was the exiled prince whose brother Alfred had been so foully22 killed. He had been invited over from Normandy by Hardicanute, in the course of his short reign of two years, and had been handsomely treated at court. His cause was now favoured by the powerful Earl Godwin, and he was soon made King. This Earl had been suspected by the people, ever since Prince Alfred's cruel death; he had even been tried in the last reign for the Prince's murder, but had been pronounced not guilty; chiefly, as it was supposed, because of a present he had made to the swinish King, of a gilded23 ship with a figure-head of solid gold, and a crew of eighty splendidly armed men. It was his interest to help the new King with his power, if the new King would help him against the popular distrust and hatred24. So they made a bargain. Edward the Confessor got the Throne. The Earl got more power and more land, and his daughter Editha was made queen; for it was a part of their compact that the King should take her for his wife.
But, although she was a gentle lady, in all things worthy to be beloved - good, beautiful, sensible, and kind - the King from the first neglected her. Her father and her six proud brothers, resenting this cold treatment, harassed25 the King greatly by exerting all their power to make him unpopular. Having lived so long in Normandy, he preferred the Normans to the English. He made a Norman Archbishop, and Norman Bishops26; his great officers and favourites were all Normans; he introduced the Norman fashions and the Norman language; in imitation of the state custom of Normandy, he attached a great seal to his state documents, instead of merely marking them, as the Saxon Kings had done, with the sign of the cross - just as poor people who have never been taught to write, now make the same mark for their names. All this, the powerful Earl Godwin and his six proud sons represented to the people as disfavour shown towards the English; and thus they daily increased their own power, and daily diminished the power of the King.
They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when he had reigned27 eight years. Eustace, Earl of Bologne, who had married the King's sister, came to England on a visit. After staying at the court some time, he set forth28, with his numerous train of attendants, to return home. They were to embark29 at Dover. Entering that peaceful town in armour30, they took possession of the best houses, and noisily demanded to be lodged31 and entertained without payment. One of the bold men of Dover, who would not endure to have these domineering strangers jingling32 their heavy swords and iron corselets up and down his house, eating his meat and drinking his strong liquor, stood in his doorway33 and refused admission to the first armed man who came there. The armed man drew, and wounded him. The man of Dover struck the armed man dead. Intelligence of what he had done, spreading through the streets to where the Count Eustace and his men were standing34 by their horses, bridle35 in hand, they passionately36 mounted, galloped37 to the house, surrounded it, forced their way in (the doors and windows being closed when they came up), and killed the man of Dover at his own fireside. They then clattered38 through the streets, cutting down and riding over men, women, and children. This did not last long, you may believe. The men of Dover set upon them with great fury, killed nineteen of the foreigners, wounded many more, and, blockading the road to the port so that they should not embark, beat them out of the town by the way they had come. Hereupon, Count Eustace rides as hard as man can ride to Gloucester, where Edward is, surrounded by Norman monks and Norman lords. 'Justice!' cries the Count, 'upon the men of Dover, who have set upon and slain39 my people!' The King sends immediately for the powerful Earl Godwin, who happens to be near; reminds him that Dover is under his government; and orders him to repair to Dover and do military execution on the inhabitants. 'It does not become you,' says the proud Earl in reply, 'to condemn40 without a hearing those whom you have sworn to protect. I will not do it.'
The King, therefore, summoned the Earl, on pain of banishment41 and loss of his titles and property, to appear before the court to answer this disobedience. The Earl refused to appear. He, his eldest42 son Harold, and his second son Sweyn, hastily raised as many fighting men as their utmost power could collect, and demanded to have Count Eustace and his followers surrendered to the justice of the country. The King, in his turn, refused to give them up, and raised a strong force. After some treaty and delay, the troops of the great Earl and his sons began to fall off. The Earl, with a part of his family and abundance of treasure, sailed to Flanders; Harold escaped to Ireland; and the power of the great family was for that time gone in England. But, the people did not forget them.
Then, Edward the Confessor, with the true meanness of a mean spirit, visited his dislike of the once powerful father and sons upon the helpless daughter and sister, his unoffending wife, whom all who saw her (her husband and his monks excepted) loved. He seized rapaciously43 upon her fortune and her jewels, and allowing her only one attendant, confined her in a gloomy convent, of which a sister of his - no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart - was abbess or jailer.
Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his way, the King favoured the Normans more than ever. He invited over WILLIAM, DUKE OF NORMANDY, the son of that Duke who had received him and his murdered brother long ago, and of a peasant girl, a tanner's daughter, with whom that Duke had fallen in love for her beauty as he saw her washing clothes in a brook44. William, who was a great warrior45, with a passion for fine horses, dogs, and arms, accepted the invitation; and the Normans in England, finding themselves more numerous than ever when he arrived with his retinue46, and held in still greater honour at court than before, became more and more haughty47 towards the people, and were more and more disliked by them.
The old Earl Godwin, though he was abroad, knew well how the people felt; for, with part of the treasure he had carried away with him, he kept spies and agents in his pay all over England.
Accordingly, he thought the time was come for fitting out a great expedition against the Norman-loving King. With it, he sailed to the Isle of Wight, where he was joined by his son Harold, the most gallant48 and brave of all his family. And so the father and son came sailing up the Thames to Southwark; great numbers of the people declaring for them, and shouting for the English Earl and the English Harold, against the Norman favourites!
The King was at first as blind and stubborn as kings usually have been whensoever they have been in the hands of monks. But the people rallied so thickly round the old Earl and his son, and the old Earl was so steady in demanding without bloodshed the restoration of himself and his family to their rights, that at last the court took the alarm. The Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Norman Bishop13 of London, surrounded by their retainers, fought their way out of London, and escaped from Essex to France in a fishing-boat. The other Norman favourites dispersed49 in all directions. The old Earl and his sons (except Sweyn, who had committed crimes against the law) were restored to their possessions and dignities. Editha, the virtuous50 and lovely Queen of the insensible King, was triumphantly51 released from her prison, the convent, and once more sat in her chair of state, arrayed in the jewels of which, when she had no champion to support her rights, her cold-blooded husband had deprived her.
The old Earl Godwin did not long enjoy his restored fortune. He fell down in a fit at the King's table, and died upon the third day afterwards. Harold succeeded to his power, and to a far higher place in the attachment52 of the people than his father had ever held. By his valour he subdued53 the King's enemies in many bloody54 fights. He was vigorous against rebels in Scotland - this was the time when Macbeth slew55 Duncan, upon which event our English Shakespeare, hundreds of years afterwards, wrote his great tragedy; and he killed the restless Welsh King GRIFFITH, and brought his head to England.
What Harold was doing at sea, when he was driven on the French coast by a tempest, is not at all certain; nor does it at all matter. That his ship was forced by a storm on that shore, and that he was taken prisoner, there is no doubt. In those barbarous days, all shipwrecked strangers were taken prisoners, and obliged to pay ransom56. So, a certain Count Guy, who was the Lord of Ponthieu where Harold's disaster happened, seized him, instead of relieving him like a hospitable57 and Christian58 lord as he ought to have done, and expected to make a very good thing of it.
But Harold sent off immediately to Duke William of Normandy, complaining of this treatment; and the Duke no sooner heard of it than he ordered Harold to be escorted to the ancient town of Rouen, where he then was, and where he received him as an honoured guest. Now, some writers tell us that Edward the Confessor, who was by this time old and had no children, had made a will, appointing Duke William of Normandy his successor, and had informed the Duke of his having done so. There is no doubt that he was anxious about his successor; because he had even invited over, from abroad, EDWARD THE OUTLAW59, a son of Ironside, who had come to England with his wife and three children, but whom the King had strangely refused to see when he did come, and who had died in London suddenly (princes were terribly liable to sudden death in those days), and had been buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. The King might possibly have made such a will; or, having always been fond of the Normans, he might have encouraged Norman William to aspire60 to the English crown, by something that he said to him when he was staying at the English court. But, certainly William did now aspire to it; and knowing that Harold would be a powerful rival, he called together a great assembly of his nobles, offered Harold his daughter ADELE in marriage, informed him that he meant on King Edward's death to claim the English crown as his own inheritance, and required Harold then and there to swear to aid him. Harold, being in the Duke's power, took this oath upon the Missal, or Prayer-book. It is a good example of the superstitions61 of the monks, that this Missal, instead of being placed upon a table, was placed upon a tub; which, when Harold had sworn, was uncovered, and shown to be full of dead men's bones - bones, as the monks pretended, of saints. This was supposed to make Harold's oath a great deal more impressive and binding62. As if the great name of the Creator of Heaven and earth could be made more solemn by a knuckle-bone, or a double-tooth, or a finger-nail, of Dunstan!
Within a week or two after Harold's return to England, the dreary63 old Confessor was found to be dying. After wandering in his mind like a very weak old man, he died. As he had put himself entirely64 in the hands of the monks when he was alive, they praised him lustily when he was dead. They had gone so far, already, as to persuade him that he could work miracles; and had brought people afflicted65 with a bad disorder66 of the skin, to him, to be touched and cured. This was called 'touching67 for the King's Evil,' which afterwards became a royal custom. You know, however, Who really touched the sick, and healed them; and you know His sacred name is not among the dusty line of human kings.
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1
dominions
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| 统治权( dominion的名词复数 )； 领土； 疆土； 版图 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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wilfully
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| adv.任性固执地；蓄意地 | |
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entrapped
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| v.使陷入圈套，使入陷阱( entrap的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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15
dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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goblet
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| n.高脚酒杯 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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21
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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foully
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| ad.卑鄙地 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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bishops
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| （基督教某些教派管辖大教区的）主教( bishop的名词复数 )； （国际象棋的）象 | |
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27
reigned
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| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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embark
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| vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机 | |
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30
armour
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| （=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队 | |
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31
lodged
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| v.存放( lodge的过去式和过去分词 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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32
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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37
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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38
clattered
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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39
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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40
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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41
banishment
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| n.放逐，驱逐 | |
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42
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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43
rapaciously
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| adv.贪婪地；强取地，贪婪地 | |
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44
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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45
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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46
retinue
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| n.侍从；随员 | |
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47
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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48
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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49
dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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50
virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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51
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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52
attachment
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| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
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53
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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54
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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55
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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56
ransom
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| n.赎金，赎身；v.赎回，解救 | |
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57
hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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58
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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59
outlaw
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| n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法 | |
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60
aspire
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| vi.(to，after)渴望，追求，有志于 | |
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61
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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62
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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63
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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64
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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65
afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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67
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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