CHAP. X. strength was failing, but he assayed to appear in the usual kingly state. On the Festival of the Nativity and tion of Westminster. December on the two following days, one of them the day of his patron Evangelist, he wore his Crown in public. But the Consecra- exertion was too much for him. The fourth day, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, had been appointed for the great but Eadward was no longer able to take any ceremony; 28, 1065. personal part in the rite which he had so long looked forward to as the crowning act of his life. The minster was hallowed with all the rites of the Church, but the Founder's share in the ceremony was discharged by deputy; Eadward, King, saint, and founder, was represented in that day's solemnity by his wife the Lady Eadgyth.2 Eadward's work on earth was now over; his church was finished and hallowed, and it was soon to be the scene of rites still more solemn, still more memorable. Saint Peter's minster had been built to be the crowning-place and the buryingplace of future Kings of the English. Its special functions soon fell thick upon the newly hallowed temple. Before another year had passed, the West Minster was to be the scene of one royal burial, of two royal consecrations, and those consecrations the two most memorable that England But it had not to wait for months, or even for weeks, before its special history began. The sound of the workman's hammer had hardly ceased, the voice of the ever saw. simul et coronâ decorando adsistere." So directly after (399), “Convenientibus in unum episcopis cunctisque regni proceribus, sacra dedicationis sollennitas inchoatur." 1 Æthel. 398, 399. Will. Malms. ii. 228. "In Natale Domini apud Lundoniam coronatus est." 2 The consecration "on Cyldamæsse dæg" is asserted by all three Chronicles, by Florence, and by William of Malmesbury. "Lét halgian" is the phrase of Abingdon and Worcester; so Florence," cum magnâ gloriâ dedicari fecit," and William of Malmesbury, "dedicari præcepit." The action of Eadgyth comes from Æthelred, 399; "Rex, quantùm valetudo permittebat, favebat officio, sed Regina, omnia disponens, omnia procurans, sollicita de omnibus, intenta omnibus, utriusque vicem implevit." CONSECRATION OF WESTMINSTER. 515 Eadward. Burial of consecrating Prelate was hardly hushed into silence, before CHAP. X. the church of the Apostle was put to the lofty purposes for which it was designed. Before the Christmas Festival was over, it beheld the funeral rites of its founder, the coronation rites of his successor. The days of the holy season Death of were not yet accomplished, the Witan of England had not January 5, yet departed to their homes, when the last royal son of 1066. Woden was borne to his grave, and his Imperial Crown Eadward was placed on the brow of one whose claim was not drawn only from the winding-sheet of his fathers. The most Harold. eventful year of our history had begun, but its first week 1066. had not yet fully passed away, when Eadward, the son of Æthelred and Emma, was gathered to his fathers, and Harold, the son of Godwine and of Gytha, was King of the English and Lord of the Isle of Britain.' and coro nation of January 6, We have thus, through the three and twenty years of Summary. Eadward's reign, traced what we may fairly look upon as the first stage of the Norman Conquest. Under a King, English by birth but Norman in feelings and habits, England has been brought under a direct Norman influence, which seemed at one moment likely to bring with it the peaceful establishment of Norman dominion. We have seen the Court of England swarming with Norman favourites; we have seen the Church of England handed over to the government of Norman Prelates; we have seen Norman adventurers enriched with English estates, and covering the land with those frowning castles on which our fathers looked as the special badges of wrong and slavery. Above all, we have seen the Duke of the Normans, not only received with 1 I reserve the details of Eadward's death for my next Chapter. It is so essentially connected with the accession of Harold that the two events can hardly be separated in narration, and the different accounts of the death-bed scene at once lead us to the discussion of the question as to Eadward's dying recommendation with regard to his successor. CHAP. X. special honours at the English Court, but encouraged to look upon himself as the destined successor to the English Crown. A national reaction, almost rising to the rank of a revolution, has broken the yoke of the strangers, has driven the most guilty from the land, and has placed England and her King once more under the rule of the noblest of her own sons. Still the effect of those days of Norman influence was not wiped out; the land had not been wholly cleared of the strangers, and, what is of far more moment, the wary and wily chief of the strangers had been armed with a pretext plausible enough to win him general support wherever the laws of England were unknown. 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. thus enter on the second, the decisive, stage of the great struggle. It is no longer a half concealed strife for influence, for office, for a peaceful succession to the Crown. It is an open warfare of nation against nation, of man against man. England and Normandy, Harold and William, are now brought face to face. The days of debate and compromise are past; the sword alone can now judge between England and her enemy. The details of that memorable conflict, the events of that wonderful year which forms the turning-point of all English history, will form the third portion of my tale, the culminating point of the History of the Norman Conquest. We APPENDIX. NOTE A. p. 5. THE ELECTION AND CORONATION OF EADWARD. IN reading the account of Eadward's accession to the Crown, as told in the Chronicles and by Florence, we are at once struck by the great and unusual delay between his first election and his consecration as King. He is chosen in London in June by a popular movement which could not even wait for the burial of the deceased King; but he is not crowned till the Easter of the next year. No explanation is given of the delay, no account of the way in which the intervening months were occupied, no statement where Eadward was at the time of Harthacnut's death. We must therefore look to other writers for the means of filling up this singular gap. I need hardly again refute the wild romance of Thierry, of which I spoke in vol. i. p. 592. I will only say that Eadward's Westminster Charter (Cod. Dipl. iv. 173), which, doubtful as it is, is at least as good authority as Brompton or Knighton, makes him speak of himself as "eo [regno] potitus sine ullo bellorum labore." It will be more profitable to examine the witness of those writers who wrote at all near the time, or who were at all likely to preserve contemporary traditions. According to Eadward's Biographer (p. 394), as soon as England was free from her Danish rulers (see vol. i. p. 592), Godwine at once proposed the election of Eadward as the natural heir ("ut Regem suum recipiant in nativi juris sui throno"). Godwine being looked on as a common father, everybody agreed to his proposal ("quoniam pro patre ab omnibus habebatur, in paterno consultu libenter audiebatur "). Earls and Bishops are sent to fetch Eadward CHAP. X. special honours at the English Court, but encouraged to look upon himself as the destined successor to the English Crown. A national reaction, almost rising to the rank of a revolution, has broken the yoke of the strangers, has driven the most guilty from the land, and has placed England and her King once more under the rule of the noblest of her own sons. Still the effect of those days of Norman influence was not wiped out; the land had not been wholly cleared of the strangers, and, what is of far more moment, the wary and wily chief of the strangers had been armed with a pretext plausible enough to win him general support wherever the laws of England were unknown. 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. thus enter on the second, the decisive, stage of the great struggle. It is no longer a half concealed strife for influence, for office, for a peaceful succession to the Crown. It is an open warfare of nation against nation, of man against man. England and Normandy, Harold and William, are now brought face to face. The days of debate and compromise are past; the sword alone can now judge between England and her enemy. The details of that memorable conflict, the events of that wonderful year which forms the turning-point of all English history, will form the third portion of my tale, the culminating point of the History of the Norman Conquest. We |