of Somer shire ill disposed towards them. Possible CHAP. IX. Country was left, through the absence of its Earl Odda The people with the fleet, without any single responsible chief. But setshire it soon appeared that, from whatever cause, the wishes of and Devon- the people of this part of the Kingdom were not favourable to the enterprise of Harold and Leofwine. Possibly the prevalence of Celtic blood in the district may have made its inhabitants less zealous in the cause of the English grounds for their hos deliverer than the inhabitants of the purely English shires. tility. Possibly the evil deeds of Swegen, of whose government Somersetshire had been a part, may have made men who had lived under his rule less attached to the whole House of Godwine than those who had lived under the rule of Harold or of Godwine himself. And we must remember that, up to this time, Harold had done nothing to win for himself any special renown or affection beyond the bounds of his own East-Anglian Earldom. As yet he shone simply with a glory reflected from that of his father. And his enterprise bore in some points an ill look. He had not shared the place of exile of his father, nor had he taken any part in his father's attempts to bring about a peaceful restoration. He had gone, determined from the first on an armed return, to a land which might almost be looked on as an enemy's country. He now came back at the head of a force whose character could not fail to strike Englishmen with suspicion and dread. We are therefore not surprised to hear that the men of Somerset and Devon met him in arms. He landed on the borders of those two shires, in a wild and hilly region, which to this day remains thinly peopled, cut off from the chief centres even of local life, the last place within the borders of South Britain where the Harold's landing at Porlock; tales sive Australes Angli." He now calls the point where Harold landed "Occidentalium Britonum sive Anglorum fines." So marked a change of expression cannot be accidental; it must point to the still debateable character of large parts of Somerset and Devon, neither purely Welsh nor purely English. Compare the significant use of the word "Britanni” by Thietmar, commented on in vol i. p. 684. HAROLD LANDS AT PORLOCK. 315 wild stag still finds a shelter. The high ground of Exmoor, CHAP. IX. description and the whole neighbouring hilly region, reaches its highest of the point in the Beacon of Dunkery, a height whose Celtic country. name has an appropriate sound among the remains of primæval times with which it is crowned. It is the highest point in its own shire, and it is overtopped by no point in Southern England, except by some of the Tors of Dartmoor in the still further west. A descent, remarkably gradual for so great a height, leads down to the small haven of Porlock, placed on a bay of no great depth, but well defined by two bold headlands guarding it to the east and west. The coast has been subject to many changes. A submarine forest,1 reaching along the whole shore, shows that the sea must have made advances in earlier times. And there is as little doubt that it has again retreated, and that what is now an alluvial flat was, eight hundred years back, a shallow and muddy inlet, accessible to the light craft of those days. Harold therefore landed at a spot nearer than the present small harbour to the small town, or rather village, of Porlock. A landing in this Object of remote region could contribute but little to the advance- prise ment of the general scheme of Godwine; the object of Harold must have been merely to obtain provisions for his crews. He came doubtless, as we shall find his father did also, ready for peaceful supplies if a friendly country afforded them, but ready also to provide for his followers 1 I do not remember any mention in any ancient writer of this submarine forest on the Somersetshire coast; but a forest of the same kind on the other side of the Bristol Channel is spoken of by Giraldus, Exp. Hib. i. 36 (vol. v. p. 284 Dimock). In the year 1171 a violent storm laid it bare. 2 The Abingdon and Worcester Chronicles (1052) have simply "neh Sumersætan gemaran and Dafenascire" (see the same forms in the entries for the last year, and Appendix G); so Florence, "in confinio Sumersetaniæ et Dorsetanie," this last word being a mistake for Domnanie, as appears from the next sentence. The Peterborough Chronicle gives the name of the spot, "and com pa up æt Portlocan." Porlock is also mentioned in the wars of Eadward the Elder, Chronn. 915. the enter Harold's victory at Porlock; he plunders the country, and sails to join his father. CHAP. IX. by force, if force was needed for his purpose.1 But the whole neighbourhood was hostile; a large force was gathered together from both the border shires, and Harold, whether by his fault or by his misfortune, had to begin his enterprise of restoration and deliverance by fighting a battle with the countrymen whom he came to deliver. The exiles had the victory, but it is clear that they had to contend with a stout resistance on the part of a considerable body of men. More than thirty good Thegns and much other folk were slain. So large a number of Thegns collected at such a point shows that the force which they headed must have been gathered together, not merely from the immediate neighbourhood of Porlock, but from a considerable portion of the two shires.3 We may conceive that the system of beacons, which has been traced out over a long range of the hill-tops in the West of England, had done good service over the whole country long before the fleet of Harold had actually entered the haven of Porlock. But the crews of Harold's ships were doubtless picked men, and there would have been nothing wonderful in their success, even if the irregular levies of the shires greatly exceeded their own numbers. Harold now plundered without opposition, and carried off what he would in the way of goods, cattle, and men. He then sailed to the south-west, he doubled the Land's End, and sailed along the English Channel to meet his father. 1 See Appendix Z. 2 The Worcester and Abingdon Chronicles (1052) give the numbers ; "And þær ofsloh má þonne xxx. godera þegena ("nobilibus ministris,” Flor.) butan oðrum folce." 3 Chronn. Ab. and Wig. "Eger ge of Sumerston ge of Defenescire.” 4 Chron. Petrib. "And nam him on erfe and on mannum and on æhtum, swa him gewearð." Were these captives dealt with as conscripts or galley-slaves, or, considering whence the fleet came, were they intended for the Irish slave-trade? Chronn. Ab. and Wig. "And sona æfter þan for abutan Penwiðsteort." Chron. Petrib. "And gewende him pa eastweard to his feder." ESTIMATE OF HAROLD'S CONDUCT. But a man who towers above 317 Estimate of Harold's conduct. This event is the chief stain which mars the renown of CHAP. IX. Harold, and which dims the otherwise glorious picture of the return of Godwine and his house. Harold's own age perhaps easily forgave the deed. No contemporary writer speaks of it with any marked condemnation; one contemporary writer even seems distinctly to look upon it as a worthy exploit. It was in truth nothing more than the ordinary course of a banished man. Harold acted hardly worse than Osgod Clapa; he did not act by any means so badly as Elfgar. his own generation must pay, in more ways than one, the penalty of his greatness. We instinctively judge Harold by a stricter standard than any by which we judge Ælfgar and Osgod Clapa. On such a character as his it is distinctly a stain to have resorted for one moment to needless violence, or to have shed one drop of English blood without good cause. The ravage and slaughter at Porlock distinctly throws a shade over the return of Godwine and over the fair fame of his son. It is a stain rather to be regretted than harshly to be condemned; but it is a stain nevertheless. It is a stain which was fully wiped out by later labours and triumphs in the cause of England. Still we may well believe that the blood of those thirty good Thegns and of those other folk was paid for in after years by prayers and watchings and fastings before the Holy Rood of Waltham; we may well believe that it still lay heavy on the hero's soul as he marched forth to victory at Stamfordbridge and to more glorious overthrow at Senlac. sets sail. Harold and Leofwine were thus on their way to meet Godwine their father. Meanwhile the revolution was going on with June 22. all speed on the other side of England.2 Godwine had 1052. 1 Vita Eadw. 405. See Appendix Z. 2 On the narratives of Godwine's return, see Appendix AA. His first appearance off the English coast. CHAP. IX. gathered together a fleet in the Yser,1 the river of Flanders which flows by Dixmuyden and Nieuport, and falls into the sea some way south-west of Bruges. He thence set sail, one day before Midsummer eve, and sailed straight to Dungeness, south of Romney.2 At Sandwich the Earls Ralph and Odda were waiting for him, and a land force had also been called out for the defence of the coast.3 Some friendly messenger warned Godwine of his danger, and he sailed westward to Pevensey. In Sussex he was in his own country, among his immediate possessions and his immediate followers, and he seems to have designed a landing on the very spot where a landing so fatal to his house was made fourteen years later. The King's ships followed after him, but a violent storm hindered either party from carrying out its designs. Neither side knew the whereabouts of the other; the King's fleet He returns put back to Sandwich, while Godwine retired to his old to Bruges. quarters in Flanders.5 Great discontent seems to have 1 Chron. Petrib. 1052. "Da gewende Godwine eorl út fram Brycge mid his scipum to Yseran;" so the Biographer (405), “paratâ multiplici classe in fluvio Hysarâ." It is clearly not Gesoriacum or Boulogne, as Mr. Earle makes it in his Glossary. 2 Chron. Petrib. "And let út ane dæge ær midsumeres mæsse æfene ["mediante æstate," Vit. Eadw.] bæt he com to Næsse, pe is be suðan Rumenea." 3 William of Malmesbury (ii. 199) makes Eadward himself present; "Nec segnem sensit Regem illa necessitas quin ipse in navi pernoctaret, et latronum exitus specularetur, sedulo explens consilio quod manu nequibat præ senio." Eadward was now fifty at the most, and his personal presence is hardly possible, according to the authentic narratives. He had perhaps seen enough of naval service in 1049. See above, p. 98. * Chron. Petrib. "And wearð þæt wæder swide strang þæt þa eorlas ne mihton gewitan hwet Godwine eorl gefaren hæfde." The ignorance could hardly fail to be mutual. So William of Malmesbury (u. s.); “Quum cominus ventum esset, et jam pene manus consererentur, nebula densissima repente coorta furentum obtutus confudit, miseramque mortalium audaciam compescuit." William had just got one of his fits of fine writing upon him. 5 Chron. Ab. "He [Godwine] heom ætbærst, and him sylfan gebearh þær þær he þa mihte." So Florence; "Quo in loco potuit se occultavit.” But Peterborough says expressly, "And gewende pa Godwine eorl út |
