Harold Harefoot. 21. We will not waste much time over them. The first was called Harold, and his surname was Harefoot, because he was a swift runner. When Harold became king it seems that the two princes in Normandy, the sons of Ethelred and Emma, began to think they might have a chance of getting back their father's kingdom. The younger them, Alfred, came over to England, where his mother was. But he was seized with all his followers and most cruelly used; blinded, and afterwards killed; and the Chronicle says "Now is our trust in of Harold Harefoot was very irreligious, and he took pleasure in insulting the services of the Church. He would call out his huntsmen and his dogs with great noise and bustle, and ride off hunting just at the moment when people were going to church, where he ought to have been going too. In this way he no doubt disgusted both the clergy and the people. He only reigned about four years, and then died. 1040. Harthacnut. 22. Upon this his half-brother Harthacnut was chosen king. He was the son of Cnut and of Emma, and was at this time in Flanders with his mother, but he had been born and bred up in England. The people, therefore, hoped that he would be a good king like his father, but it turned out that he was worse even than Harold. This is the account the 'Chronicle' gives of him. "Then was Harthacnut sent after at Bruges; it was imagined to be well done. And he then came hither with sixty ships before Midsummer, and imposed a very heavy contribution, so that it was borne with difficulty; . . . and then was every one unfavourable to him who before had desired him; nor did he perform ought kingly while he reigned. He caused the dead Harold to be dragged up, and had him cast into a fen." But the Danes afterwards took the body of Harold and laid it in a burying-ground they had, where now stands the church of St. Clement Danes. 23. Harthacnut exasperated and enraged the people very much by laying on them a very heavy tax, called the Danegeld. This tax had been begun by Ethelred the Unready, to pay his tribute to the Danes, and perhaps it was partly for that reason that it was always looked on as a most hateful tax. Some of the people now rebelled and would not pay it. Then Harthacnut sent his soldiers to ravage the land and kill the people, and so made himself still more detested than before. 24. The only good thing to be said about him is, that he seems to have had some natural affection for his half-brothers, the two princes who had been brought up in Normandy. He was very angry at the cruel murder of poor Alfred, and accused Earl Godwine of having a hand in it. Godwine most solemnly swore that he was innocent, and a great many other lords swore it too; but to this day nobody knows whether he was so or not; some think one way, and some another. To please and pacify the king, he made him a splendid present. He knew how proud and fond the Danes were of their ships, and how they decorated them; and he gave Harthacnut a magnificent ship, with eighty men on board, all beautifully dressed, with fine weapons, and with golden bracelets on their arms. This present so pleased the king that he accepted Godwine's oath about Alfred's death. 25. He then invited his other brother, Edward, to come over to England and live with him, which he did. After Harthacnut had reigned about two years, he went to a marriage-feast of one of his great lords. "And as he stood at his drink he fell suddenly to the earth with a terrible struggle, and then they who were nigh took hold of him, and he afterwards spoke not a word." An inglorious and disgraceful death, after an inglorious and disgraceful reign. LECTURE XIV.-THE CONFESSOR. Edward the Confessor. The Normans and the English. The English party and Earl Godwine. Godwine's banishment and return. Harold. Westminster Abbey. 1042. Edward the 1. Now once more a descendant of Cerdic and of Egbert sate on the throne of England. Harold and Harthacnut had left no children, and Harthacnut had evidently intended his brother Edward to be king after his own death, when he invited him to come back from Normandy Confessor. and live with him. So all the people made Edward king; and he was the last king of that old royal family which had reigned so gloriously, on the whole, through those hundreds of years. 2. The people, no doubt, thought they had now got rid of the foreigners, and had a real English king again; but this was not so. Though Edward was half an Englishman by birth, he was, in fact, much more a Frenchman. We shall sometimes use the words Norman and French interchangeably now; for our old histories generally call the Normans Frenchmen, and, indeed, they had by this time become so in fact. Now Edward, besides having a French mother, had been taken to Normandy when he was quite a child, and had lived there with his uncle and cousin ever since, so that he was far more like a Frenchman than an Englishman; as any of us would have been if we had been taken to live in France with near relations when quite young, had been educated there, had talked the language, and had learnt all the ways and habits of the people. The English 3. There was a great difference between the Normans and the English, though they were such near neighbours. We learn most about this from the writings of a man called William of Malmesbury, who had a very good knowledge of what he was saying, since his father was a Norman and his mother an Englishwoman; and he was anxious to do justice to both sides, though, on the whole, he seems to have preferred his father's race. and the Normans. 4. The Normans were at this time in some respects more civilized than the English. They had more polished manners, and were more gay and bright and lively. To this hour Frenchmen are considered more polite and affable than the English, who are looked on, whether justly or unjustly, as blunt and clumsy in comparison. The Normans were skilful architects, and had built many beautiful churches and minsters far superior to those of England. We hear too that they had noble and splendid houses, in which they lived temperately and frugally; "they were delicate in their food, but not excessive;" while the English lived in "mean and despicable houses," and were overfond of eating and drinking. It had long been the habit, on festive occasions, to begin dining early in the morning, and to continue drinking and revelling all day; but they had got still worse in this way latterly, for the brutal King Harthacnut, who, as we saw, died drinking, had introduced the custom of having four great meals every day, and they would sometimes pass entire nights in drinking. 5. It seems too that the English, including the clergy, had again fallen into a very ignorant state, so that " they could scarcely stammer out the words of the sacrament, and a person who understood grammar was an object of wonder and astonishment. The nobility, given up to luxury and wantonness, went not to church in the morning after the manner of Christians, but merely in a careless manner heard matins and masses from a hurrying priest in their chambers." 6. The same writer speaks of the degrading slave-trade which was still carried on in England, and which struck him, as well it might, with great horror. But after telling us all this about the English, their ignorance, drunkenness, &c., he says, "I would not, however, have these bad propensities universally ascribed to the English. I know that many of the clergy at that day trod the path of sanctity by a blameless life; I know that many of the laity of all ranks and conditions in this nation were wellpleasing to God. Be injustice far from this account; the accusation does not involve the whole indiscriminately." 7. Edward very naturally preferred the people he was used to, and their pleasant ways; though when he became King of England he ought to have cast that aside, and set himself to understand and love his people, as Cnut had done. But though he was a good man, and in some ways a good king, he could not help showing a great partiality to the French, which led to much trouble in his days, and Edward favours the Normans. to still more afterwards. A great number of Frenchmen came over to England; and Edward favoured them very much, and gave them offices and estates, so that they grew rich at the expense of the English. But above all, he promoted the French clergy, and set them over the English. He made a Frenchman Bishop of London, and another Bishop of Dorchester. We can imagine how offensive this would be to the English, who have always been noted for their jealousy of foreigners. It appears, too, that this Bishop of Dorchester, though a Frenchman, must have been quite as ignorant as an Englishman, for when he went to Rome the Pope was very near depriving him of his bishopric, or, as the 'Chronicle' puts it, "they were very near breaking his staff, if he had not given the greater treasures, because he could not do his offices (that is, read the prayers, &c.) as well as he should." After that the king made a Frenchman Archbishop of Canterbury, and as he who holds that office is considered the highest person in the whole kingdom, next to the king, this was also a great insult to the English. 8. Nevertheless, on the whole, Edward was much beloved. He was of a gentle and pious nature; not clever, but meek and good. He seems, too, to have been good-looking, and he had pleasant, polished manners, which he had learnt His piety and goodness. in France. The 'Chronicle' says that though he had dwelt so long in exile, "he was aye blithe of mood," cheerful and calm. He pleased the people greatly by taking off a heavy tax which had oppressed them very much. The tale is, that one year, when it had just been collected, the king was brought to see the masses of gold. He was so struck with the sight, and with the thought of the misery it must cause the people to have so much money wrung out of them, that he fancied he saw an exulting little devil jumping about upon the casks. This story, with several others about Edward's visions and dreams, was afterwards carved in stone, as a decoration for his chapel in Westminster Abbey, where we may still see them, though so worn away with age that they are not very easy to understand. Edward was surnamed by his people the "Confessor," which meant in those days almost the same as a saint. They thought him so nearly a saint that it was believed he could work miracles, and had the gift of prophecy. His principal miracle was healing a particular disease (scrofula) by his touch, or by the patient being bathed with the water in which the king had washed his hands. 9. We saw that in old days it was believed that the king and royal family were descended from the god Woden, and thus there |