Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings โ Complete by Lytton (rm book recommendations .TXT) ๐
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- Author: Lytton
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Up rose at once baron and merchant; and when at last their spokesman was chosen, that spokesman said: โWilliam is our lord; is it not enough to pay to our lord his dues? No aid do we owe beyond the seas! Sore harassed and taxed are we already by his wars! Let him fail in this strange and unparalleled hazard, and our land is undone!โ
Loud applause followed this speech; the majority of the council were against the Duke.
โThen,โ said Fitzosborne, craftily, โI, who know the means of each man present, will, with your leave, represent your necessities to your Count, and make such modest offer of assistance as may please ye, yet not chafe your liege.โ
Into the trap of this proposal the opponents fell; and Fitzosborne, at the head of the body, returned to William. The Lord of Breteuil approached the dais, on which William sate alone, his great sword in his hand, and thus spoke:
โMy liege, I may well say that never prince has people more leal than yours, nor that have more proved their faith and love by the burdens they have borne and the monies they have granted.โ
An universal murmur of applause followed these words. โGood! good!โ almost shouted the merchants especially. Williamโs brows met, and he looked very terrible. The Lord of Breteuil gracefully waved his hand, and resumed:
โYea, my liege, much have they borne for your glory and need; much more will they bear.โ
The faces of the audience fell.
โTheir service does not compel them to aid you beyond the seas.โ
The faces of the audience brightened.
โBut now they will aid you, in the land of the Saxon as in that of the Frank.โ
โHow?โ cried a stray voice or two.
โHush, O gentilz amys. Forward, then, O my liege, and spare them in nought. He who has hitherto supplied you with two good mounted soldiers, will now grant you four; and he whoโโ
โNo, no, no!โ roared two-thirds of the assembly; โwe charged you with no such answer; we said not that, nor that shall it be!โ
Out stepped a baron.
โWithin this country, to defend it, we will serve our Count; but to aid him to conquer another manโs country, no!โ
Out stepped a knight.
โIf once we rendered this double service, beyond seas as at home, it would be held a right and a custom hereafter; and we should be as mercenary soldiers, not free-born Normans.โ
Out stepped a merchant.
โAnd we and our children would be burdened for ever to feed one manโs ambition, whenever he saw a king to dethrone, or a realm to seize.โ
And then cried a general chorus:
โโt shall not beโit shall not!โ
The assembly broke at once into knots of tens, twenties, thirties, gesticulating and speaking aloud, like freemen in anger. And ere William, with all his prompt dissimulation, could do more than smother his rage, and sit griping his sword hilt, and setting his teeth, the assembly dispersed.
Such were the free souls of the Normans under the greatest of their chiefs; and had those souls been less free, England had not been enslaved in one age, to become free again, God grant, to the end of time!
CHAPTER IX.
Through the blue skies over England there rushed the bright strangerโa meteor, a comet, a fiery star! โsuch as no man before ever saw;โ it appeared on the 8th, before the kalends of May; seven nights did it shine 235, and the faces of sleepless men were pale under the angry glare.
The river of Thames rushed blood-red in the beam, the winds at play on the broad waves of the Humber, broke the surge of the billows into sparkles of fire. With three streamers, sharp and long as the sting of a dragon, the foreboder of wrath rushed through the hosts of the stars. On every ruinous fort, by sea-coast and march, the warder crossed his breast to behold it; on hill and in thoroughfare, crowds nightly assembled to gaze on the terrible star. Muttering hymns, monks hudded together round the altars, as if to exorcise the land of a demon. The gravestone of the Saxon father-chief was lit up, as with the coil of the lightning; and the Morthwyrtha looked from the mound, and saw in her visions of awe the Valkyrs in the train of the fiery star.
On the roof of his palace stood Harold the King, and with folded arms he looked on the Rider of Night. And up the stairs of the turret came the soft steps of Haco, and stealing near to the King, he said:
โArm in haste, for the bodes have come breathless to tell thee that Tostig, thy brother, with pirate and war-ship, is wasting thy shores and slaughtering thy people!โ
CHAPTER X.
Tostig, with the ships he had gained both from Norman and Norwegian, recruited by Flemish adventurers, fled fast from the banners of Harold. After plundering the Isle of Wight, and the Hampshire coasts, he sailed up the Humber, where his vain heart had counted on friends yet left him in his ancient earldom; but Haroldโs soul of vigour was everywhere. Morcar, prepared by the Kingโs bodes, encountered and chased the traitor, and, deserted by most of his ships, with but twelve small craft Tostig gained the shores of Scotland. There, again forestalled by the Saxon King, he failed in succour from Malcolm, and retreating to the Orkneys, waited the fleets of Hardrada.
And now Harold, thus at freedom for defence against a foe more formidable and less unnatural, hastened to make secure both the sea and the coast against William the Norman. โSo great a ship force, so great a land force, no king in the land had before.โ All the summer, his fleets swept the channel; his forces โlay everywhere by the sea.โ
But alas! now came the time when the improvident waste of Edward began to be felt. Provisions and pay for the armaments failed 236. On the defective resources at Haroldโs disposal, no modern historian hath sufficiently dwelt. The last Saxon king, the chosen of the people, had not those levies, and could impose not those burdens which made his successors mighty in war; and men began now to think that, after all, there was no fear of this Norman invasion. The summer was gone; the autumn was come; was it likely that William would dare to trust himself in an enemyโs country as the winter drew near? The Saxonsโunlike their fiercer kindred of Scandinavia, had no pleasure in war;โthey fought well
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