Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7674] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on April 8, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** Start of the project gutenberg
EBOOK Harold, by Lytton, book 3
***
THE HOUSE OF GODWIN.
And all went to the desire of Duke William the Norman.
With one hand he curbed his proud vassals, and drove
back his fierce foes. With the other, he led
to the altar Matilda, the maid of Flanders; and all
happened as Lanfranc had foretold. William’s
most formidable enemy, the King of France, ceased
to conspire against his new kinsman; and the neighbouring
princes said, “The Bastard hath become one of
us since he placed by his side the descendant of Charlemagne.”
And Mauger, Archbishop of Rouen, excommunicated the
Duke and his bride, and the ban fell idle; for Lanfranc
sent from Rome the Pope’s dispensation and blessing
[69], conditionally only that bride and bridegroom
founded each a church. And Mauger was summoned
before the synod, and accused of unclerical crimes;
and they deposed him from his state, and took from
him abbacies and sees. And England every day
waxed more and more Norman; and Edward grew more feeble
and infirm, and there seemed not a barrier between
the Norman Duke and the English throne, when suddenly
the wind blew in the halls of heaven, and filled the
sails of Harold the Earl.
And his ships came to the mouth of the Severn.
And the people of Somerset and Devon, a mixed and
mainly a Celtic race, who bore small love to the Saxons,
drew together against him, and he put them to flight.
[70]
Meanwhile, Godwin and his sons Sweyn, Tostig, and
Gurth, who had taken refuge in that very Flanders
from which William the Duke had won his bride,—(for
Tostig had wed, previously, the sister of Matilda,
the rose of Flanders; and Count Baldwin had, for his
sons-in-law, both Tostig and William,)—meanwhile,
I say, these, not holpen by the Count Baldwin, but
helping themselves, lay at Bruges, ready to join Harold
the Earl. And Edward, advised of this from the
anxious Norman, caused forty ships [71] to be equipped,
and put them under command of Rolf, Earl of Hereford.
The ships lay at Sandwich in wait for Godwin.
But the old Earl got from them, and landed quietly
on the southern coast. And the fort of Hastings
opened to his coming with a shout from its armed men.
