Book: Harold, Book 12.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Harold, Book 12.






NOTE (G)

Heralds.


So much of the "pride, pomp, and circumstance" which invest the Age of
Chivalry is borrowed from these companions of princes, and blazoners
of noble deeds, that it may interest the reader, if I set briefly
before him what our best antiquaries have said as to their first
appearance in our own history.

Camden (somewhat, I fear, too rashly) says, that "their reputation,
honour, and name began in the time of Charlemagne." The first mention
of heralds in England occurs in the reign of Edward III., a reign in
which Chivalry was at its dazzling zenith. Whitlock says, "that some
derive the name of Herald from Hereauld, "a Saxon word (old soldier,
or old master), "because anciently they were chosen from veteran
soldiers." Joseph Holland says, "I find that Malcolm, King of Scots,
sent a herald unto William the Conqueror, to treat of a peace, when
both armies were in order of battle." Agard affirms, that "at the
conquest there was no practice of heraldry;" and observes truly, "that
the Conqueror used a monk for his messenger to King Harold."

To this I may add, that monks or priests also fulfil the office of
heralds in the old French and Norman Chronicles. Thus Charles the
Simple sends an archbishop to treat with Rolfganger; Louis the
Debonnair sends to Mormon, chief of the Bretons, "a sage and prudent
abbot." But in the Saxon times, the nuncius (a word still used in
heraldic Latin) was in the regular service both of the King and the
great Earls. The Saxon name for such a messenger was bode, and when
employed in hostile negotiations, he was styled warbode. The
messengers between Godwin and the King would seem, by the general
sense of the chronicles, to have been certain thegns acting as
mediators.



NOTE (H)

The Fylgia, or Tutelary Spirit.


This lovely superstition in the Scandinavian belief is the more
remarkable because it does not appear in the creed of the Germanic
Teutons, and is closely allied with the good angel, or guardian
genius, of the Persians. It forms, therefore, one of the arguments
that favour the Asiatic origin of the Norsemen.

The Fylgia (following, or attendant, spirit) was always represented as
a female. Her influence was not uniformly favourable, though such was
its general characteristic. She was capable of revenge if neglected,
but had the devotion of her sex when properly treated. Mr. Grenville
Pigott, in his popular work, entitled "A Manual of Scandinavian
Mythology," relates an interesting legend with respect to one of these
supernatural ladies:

A Scandinavian warrior, Halfred Vandraedakald, having embraced
Christianity, and being attacked by a disease which he thought mortal,
was naturally anxious that a spirit who had accompanied him through
his pagan career should not attend him into that other world, where
her society might involve him in disagreeable consequences. The
persevering Fylgia, however; in the shape of a fair maiden, walked on
the waves of the sea after her viking's ship. She came thus in sight
of all the crew; and Halfred, recognising his Fylgia, told her point
blank that their connection was at an end for ever. The forsaken
Fylgia had a high spirit of her own, and she then asked Thorold "if he
would take her." Thorold ungallantly refused; but Halfred the younger
said, "Maiden, I will take thee." [284]

In the various Norse Saga there are many anecdotes of these spirits,
who are always charming, because, with their less earthly attributes,
they always blend something of the woman. The poetry embodied in
their existence is of a softer and more humane character than that
common with the stern and vast demons of the Scandinavian mythology.



NOTE (I)

The Origin of Earl Godwin.


Sharon Turner quotes from the Knytlinga Saga what he calls "an
explanation of Godwin's career or parentage, which no other document
affords;" viz.--"that Ulf, a Danish chief, after the battle of
Skorstein, between Canute and Edmund Ironsides, pursued the English
fugitives into a wood, lost his way, met, on the morning, a Saxon
youth driving cattle to their pasture, asked him to direct him in
safety to Canute's ships, and offered him the bribe of a gold ring for
his guidance; the young herdsman refused the bribe, but sheltered the
Dane in the cottage of his father (who is represented as a mere
peasant), and conducted him the next morning to the Danish camp;
previously to which, the youth's father represented to Ulf, that his
son, Godwin, could never, after aiding a Dane to escape, rest in
safety with his countrymen, and besought him to befriend his son's
fortunes with Canute." The Dane promised, and kept his word; hence
Godwin's rise. Thierry, in his "History of the Norman Conquest,"
tells the same story, on the authority of Torfaeus, Hist. Rer. Norweg.
Now I need not say to any scholar in our early history, that the Norse
Chronicles, abounding with romance and legend, are never to be received
as authorities counter to our own records, though occasionally
valuable to supply omissions in the latter; and, unfortunately for
this pretty story, we have against it the direct statements of the
very best authorities we possess, viz. The Saxon Chronicle and
Florence Of Worcester. The Saxon Chronicle expressly tells us that
Godwin's father was Childe of Sussex (Florence calls him minister or
thegn of Sussex [285]), and that Wolnoth was nephew to Edric, the all-
powerful Earl or Duke of Mercia. Florence confirms this statement,
and gives the pedigree, which may be deduced as follows:

________________________________
| |
Edric married Egelric,
Edgith, daughter of surnamed Leofwine
King Ethelred II. |
Egelmar,
|
Wolnoth.
|
Godwin.

Thus this "old peasant," as the North Chronicles call Wolnoth, as,
according to our most unquestionable authorities, a thegn of one of
the most important divisions in England, and a member of the most
powerful family in the kingdom! Now, if our Saxon authorities needed
any aid from probabilities, it is scarcely worth asking, which is the
more probable, that the son of a Saxon herdsman should in a few years
rise to such power as to marry the sister of the royal Danish
Conqueror--or that that honour should be conferred on the most able
member of a house already allied to Saxon royalty, and which evidently
retained its power after the fall of its head, the treacherous Edric
Streone! Even after the Conquest, one of Streone's nephews, Edricus
Sylvaticus, is mentioned (Simon. Dunelm.) as "a very powerful thegn.
"Upon the whole, the account given of Godwin's rise in the text of the
work appears the most correct that conjectures, based on our scanty
historical information, will allow.

In 1009 A.D., Wolnoth, the Childe or Thegn of Sussex, defeats the
fleets of Ethelred, under his uncle Brightric, and goes therefore into
rebellion. Thus when, in 1014 (five years afterwards), Canute is
chosen king by all the fleet, it is probable that Wolnoth and Godwin,
his son, espoused his cause; and that Godwin, subsequently presented
to Canute as a young noble of great promise, was favoured by that
sagacious king, and ultimately honoured with the hand, first of his
sister, secondly of his niece, as a mode of conciliating the Saxon
thegns.



NOTE (K)

The want of Fortresses in England.


The Saxons were sad destroyers. They destroyed the strongholds which
the Briton had received from the Roman, and built very few others.
Thus the land was left open to the Danes. Alfred, sensible of this
defect, repaired the walls of London and other cities, and urgently
recommended his nobles and prelates to build fortresses, but could not
persuade them. His great-souled daughter, Elfleda, was the only
imitator of his example. She built eight castles in three years.
[286]

It was thus that in a country, in which the general features do not
allow of protracted warfare, the inhabitants were always at the hazard
of a single pitched battle. Subsequent to the Conquest, in the reign
of John, it was, in truth, the strong castle of Dover, on the siege of
which Prince Louis lost so much time, that saved the realm of England
from passing to a French dynasty: and as, in later periods,
strongholds fell again into decay, so it is remarkable to observe how
easily the country was overrun after any signal victory of one of the
contending parties. In this truth, the Wars of the Roses abound with
much instruction. The handful of foreign mercenaries with which Henry
VII. won his crown,--though the real heir, the Earl of Warwick
(granting Edward IV.'s children to be illegitimate, which they clearly
were according to the rites of the Church), had never lost his claim,
by the defeat of Richard at Bosworth;--the march of the Pretender to
Derby,--the dismay it spread throughout England,--and the certainty of
his conquest had he proceeded;--the easy victory of William III. at a
time when certainly the bulk of the nation was opposed to his cause;--
are all facts pregnant with warnings, to which we are as blind as we
were in the days of Alfred.



NOTE (L)

The Ruins of Penmaen-mawr.


In Camden's Britannia there is an account of the remarkable relics
assigned, in the text, to the last refuge of Gryffyth ap Llewellyn,
taken from a manuscript by Sir John Wynne in the time of Charles I.
In this account are minutely described, "ruinous walls of an exceeding
strong fortification, compassed with a treble wall, and, within each
wall, the foundations of at least one hundred towers, about six yards
in diameter within the walls. This castle seems (while it stood)
impregnable; there being no way to offer any assault on it, the hill
being so very high, steep, and rocky, and the walls of such strength,
--the way or entrance into it ascending with many turnings, so that one
hundred men might defend themselves against a whole legion; and yet it
should seem that there were lodgings within those walls for twenty
thousand men.

"By the tradition we receive from our ancestors, this was the
strongest refuge, or place of defence, that the ancient Britons had in
all Snowdon; moreover, the greatness of the work shows that it was a
princely fortification, strengthened by nature and workmanship." [287]

But in the year 1771, Governor Pownall ascended Penmaen-mawr,
inspected these remains, and published his account in the
Archaeologia, vol. iii. p. 303, with a sketch both of the mount and
the walls at the summit. The Governor is of opinion that it never was
a fortification. He thinks that the inward inclosure contained a carn
(or arch-Druid's sepulchre), that there is not room for any lodgment,
that the walls are not of a kind which can form a cover, and give at
the same time the advantage of fighting from them. In short, that the
place was one of the Druids' consecrated high places of worship. He
adds, however, that "Mr. Pennant has gone twice over it, intends to
make an actual survey, and anticipates much from that great
antiquary's knowledge and accuracy."

We turn next to Mr. Pennant, and we find him giving a flat
contradiction to the Governor. "I have more than once," [288] says
he, "visited this noted rock, to view the fortifications described by
the editor of Camden, from some notes of that sensible old baronet,
Sir John Wynne, of Gwidir, and have found his account very just.

"The fronts of three, if not four walls, presented themselves very
distinctly one above the other. I measured the height of one wall,
which was at the time nine feet, the thickness seven feet and a half."
(Now, Governor Pownall also measured the walls, agrees pretty well
with Pennant as to their width, but makes them only five feet high.)
"Between these walls, in all parts, were innumerable small buildings,
mostly circular. These had been much higher, as is evident from the
fall of stones which lie scattered at their bottoms, and probably had
once the form of towers, as Sir John asserts. Their diameter is, in
general, from twelve to eighteen feet (ample room here for lodgement);
the walls were in certain places intersected with others equally
strong. This stronghold of the Britons is exactly of the same kind
with those on Carn Madryn, Carn Boduan, and Tre'r Caer."

"This was most judiciously chosen to cover the passage into Anglesey,
and the remoter part of their country; and must, from its vast
strength, have been invulnerable, except by famine; being inaccessible
by its natural steepness towards the sea, and on the parts fortified
in the manner described." So far, Pennant versus Pownall! "Who shall
decide when doctors disagree?" The opinion of both these antiquarians
is liable to demur. Governor Pownall might probably be a better judge
of military defences than Pennant; but he evidently forms his notions
of defence with imperfect knowledge of the forts, which would have
amply sufficed for the warfare of the ancient Britons; and moreover,
he was one of those led astray by Bryant's crotchets as to "High
places," etc. What appears most probable is, that the place was both
carn and fort; that the strength of the place, and the convenience of
stones, suggested the surrounding the narrow area of the central
sepulchre with walls, intended for refuge and defence. As to the
circular buildings, which seem to have puzzled these antiquaries, it
is strange that they appear to have overlooked the accounts which
serve best to explain them. Strabo says that "the houses of the
Britons were round, with a high pointed covering--," Caesar says that
they were only lighted by the door; in the Antonine Column they are
represented as circular, with an arched entrance, single or double.
They were always small, and seem to have contained but a single room.
These circular buildings were not, therefore, necessarily Druidical
cells, as has been supposed; nor perhaps actual towers, as contended
for by Sir John Wynne; but habitations, after the usual fashion of
British houses, for the inmates or garrison of the enclosure. Taking
into account the tradition of the spot mentioned by Sir John Wynne,
and other traditions still existing, which mark, in the immediate
neighbourhood, the scenes of legendary battles, it is hoped that the
reader will accept the description in the text as suggesting, amidst
conflicting authorities, the most probable supposition of the nature
and character of these very interesting remains in the eleventh
century [289], and during the most memorable invasion of Wales (under
Harold), which occurred between the time of Geraint, or Arthur, and
that of Henry II.



NOTE (M)

The Idol Bel.


Mons. Johanneau considers that Bel, or Belinus, is derived from the
Greek, a surname of Apollo, and means the archer; from Belos, a dart
or arrow. [290]

I own I think this among the spurious conceits of the learned,
suggested by the vague affinities of name. But it is quite as likely,
(if there be anything in the conjecture,) that the Celt taught the
Greek, as that the Greek taught the Celt.

There are some very interesting questions, however, for scholars to
discuss--viz. 1st, When did the Celts first introduce idols? 2d, Can
we believe the classical authorities that assure us that the Druids
originally admitted no idol worship? If so, we find the chief idols
of the Druids cited by Lucan; and they therefore acquired them long
before Lucan's time. From whom would they acquire them? Not from the
Romans; for the Roman gods are not the least similar to the Celtic,
when the last are fairly examined. Nor from the Teutons, from whose
deities those of the Celt equally differ. Have we not given too much
faith to the classic writers, who assert the original simplicity of
the Druid worship? And will not their popular idols be found to be as
ancient as the remotest traces of the Celtic existence? Would not the
Cimmerii have transported them from the period of their first
traditional immigration from the East? and is not their Bel identical
with the Babylonian deity?



NOTE (N)

Unguents used by Witches.


Lord Bacon, speaking of the ointments used by the witches, supposes
that they really did produce illusions by stopping the vapours and
sending them to the head. It seems that all witches who attended the
sabbat used these unguents, and there is something very remarkable in
the concurrence of their testimonies as to the scenes they declared
themselves to have witnessed, not in the body, which they left behind,
but as present in the soul; as if the same anointments and
preparatives produced dreams nearly similar in kind. To the believers
in mesmerism I may add, that few are aware of the extraordinary degree
to which somnambulism appears to be heightened by certain chemical
aids; and the disbelievers in that agency, who have yet tried the
experiments of some of those now neglected drugs to which the medical
art of the Middle Ages attached peculiar virtues, will not be inclined
to dispute the powerful and, as it were, systematic effect which
certain drugs produce on the imagination of patients with excitable
and nervous temperaments.



NOTE (O)

Hilda's Adjurations.

I.

"By the Urdar fount dwelling,
Day by day from the rill,
The Nornas besprinkle
The Ash Ygg-drasill."

The Ash Ygg-drasill.--Much learning has been employed by Scandinavian
scholars in illustrating the symbols supposed to be couched under the
myth of the Ygg-drasill, or the great Ash-tree. With this I shall not
weary the reader; especially since large systems have been built on
very small premises, and the erudition employed has been equally
ingenious and unsatisfactory: I content myself with stating the simple
myth.

The Ygg-drasill has three roots; two spring from the infernal regions
--i.e. from the home of the frost-giants, and from Niffl-heim, "vapour-
home, or hell"--one from the heavenly abode of the Asas. Its
branches, says the Prose Edda, extend over the whole universe, and its
stem bears up the earth. Beneath the root, which stretches through
Niffl-heim, and which the snake-king continually gnaws, is the fount
whence flow the infernal rivers. Beneath the root, which stretches in
the land of the giants, is Mimir's well wherein all wisdom is
concealed; but under the root which lies in the land of the gods, is
the well of Urda, the Norna--here the gods sit in judgment. Near this
well is a fair building, whence issue the three maidens, Urda,
Verdandi, Skulda (the Past, the Present, the Future). Daily they
water the ash-tree from Urda's well, that the branches may not perish.
Four harts constantly devour the birds and branches of the Ash-tree.
On its boughs sits an eagle, wise in much; and between its eyes sits a
hawk. A squirrel runs up and down the tree sowing strife between the
eagle and the snake.

Such, in brief, is the account of the myth. For the various
interpretations of its symbolic meaning, the general reader is
referred to Mr. Blackwell's edition of MALLETT's Northern Antiquities,
and PIGOTT's Scandinavian Manual.



NOTE (P)

Harold's Accession.


There are, as is well known, two accounts as to Edward the Confessor's
death-bed disposition of the English crown. The Norman chroniclers
affirm, first, that Edward promised William the crown during his exile
in Normandy; secondly, that Siward, Earl of Northumbria, Godwin, and
Leofric had taken oath, "serment de la main," to receive him as
Seigneur after Edward's death, and that the hostages, Wolnoth and
Haco, were given to the Duke in pledge of that oath [291]; thirdly,
that Edward left him the crown by will.

Let us see what probability there is of truth in these three
assertions.

First, Edward promised William the crown when in Normandy. This seems
probable enough, and it is corroborated indirectly by the Saxon
chroniclers, when they unite in relating Edward's warnings to Harold
against his visit to the Norman court. Edward might well be aware of
William's designs on the crown (though in those warnings he refrains
from mentioning them)--might remember the authority given to those
designs by his own early promise, and know the secret purpose for
which the hostages were retained by William, and the advantages he
would seek to gain from having Harold himself in his power. But this
promise in itself was clearly not binding on the English people, nor
on any one but Edward, who, without the sanction of the Witan, could
not fulfil it. And that William himself could not have attached great
importance to it during Edward's life, is clear, because if he had,
the time to urge it was when Edward sent into Germany for the
Atheling, as the heir presumptive of the throne. This was a virtual
annihilation of the promise; but William took no step to urge it, made
no complaint and no remonstrance.

Secondly, That Godwin, Siward, and Leofric, had taken oaths of fealty
to William.

This appears a fable wholly without foundation. When could those
oaths have been pledged? Certainly not after Harold's visit to
William, for they were then all dead. At the accession of Edward?
This is obviously contradicted by the stipulation which Godwin and the
other chiefs of the Witan exacted, that Edward should not come
accompanied by Norman supporters--by the evident jealousy of the
Normans entertained by those chiefs, as by the whole English people,
who regarded the alliance of Ethelred with the Norman Emma as the
cause of the greatest calamities--and by the marriage of Edward
himself with Godwin's daughter, a marriage which that Earl might
naturally presume would give legitimate heirs to the throne.--In the
interval between Edward's accession and Godwin's outlawry? No; for
all the English chroniclers, and, indeed, the Norman, concur in
representing the ill-will borne by Godwin and his House to the Norman
favourites, whom, if they could have anticipated William's accession,
or were in any way bound to William, they would have naturally
conciliated. But Godwin's outlawry is the result of the breach
between him and the foreigners.--In William's visit to Edward? No;
for that took place when Godwin was an exile; and even the writers who
assert Edward's early promise to William, declare that nothing was
then said as to the succession to the throne. To Godwin's return from
outlawry the Norman chroniclers seem to refer the date of this
pretended oath, by the assertion that the hostages were given in
pledge of it. This is the most monstrous supposition of all; for
Godwin's return is followed by the banishment of the Norman
favourites--by the utter downfall of the Norman party in England--by
the decree of the Witan, that all the troubles in England had come
from the Normans--by the triumphant ascendancy of Godwin's House. And
is it credible for a moment, that the great English Earl could then
have agreed to a pledge to transfer the kingdom to the very party he
had expelled, and expose himself and his party to the vengeance of a
foe he had thoroughly crushed for the time, and whom, without any
motive or object, he himself agreed to restore to power or his own
probable perdition? When examined, this assertion falls to the ground
from other causes. It is not among the arguments that William uses in
his embassies to Harold; it rests mainly upon the authority of William
of Poitiers, who, though a contemporary, and a good authority on some
points purely Norman, is grossly ignorant as to the most accredited
and acknowledged facts, in all that relate to the English. Even with
regard to the hostages, he makes the most extraordinary blunders. He
says they were sent by Edward, with the consent of his nobles,
accompanied by Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury. Now Robert,
Archbishop of Canterbury, had fled from England as fast as he could
fly on the return of Godwin; and arrived in Normandy, half drowned,
before the hostages were sent, or even before the Witan which
reconciled Edward and Godwin had assembled. He says that William
restored to Harold "his young brother;" whereas it was Haco, the
nephew, who was restored; we know, by Norman as well as Saxon
Chroniclers, that Wolnoth, the brother, was not released till after
the Conqueror's death, (he was re-imprisoned by Rufus;) and his
partiality may be judged by the assertions, first, that "William gave
nothing to a Norman that was unjustly taken from an Englishman;" and
secondly, that Odo, whose horrible oppressions revolted even William
himself, "never had an equal for justice, and that all the English
obeyed him willingly."

We may, therefore, dismiss this assertion as utterly groundless, on
its own merits, without directly citing against it the Saxon
authorities.

Thirdly, That Edward left William the crown by will.

On this assertion alone, of the three, the Norman Conqueror himself
seems to have rested a positive claim [292]. But if so, where was the
will? Why was it never produced or producible? If destroyed, where
were the witnesses? why were they not cited? The testamentary
dispositions of an Anglo-Saxon king were always respected, and went
far towards the succession. But it was absolutely necessary to prove
them before the Witan [293]. An oral act of this kind, in the words
of the dying Sovereign, would be legal, but they must be confirmed by
those who heard them. Why, when William was master of England, and
acknowledged by a National Assembly convened in London, and when all
who heard the dying King would have been naturally disposed to give
every evidence in William's favour, not only to flatter the new
sovereign, but to soothe the national pride, and justify the Norman
succession by a more popular plea than conquest,--why were no
witnesses summoned to prove the bequest! Alred, Stigand, and the
Abbot of Westminster, must have been present at the death-bed of the
King, and these priests concurred in submission to William. If they
had any testimony as to Edward's bequest in his favour, would they not
have been too glad to give it, in justification of themselves, in
compliment to William, in duty to the people, in vindication of law
against force! But no such attempt at proof was ventured upon.

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