A.D. 1042. CANUTE HAROLD I.- HARDICANUTE.

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Still more celebrated is his reproof of his courtiers, who one day thought to flatter him by telling him that his power was without bounds. He ordered his chair to be set on the beach when the tide was rising, and commanded the waves to retire. Affecting to expect their obedience, he sat till the water was around him, and then, leaving his chair to be washed away, he reminded the flatterers that he himself was powerless before Him who alone could say to the ocean, "Thus far shalt thou go and no further."

In the same pious spirit he made a pilgrimage to Rome, whence he addressed a letter to the clergy of England, expressing the desire to atone for his youthful excesses by promoting the welfare and union of his people, A.D. 1027. In fact, the time had now come, when, in spite of some invidious privileges still possessed by the Danes, the two kindred races were so far blended that they may be regarded as one people.

After his return from Rome, Canute made war upon Malcolm king of Scotland, and his nephew Duncan king of Cumberland, whom he reduced to subjection A.D. 1030. He died in 1035, leaving two sons, Sweyn and Harold, by his first wife, and HardiCanute by his marriage with Emma. He left Norway to Sweyn, and Denmark to Hardi-Canute, to whom the crown of England also belonged by the conditions of Canute's marriage with Emma; but, in his absence, Harold claimed the kingdom, and the danger of civil war was only averted by a compromise, under which Harold received all England north of the Thames, with London for his capital, while the south was held by Emma, at Winchester, as regent for her son.

The reign of HAROLD I., surnamed HAREFOOT from his fleetness (1035–1040), contains no memorable event, except the murder of Alfred the son of Ethelred, by the treachery of Godwin earl of Kent, of whose power more will be said presently. Harold died in 1040.

HARDICANUTE (1040-1042) was now welcomed back to England; but he proved a drunken and cruel despot. He fell a victim to his intemperance, in the very act of raising the cup to his lips at a feast, A.D. 1042. With him ended the brief dynasty of Canute; the English recovered their liberty; and the crown was restored to the house of Cerdic.

At the time of Canute's usurpation, Edmund Ironside had left behind two infant sons, Edmund and Edward, whom Canute sent to Olave king of Sweden, it is said with a murderous intent, but Olave sent them to Stephen king of Hungary. They were brought up at his court; and Edward became afterwards the ancestor of king Henry II. Edmund had also left a brother,

Edwy, whom Canute put to death in 1017, and two half-brothers, These two Alfred and Edward, sons of Ethelred and Emma.

princes kept alive their claims to the throne, and it was in attempting to assert them that Alfred perished, as we have seen. When Hardicanute died, Edward was in England; and his succession was secured by the support of Earl Godwin, who married him to his daughter Editha, though Edward is said to have been reluctant to accept either the crown or the bride.

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR (1042-1066) was received with joy by the Saxons, and his gentle character soon conciliated the Danes. But he was weak as well as gentle; more of the priest than the king; and his education in Normandy had left him only half an Englishman. He spoke the Norman-French. His court was filled with Normans, whose greater refinement, while it seemed to justify their advancement, especially in the church, excited the jealousy of the people, and at the same time prepared the way for the Norman conquest.

The Saxon party found a leader in GODWIN, the great earl of Kent, whose authority extended over Kent, Sussex, and the south of Wessex; while his eldest son, Sweyn, governed the rest of Wessex; and his second son, Harold, was duke of East Anglia and governor of Essex. An accidental encounter between the people of Dover and the retainers of Eustace count of Boulogne, caused Godwin to raise the standard of rebellion. But the king was aided by Leofric earl of Mercia, and Siward duke of Northumberland, and Godwin and his sons were driven out of the kingdom, A.D. 1051. He returned the next year with two fleets, gathered by himself in Flanders and by Harold in Ireland; and Edward was obliged to make terms with him; and a witena-gemôt restored Godwin and his sons to all their honours. Godwin soon afterwards died, while sitting at table with the king, and was succeeded by Harold, who by his address gained the good-will of Edward.

Harold's power was increased by an event connected with the noblest memorials of English literature. The kingdom of Scotland had been usurped by MACBETH, a powerful thane, who had murdered 'the gracious Duncan," and driven his son and heir, Malcolm Kenmore, into England. By Edward's command, SIWARD duke of Northumberland marched into Scotland, defeated and slew Macbeth, and restored Malcolm. Siward died soon after, and Harold obtained the dukedom for his brother Tosti.

Edward, becoming anxious about the succession, invited home from Hungary his nephew, Edward the Outlaw, the sole heir of the Saxon line. But he died soon after his arrival, A.D. 1057, and his son, Edgar Atheling (surnamed from his princely birth), was

too young for the hard task of ruling the turbulent and divided realm. As a last resource, Edward turned to his kinsman, WILLIAM duke of Normandy, the illegitimate son of Robert the Devil, who was the son of Richard II., brother of Edward's mother, Emma. Whether Edward employed Harold on this business is uncertain; but Harold did pay a visit to William, who entrapped him into a most solemn oath to espouse his cause, and to deliver up to him the castle of Dover. The duke also gave his daughter Adeliza in marriage to Harold.

In the last year of Edward's reign, 1065, Harold, who had meanwhile subdued Wales, was called into Northumberland to put down a rebellion against his brother Tosti. But such was the case made out by the insurgents, that Harold advised Edward to confirm their choice of Morcar, grandson of the great duke Leofric, for their duke. He also procured the election of Morcar's brother, Edwin, as governor of Mercia, and married their sister. Tosti fled, vowing vengeance, to return at a moment fatal for Harold's fortunes.

Meanwhile Edward died on the 5th of January, 1066, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, then just consecrated, where his successors are still crowned in his chair. He was canonized, with the surname of Confessor, a century after his death. He compiled a body of laws from the codes of Ethelbert, Ina, and Alfred, which is now lost.

HAROLD II. (1066) had now so extended his power over England that he mounted the throne without any opposition within the kingdom. But the duke of Normandy was also ready to assert his claims, under colour of the declared wishes of the late king and the broken oath of Harold. On this ground the pope, Alexander II., declared for William, gave him a relic and a consecrated banner, and excommunicated Harold and his partisans. He collected a fleet of nearly 1000 vessels and an army of 60,000 men for the invasion of England.

At this crisis Harold was called into the north to meet the invasion of his brother Tosti, leagued with Harold Hardrada, king of Norway. He defeated them in a bloody battle, in which both the invading chiefs fell, at Stanford Bridge, thence called Battle Bridge, Sept. 25th.

Only two days after (Sept. 27th), William sailed from St. Valéry on the Somme, and landed next day, the eve of St. Michael, at Pevensey, in Sussex. Falling to the ground as he stepped ashore, he cried that he was seizing the land as his own, and so turned the accident into an omen.

Harold flew to meet him, but it was too late. His army melted

away on the march, and his resolution to give battle without sparing his own person was the last effort of a courageous despair. The stories of revelry in his camp and prayer in that of William during the night before the battle come from a suspicious source. Both leaders proved their skill in marshalling their hosts. Harold occupied an eminence and secured his flank by trenches; and having placed his own Kentishmen in the van, and the Londoners round the royal standard, he himself took his post on foot with his two brothers at the head of the infantry, resolved to perish if he could not conquer. William advanced in three lines, the last of which, formed of the cavalry, under his own command, was extended so as to cover the flanks of the main body. His attack made no impression on the English, till a feigned retreat enticed them into the plain, where the Norman cavalry wheeled round upon their flanks. Twice was this stratagem successful; and, though Harold twice rallied his diminished forces, his army was now reduced to a small but compact body around his banner. William directed upon them the whole force of his infantry, while his archers galled them from a distance. The charge succeeded; Harold fell, pierced by an arrow through the eye; his two brothers shared his fate; and the English fled. Thus ended, after a long day's fight, on the 14th of October, 1066, the decisive Battle of Hastings. The true site of the field of battle was at Senlac, about nine miles from Hastings. The body of Harold, discovered among the heaps of the slain of both armies, was buried, by William's permission, at Waltham Abbey, which he had founded, and where a stone is said to have been till lately visible, with the inscription, HAROLD INFELIX. If the stone be not genuine, the epitaph is too

true.

William afterwards erected Battle Abbey, near Hastings, enjoining the monks to pray for the soul of Harold and his own.

A most interesting memorial of the battle, and the events that preceded it, still exists in the tapestry of Bayeux, which tradition ascribes to the hands of Matilda, wife of William, though it is probably of later date. It is an invaluable witness to the costume, arms, and standards of the period.

CHAPTER V.

THE ANGLO-NORMAN KINGS.-WILLIAM J. A.D. 1066-1087.

WILLIAM I., surnamed the CONQUEROR, was himself the representative of a line of northern chieftains, like the ancestors of those whom he had subdued. Rollo, or Rolf, the founder of his house, was a Norwegian sea-king, who landed in Neustria in 876. In 912, Charles the Simple, king of France, granted him a large part of Neustria, and he embraced the Christian faith. His turbulence extorted new territory from the French king; and his successors advanced their power, sometimes by alliances with the sovereign, sometimes by rebellion against him, till their authority was firmly established over one of the fairest provinces of France, called from their original home Normandy (the province of the North-men). Meanwhile they had adopted the civilization and language of their new country; and nowhere was the langue d'oil, or Northern French, spoken with greater purity. Thus, though Gothic in race and physical characters, they were French in all else; and the Norman conquest was, in reality, the imposition of a French dynasty, with a French nobility, on England. The dynasty remained French for more than a hundred vears; French phrases,