1066 (6 page)

Others were watching and waiting too. No one, at this stage, could rule out a challenge from King Swein Estrithsson of Denmark. He was a kinsman of Canute, as well as a cousin of Earl Harold. Like Duke William of Normandy he claimed that Edward had promised him the throne.
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Across the Straits of Dover, a mysterious and neglected figure, Count Eustace II of Boulogne, was also biding his time. Eustace is the shadowy Frenchman whom the tapestry depicts as a hero by William's side at the Battle of Hastings.

The meeting has concluded. It seems that a decision has been made and the conferees have departed in a swirl of tunics. Few know exactly what has been said. At once a tight-lipped Harold rides to the southern coast whence he will put to sea. In the turbulent years that followed men speculated about what had really been said. To William of Poitiers and the Normans it was simple: Edward had not wavered for a moment in his choice of William and he was now sending Earl Harold on a formal embassy to Normandy to confirm to the worthy duke his happy status as the next king of England.
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This story, of course, suited the Normans; but it contains much that is questionable. Since contrary winds drove Harold on to unexpected shores and, as we shall see, into another adventure entirely, his original purpose remains mysterious. Several factors undermine the Norman case. It is highly improbable that Edward had the ability to order Harold to support the Norman succession. Harold was simply too powerful and the whole course of events, ever since the restoration of the Godwins in 1052, strongly suggests that Harold and his family were opposed to William succeeding. Nor is there any independent evidence that Edward himself continued to favour William. On the contrary, he seems to have changed his mind. A very great deal of time and effort had been expended in persuading the exiled branch of the family to return and there was now in England a young prince who was being brought up at the royal court and who had an undeniably superior blood-claim to the throne.

What is more, King Edward had, or at least had until recently, a French nephew whose blood-claim was also superior to William's. Edward's late sister Godgifu, exiled like him in France, had entered into a first marriage with Drogo, the count of the Vexin (she later married Eustace of Boulogne). In the 1060s their son Walter, Edward's full nephew, was count of Maine, a territory lying on the southern borders of Normandy. Walter could have considered himself a prime contender for the English throne but he did not fare well at the hands of Duke William. In 1063 the Norman duke took advantage of a slender pretext, marched into Maine and conquered it. Not long afterwards Walter and his wife Biota died in Norman custody; it was widely rumoured (according to Orderic Vitalis) that they were poisoned.
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These events were alarming. They would hardly have endeared Duke William of Normandy any further in King Edward's world-weary heart.

If the Norman account is rejected, what really did happen at that secret meeting between Harold and Edward in 1064 or early 1065? Some forty or fifty years later an English monk named Eadmer, working in the serenity of his turn-of-the-century cloister at Canterbury, wrote his own
History of Recent Events in England (Historia Novorum Anglia).
Eadmer's work is an unjustly neglected source. He tells a quite different story from that told by the Normans, and it is one that would have been too dangerous to record in any explicit way earlier. According to Eadmer, in 1052 a brother and nephew of Harold, Wulfnoth and Hakon by name, had been handed over to Edward by Earl Godwin as hostages for his future good conduct; this, apparently, was part of the settlement reached between Godwin and Edward when the former returned from his brief exile in the years 1051-2. Shortly afterwards Edward had the hostages transported to his cousin Duke William of Normandy for safe custody.
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Godwin died the following year and it could well be said that the purpose of Wulfnoth and Hakon's detention had long expired. But they were still there, more than ten years later, wasting away their lives as captives in a foreign land. Their plight must have touched Earl Harold's heart, for Eadmer tells us that Harold wanted to go to Normandy in order to meet with Duke William and negotiate the release of his brother and nephew. Before leaving, Harold quite properly came to King Edward to tell him of his plans, and it would be this precise meeting that we can see in the tapestry's opening scene. Edward was not impressed by what he heard. Far from sending Harold to Normandy, Eadmer tell us that the king positively warned him not to go. 'I will have no part in this,' he is supposed to have said, 'but not to give the impression of wishing to hinder you, I give you leave to go where you will and to see what you can do. But I have a feeling that you will only succeed in bringing misfortune on yourself and the whole Kingdom. For I know that the Duke is not so simple as to be at all inclined to give [Wulfnoth and Hakon] up . . . unless he foresees that in doing so he will gain some great advantage for himself.'
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There is nothing in the tapestry's opening scene which is in contradiction to this radically different account. It seems that the master artist has audaciously designed an image that could please both sides. Puffing Normans, gorged on the spoils of conquest, could pass up and down the tapestry and see what they expected to see - that Edward, of course, favoured William all along and that near the end of his life he was sending perfidious Harold to Normandy to confirm just this. The English, or those who knew, would see a different tale - they would be reminded by the silent meeting of those little woollen figures that in his old age King Edward did not think much of Duke William at all; that on that fateful day he was, in fact, advising Harold to stay away from Normandy; but that Harold nevertheless chose to make the journey at considerable risk to himself, in the hope of obtaining the release of his captive kinsmen.
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All that the tapestry explicitly shows is that Harold left the secret meeting and rode with his men to the southern coast. The old village of Bosham makes a secluded harbour; it lies within the safety of an inlet, where the sea has poked itself like a fat finger into the underbelly of Sussex, and it is from here that many a Channel crossing leaves from the safe edge of land. We see Harold riding there, at the head of his men;a pack of collared hunting dogs runs ahead of the party in pursuit of two hares. Perched on Harold's left hand, as he rides, is a handsome hawk, colourfully embroidered out of red, yellow and green yarn. Hunting was the favourite pastime of the nobility and one of Harold's great passions was to hunt with trained birds; it is attested by a later source that he possessed several manuscript books on falconry.
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Harold and a companion now arrive at the door of Bosham church [scene 3]. Here they will pray before crossing the sea, as was the custom when ships were insecure and the weather far from predictable. The artist provides us with a view of the church that, at first sight, we might ignore for its lack of proportion and apparently childlike qualities, but it merits closer inspection. It is in fact a composite view that encompasses the building's internal and external features in one and the same picture. The parish church of Bosham is the first touchable link between the tapestry's story and the present day. It still stands where it did, almost 1,000 years later, scarcely beyond the lick of waves and overcircled by the callinggulls. Generations of seafarers have come and gone. The church has been extended and altered many times but the eleventh-century interior arch, which divides the nave from the chancel, is still to be seen; it is, in the words of a recent observer, 'one of the noblest spans in early English architecture'.
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The Anglo-Saxon church at Bosham was not on a par with the great architectural marvels that were being built on the continent of Europe but it nevertheless impressed our artist. This, to him, was modern architecture and he included the great horseshoe of an arch at the centre of his composition, giving it the same proportions in wool as it has in real stone.
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Harold stepped under this arch. He stood by these stones; he saw them as we can see them; and his cheeks were touched by the same chill air. Forty years earlier Bosham may have been the scene of a tragedy touching the family of King Canute, an accident if the story is true, though the medieval mind would have discerned the hand of providence in all such matters. Canute had a home in Bosham (it may have been here that he tried to command the incoming tide to turn, but that is another, and possibly apocryphal, story
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). One day it is said that Canute's little daughter, aged about eight, fell into the mill stream behind the church and was drowned. It was long said by local people that she lay buried in the church. The truth of this tradition was dramatically supported in 1865 when excavations by the right foot of the chancel arch unearthed a stone coffin dating from the time of Canute.
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They broke open the lid and inside they found the remains of a female child of about eight years. If there is any truth in the story, Canute's poor little daughter could easily have been a contemporary of Harold; perhaps he knew and played with her as a child, for Bosham had been one of the principal residences of his father Godwin, and Godwin was a protege and friend of Canute. As Harold stood there that day, it would not have been inappropriate for him to muse on his own mortality.

Now we see Harold and his men feasting in the upper storey of his Bosham manor [scene 4]. Drinking cups and horns are brought to lips; there is animated conversation. Standing on the steps outside, a man informs the party that the ship is ready. It is a dragon-headed ship, typical of its time; and like the familiar Viking longship, it may be propelled by oars or a large rectangular sail. Harold wades out to the vessel, his tunic hitched up to his waist, his bare feet and legs exposed to the cold sea. Once more his favoured hawk sits on his raised left hand; the hunting animals are brought on board. Another barelegged man wades through the shallows, carrying a large dog in his arms; a third makes his way with oars or poles. A party of some dozen men are now aboard. The mast is raised, the anchor pulled in and the men, singing perhaps, row the ship into deeper waters. Thus begins the secret journey of Harold Godwinson, the first of four journeys back and forth across the woollen sea stitched by our embroiderers.

It is not long before the wind picks up. Sheltered from the spray behind closely packed shields, the men on board begin to cast anxious glances. The hours progress; the ship must have rocked and creaked. The wind has become stronger and it is not clear that it is taking them in the right direction. ET VELIS VENTO PLENIS VENIT IN TERRA WIDONIS COMITIS (and with the wind full in his sails he came to the land of Count Guy). In these enigmatic words the tapestry tells us that Harold's ship was being driven towards the French county of Ponthieu, sandwiched between Normandy to the south and Boulogne and Flanders to the north. Ponthieu is decidedly not where Harold intended to go; for like many medieval nobles Guy, the youthful count of Ponthieu, had a penchant for taking captives and holding them for ransom. At this point an Englishman has climbed to the top of the mast and, with his hand cupped over his eyes he spots the line of land ahead; a man on deck is holding a great anchor at the ready. They make landfall, possibly at the mouth of the River Maye, and Harold steps out into the shallow waters of Ponthieu.
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He must be ignorant of the danger, or else he would have quickly departed to a less hostile strand.

According to a much later account, a fisherman of Ponthieu, who had been to England, saw Harold step ashore and immediately recognised him. He then rushed breathlessly to Count Guy, knowing that Earl Harold's unexpected arrival would be of interest to his avaricious lord.
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Something like this must have happened; but the tapestry, for its part, telescopes events by showing the English party confronted by Guy and his men immediately as they land [scene 6]. Either way, Harold is about to fall into the unwelcoming hands of Count Guy of Ponthieu. Earl Harold now sees the danger. From somewhere he draws a dagger but he is quickly overpowered by one of Guy's men. The count himself now approaches with the rest of his soldiers. They are on horseback and all have swords, lances and kite-shaped shields. Harold's mission was peaceful and he is accompanied by only a handful of men. They have few arms and no horses, only hawks and hunting hounds. There is no escape.

It was the harsh custom in Ponthieu, dating from the time of Emperor Charlemagne, that the count was entitled to hold as captive any person driven on to his shores, as well as ships and chattels.
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A shipwrecked noble could be ransomed for a large sum; ransom was good business. When you are the count of Ponthieu, idly wondering what to do next, and the richest man in England is suddenly tossed upon your shores, as lost and helpless as a piece of wreckage, it is like winning the lottery ten times over. The Norman writer William of Poitiers hinted that the people of Ponthieu were wreckers. 'Certain Gallic peoples,' he interjected into his own version of the story, 'have been led through avarice to adopt a cunning practice, which is barbarous and utterly removed from Christian justice. They lay ambushes for the powerful and wealthy, thrust them into prison, and torture and humiliate them. When they have reduced them almost to the point of death, they turn them out, usually ransomed at a very high price.'
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It is unlikely that Harold was deliberately lured to Ponthieu. As the tapestry implies, it was the strong wind that landed him there. What is clear is that he was now at the mercy of Count Guy, a man notorious for his greed. At best, Harold might be treated well but ransomed for an enormous sum, and it might take months, or even years, to raise. At worst, he could be the victim of the kind of sadistic excess that William of Poitiers described, and he would be bound and shackled, and thrown into a dark prison.