1066 buried at they sought for Harold, but sought in vain,— Harold could not possibly be discovered-no That he was trace of Harold was to be found; and as the last waltham. hope of identifying his remains, they suggested that possibly his beloved Editha might be able to recognise the features so familiar to her affections. Algitha, the wife of Harold, was not to be asked to perform this sorrowful duty. Osgood went back to Waltham, and returned with Editha, and the two canons and the weeping woman resumed their miserable task in the charnel field. A ghastly, decomposing, and mutilated corpse was selected by Editha, and conveyed to Waltham as the body of Harold; and there entombed at the east end of the choir, with great honour and solemnity, many Norman nobles assisting in the requiem. survived $ 16. Years afterwards, when the Norman That he yoke pressed heavily upon the English, and the Hastings. battle of Hastings had become a tale of sorrow, which old men narrated by the light of the embers, until warned to silence by the sullen tolling of the curfew, there was a decrepit anchorite, who inhabited a cell near the Abbey of St. John at Chester, where Edgar celebrated his triumph. This recluse, deeply scarred, and blinded in his left eye, lived in strict penitence and seclusion. Henry I. once visited the aged Hermit, and had a long private discourse with him; and, on his 1066 This tale contradicted. death-bed, he declared to the attendant monks, that the recluse was Harold. As the story is transmitted to us, he had been secretly conveyed from the field to a castle, probably of Dover, where he continued concealed until he had the means of reaching the sanctuary where he expired. The monks of Waltham loudly exclaimed against this rumour. They maintained most resolutely, that Harold was buried in their Abbey they pointed to the tomb, sustaining his effigies, and inscribed with the simple and pathetic epitaph, "Hic jacet Harold infelix;" and they appealed to the mouldering skeleton, whose bones, as they declared, showed, when disinterred, the impress of the wounds which he had received. But may it not still be doubted whether Osgood and Ailric, who followed their benefactor to the fatal field, did not aid his escape?—They may have discovered him at the last gasp; restored him to animation by their care; and the artifice of declaring to William, that they had not been able to recover the object of their search, would readily suggest itself as the means of rescuing Harold from the power of the Conqueror. The demand of Editha's testimony would confirm their assertion, and enable them to gain time to arrange for Harold's security; and whilst the litter, which bore the corpse, was slowly advancing to the Abbey of Waltham, the living Harold, under the tender care of Editha, might be safely proceeding to the distant fane, his haven of refuge. 1066 probable or 2 17. If we compare the different narratives But not imconcerning the inhumation of Harold, we shall impossible. find the most remarkable discrepancies. It is evident that the circumstances were not accurately known; and since those ancient writers who were best informed cannot be reconciled to each other, the escape of Harold, if admitted, would solve the difficulty. I am not prepared to maintain that the authenticity of this story cannot be impugned; but it may be remarked that the tale, though romantic, is not incredible, and that the circumstances may be easily reconciled to probability. There were no walls to be scaled, no fosse was to be crossed, no warder to be eluded; and the examples of those who have survived after encountering much greater perils, are so very numerous and familiar, that the incidents which I have narrated would hardly give rise to a doubt, if they referred to any other personage than a King. In this case we cannot find any reason for supposing that the belief in Harold's escape was connected with any political artifice or feeling. No hopes were fixed upon the usurping son of Godwin. No recollection dwelt upon his name, as the hero who would sally forth from his seclusion, the restorer of the Anglo 1066 Saxon power. That power had wholly fallen -and if the humbled Englishman, as he paced the aisles of Waltham, looked around, and, having assured himself that no Norman was near, whispered to his son, that the tomb which they saw before them was raised only in mockery, and that Harold still breathed the vital air-he yet knew too well, that the spot where Harold's standard had been cast down, was the grave of the pride and glory of England. CHAPTER VII. ENGLAND AT THE TIME OF THE CONQUEST. aspect of § 1. WILLIAM and his army, when they spread Physical themselves over this fertile and much-coveted England. realm, beheld a country whose aspect differed strangely from the prospects which hill and stream and plain offer at the present day. What did England possess? riches-yet not such as ours. Theirs was not the age of great cities: none of those centres of civilization and corruption, then existed in portentous magnitude; huge agglomerations, ramifying into the meads and pastures, where the green grass, and the sweet cowslip, and the bright ox-eyed daisy, shrink away from hard pavement and smoky sky. The landscape was not adorned and varied, as now, by the villa, the workhouse, the manufactory, the gaol: gaol nor were there existing then any of the signs and wonders produced by modern science and art, the viaducts, the railroads, the canals, at once the causes and the effects of our activity and opulence. But were the differences confined to the works of man? Not so. They extended to the features and characters affecting the whole |