Edward the Confessor, desirous of a affording William some means of curbing Harold's ambition, sent to him as hostages Ulfnoth and Hako, a son and grandson of Godwin. Harold, however, contrived to extort permission to go to Rouen, and request their liberation, and set out from Bosham, in Sussex. A storm wrecked him in Ponthieu; he was taken captive by the count of that district, who gave him up to William in exchange for a considerable manor, and thus, though he entered Rouen in state, he found himself, instead of the ambassador of the King of England, in effect the prisoner of the Duke of Normandy.
He was treated with great courtesy, accompanied William on an expedition against the Duke of Brittany, and gave great help to the Normans by his personal strength, when some of them were in danger, in crossing a river, and, apparently, was in high honor; but William was determined not to miss the advantage chance had thrown in his way; and when Harold, alter spending some months at Rouen, proposed to return, he, in the first place, insisted on drawing up a treaty of alliance and friendship with his good friend the Earl of Wessex, to be sworn to on both sides. Very distasteful must this promise of friendship have been to Harold, since the first article required him to assist the Duke with all his power in obtaining the crown of England upon Edward's death; but he found it impossible to resist, and declared himself perfectly willing to engage himself as required.
An oath taken on the relics of the Saints was, at that time, considered as more binding than one taken on the Holy Scriptures; and William commanded that the most honored of these remains should be collected from various churches and placed in a chest, covered with cloth of gold on which a copy of the Gospels was laid. Harold, laying his hand on the book, swore to observe the treaty faithfully; and when he had so done, William removed the cloth and showed him the relics, at the sight of which he turned pale and trembled-a sure sign, as was thought by the Normans who stood round, that his conscience would not allow him to break an oath which was believed to have thus acquired double force and sanctity. Yet Harold soon proved that no oaths can bind a man who will not be bound by his simple word.
A few months after his return from Normandy, he was standing by the bedside of the dying Edward the Confessor, importuning his last moments with entreaties to him to declare his successor.
"Ye know, full well," said the poor old King, "that I have bequeathed my kingdom to the Duke of Normandy; nay, some be here who have sworn oaths to him."
Harold pressed him for some other answer, and he replied, "Take it, Harold, if such be thy will, but the gift will be thy ruin. Against the Duke and his barons no might of thine will avail thee."
"Fear not for me," replied Harold, joyfully; "I fear neither Norman, nor aught else."
"May it fall to the most worthy!" was the faint answer of Edward. His thoughts began to wander, and he uttered many passages of Scripture speaking of desolation and destruction, which were afterward regarded by his subjects as the last prophecies of their saintly king. He died two days afterward, and, on the feast of Epiphany, 1066, Harold assumed the crown. The coronation was solemnized by Alfred, Archbishop of York; but whether the absence of the Primate Stigand was occasioned by his dislike to the usurpation, or by the sentence of excommunication under which he had been laid by the Pope, is not known. Be that as it may, there was little joy to welcome the accession of Harold; the people were full of melancholy forebodings, excited by the predictions of King Edward, as well as by the appearance of a comet, then supposed to denote the approach of misfortune; the great earls, Edwin and Morkar, were his enemies, the nobles envied him, and stood aloof, significantly relating a story of his boyhood, when he is said to have met with a severe fall in a foolish attempt to fly from the top of a tower with wings of his own contrivance. There is a Spanish proverb which, in truth, suited Harold welclass="underline" "The ant found wings for her destruction." The bitterest of all his enemies was his own brother, Tostig, who, having been banished partly by his means, on account of his misgovernment of Northumbria, was living in Flanders, whence, the instant he heard of Harold's coronation, he hastened with the tidings to Normandy; and not thinking William's preparations speedy enough to satisfy the impatience of his hatred, he went to Norway, where he found a willing ally in Harald Hardrada, the last sea-king.
A curious story is told of the childhood of this Harald Hardrada, who was the half-brother of the kingly St. Olaf, being the son of the haughty Aasta and the peaceful Sigurd Syr. When Harald was about three years old, St. Olaf was on a visit to his mother, and calling to his little brothers, took the two eldest, Guttorm and Halfdan, one on each knee, and looked at them, with a fierce countenance, at which both the little boys were frightened, and ran away to hide themselves. He then took Harald on his knee, and put on the same fierce look at him, but the child looked boldly up in his face in return. As a further trial of his courage, the king pulled his hair, upon which the little fellow undauntedly pulled the king's whiskers, and Olaf said, "Thou wilt be revengeful, some day, my friend."
The next day, Olaf found his little brothers at play; the two eldest building little barns and enclosing cornfields, and Harald lying by the side of a pool of water, in which he was floating small chips of wood.
"What are these?" asked the king.
"My ships of war," said little Harald.
"Ha! my friend," said the King, "the time may come when thou wilt command ships."
He then called the other two, and asked Guttorm what he would like best to have.
"Corn land," said he.
"And how great wouldst thou like thy corn land to be?"
"I would have the whole ness (peninsula) that goes out into the lake sown with corn every summer."
"And what wouldst thou like best?" he asked of Halfdan.
"Cows," said the boy.
"How many wouldst thou like to have?"
"So many, that when they went to the lake to drink, they should stand as tight round the lake as they could stand."
"That would be a great house-keeping!" said the king; "and now, Harald, what wouldst thou have?" "Followers."
"And how many of them?"
"Oh, so many as would eat up all Halfdan's cows at a single meal!"
Olaf laughed, and said, "Here, mother, thou art bringing up a king."
In fact, Guttorm and Halfdan followed the quiet life of their father, but Harald was of far different temper. When Olaf returned from his exile in Russia, young Harald, who was scarcely fifteen, joined him with all the followers he could muster, and insisted on taking part in the battle of Stiklestad.
Olaf told him he was too young; but Harald boldly answered, "I am not so weak but I can handle the sword; and as to that, I have a notion of tying the sword to my hand;" and then the brave boy sung out some verses, composed on the spur of the moment, according to a talent often found among the Northmen, and highly valued:
"Our army's wing, where I shall stand,
I will hold good with heart and hand;
My mother's eye shall joy to see,
A batter'd, blood-stain'd shield from me.
The brave young skald should gaily go
Into the fray, change blow for blow;
Cheer on his men, gain inch by inch,
And from the spear-point never flinch."
Olaf saw plainly that his high-spirited mother had infused her own temper into her youngest son as entirely as into himself, and yielded his consent that Harald should take part in the battle. It was a mournful beginning for a young warrior. Harald beheld the fall of his noble brother, and was himself severely wounded. He was led from the field by a faithful bonder, who hid him in his house; but the spirit of the young minstrel warrior was undaunted, and, during his recovery, he sung thus: