Nor must it be supposed that William himself placed any positive reliance on mere promises from Harold. He immediately began to form plans for binding him to the performance of his stipulations, by the modes then commonly employed for securing the fulfillment of covenants made among princes. These methods were three-intermarriages, the giving of hostages, and solemn oaths.
William proposed two marriages as means of strengthening the alliance between himself and Harold. Harold was to give to William one of his daughters, that William might marry her to one of his Norman chieftains. This would be, of course, placing her in William's power, and making her a hostage all but in name. Harold, however, consented. The second marriage proposed was between William's daughter and Harold himself; but as his daughter was a child of only seven years of age, it could only be a betrothment that could take place at that time. Harold acceded to this proposal too, and arrangements were made for having the faith of the parties pledged to one another in the most solemn manner. A great assembly of all the knights, nobles, and ladies of the court was convened, and the ceremony of pledging the troth between the fierce warrior and the gentle and wondering child was performed with as much pomp and parade as if it had been an actual wedding. The name of the girl was Adela.
In respect to hostages, William determined to detain one of those whom Harold, as will be recollected, had come into Normandy to recover. He told him, therefore, that he might take with him his nephew Hacune, but that Ulnoth, his brother, should remain, and William would bring him over himself when he came to take possession of the kingdom. Harold was extremely unwilling to leave his brother thus in William's power; but as he knew very well that his being allowed to return to England himself would depend upon his not evincing any reluctance to giving William security, or manifesting any other indication that he was not intending to keep his plighted faith, he readily consented, and it was thus settled that Ulnoth should remain.
Finally, in order to hold Harold to the fulfillment of his promises by every possible form of obligation, William proposed that he should take a public and solemn oath, in the presence of a large assembly of all the great potentates and chieftains of the realm, by which he should bind himself, under the most awful sanctions, to keep his word. Harold made no objection to this either. He considered himself as, in fact, in duress, and his actions as not free. He was in William's power, and was influenced in all he did by a desire to escape from Normandy, and once more recover his liberty. He accordingly decided, in his own mind, that whatever oaths he might take he should afterward consider as forced upon him, and consequently as null and void, and was ready, therefore, to take any that William might propose.
The great assembly was accordingly convened. In the middle of the council hall there was placed a great chair of state, which was covered with a cloth of gold. Upon this cloth, and raised considerably above the seat, was the missal, that is, the book of service of the Catholic Church, written on parchment and splendidly illuminated. The book was open at a passage from one of the Evangelists-the Evangelists being a portion of the Holy Scriptures which was, in those days, supposed to invest an oath with the most solemn sanctions.
Harold felt some slight misgivings as he advanced in the midst of such an imposing scene as the great assembly of knights and ladies presented in the council hall, to repeat his promises in the very presence of God, and to imprecate the retributive curses of the Almighty on the violation of them, which he was deliberately and fully determined to incur. He had, however, gone too far to retreat now. He advanced, therefore, to the open missal, laid his hand upon the book, and, repeating the words which William dictated to him from his throne, he took the threefold oath required, namely, to aid William to the utmost of his power in his attempt to secure the succession to the English crown, to marry William's daughter Adela as soon as she should arrive at a suitable age, and to send over forthwith from England his own daughter, that she might be espoused to one of William's nobles.
As soon as the oath was thus taken, William caused the missal and the cloth of gold to be removed, and there appeared beneath it, on the chair of state, a chest, containing the sacred relics of the Church, which William had secretly collected from the abbeys and monasteries of his dominions, and placed in this concealment, that, without Harold's being conscious of it, their dreadful sanction might be added to that which the Holy Evangelists imposed. These relics were fragments of bones set in caskets and frames, and portions of blood-relics, as the monks alleged, of apostles or of the Savior-and small pieces of wood, similarly preserved, which had been portions of the cross of Christ or of his thorny crown. These things were treasured up with great solemnity in the monastic establishments and in the churches of these early times, and were regarded with a veneration and awe, of which it is almost beyond our power even to conceive. Harold trembled when he saw what he had unwittingly done. He was terrified to think how much more dreadful was the force of the imprecations that he had uttered than he had imagined while uttering them. But it was too late to undo what he had done. The assembly was finally dismissed. William thought he had the conscience of his new ally firmly secured, and Harold began to prepare for leaving Normandy.
He continued on excellent terms with William until his departure. William accompanied him to the sea-shore when the time of his embarkation arrived, and dismissed him at last with many farewell honors, and a profusion of presents. Harold set sail, and, crossing the Channel in safety, he landed in England.
He commenced immediately an energetic system of measures to strengthen his own cause, and prepare the way for his own accession. He organized his party, collected arms and munitions of war, and did all that he could to ingratiate himself with the most powerful and wealthy nobles. He sought the favor of the king, too, and endeavored to persuade him to discard William. The king was now old and infirm, and was growing more and more inert and gloomy as he advanced in age. His mind was occupied altogether in ecclesiastical rites and observances, or plunged in a torpid and lifeless melancholy, which made him averse to giving any thought to the course which the affairs of his kingdom were to take after he was gone. He did not care whether Harold or William took the crown when he laid it aside, provided they would allow him to die in peace.
He had had, a few years previous to this time, a plan of making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but had finally made an arrangement with the pope, allowing him to build a Cathedral church, to be dedicated to St. Peter, a few miles west of London, in lieu of his pilgrimage. There was already a Cathedral church or minster in the heart of London which was dedicated to St. Paul. The new one was afterward often called, to distinguish it from the other, the west minster, which designation, Westminster, became afterward its regular name. It was on this spot, where Westminster Abbey now stands, that Edward's church was to be built. It was just completed at the time of which we are speaking, and the king was preparing for the dedication of it. He summoned an assembly of all the prelates and great ecclesiastical dignitaries of the land to convene at London, in order to dedicate the new Cathedral. Before they were ready for the service, the king was taken suddenly sick. They placed him upon his couch in his palace chamber, where he lay, restless, and moaning in pain, and repeating incessantly, half in sleep and half in delirium, the gloomy and threatening texts of Scripture which seemed to haunt his mind. He was eager to have the dedication go on, and they hastened the service in order to gratify him by having it performed before he died. The next day he was obviously failing. Harold and his friends were very earnest to have the departing monarch declare in his favor before he died, and their coming and going, and their loud discussions, rude soldiers as they were, disturbed his dying hours. He sent them word to choose whom they would for king, duke or earl, it was indifferent to him, and thus expired.