Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete by Lytton (an ebook reader TXT) 📖

sol escu, lance, et espee.” Roman de Rou, Second Part, v. 12, 126.

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“Ke d’une angarde Footnote eminence: u ils ‘estuient Cels de l’ost virent, ki pres furent.” Roman de Rou, Second Part, v. 12, 126.

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Midnight.

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This counsel the Norman chronicler ascribes to Gurth, but it is so at variance with the character of that hero, that it is here assigned to the unscrupulous intellect of Haco.

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Osborne—(Asbiorn),—one of the most common of Danish and Norwegian names. Tonstain, Toustain, or Tostain, the same as Tosti, or Tostig,—Danish. (Harold’s brother is called Tostain or Toustain, in the Norman chronicles). Brand, a name common to Dane or Norwegian—Bulmer is a Norwegian name, and so is Bulver or Bolvaer—which is, indeed, so purely Scandinavian that it is one of the warlike names given to Odin himself by the Norse-scalds. Bulverhithe still commemorates the landing of a Norwegian son of the war-god. Bruce, the ancestor of the deathless Scot, also bears in that name, more illustrious than all, the proof of his Scandinavian birth.

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This mail appears in that age to have been sewn upon linen or cloth. In the later age of the crusaders, it was more artful, and the links supported each other, without being attached to any other material.

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Bayeux tapestry.

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The cross-bow is not to be seen in the Bayeux tapestry—the Norman bows are not long.

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Roman de Rou.

267 (return)
William of Poitiers.

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Dieu nous aide.

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Thus, when at the battle of Barnet, Earl Warwick, the king-maker, slew his horse and fought on foot, he followed the old traditional customs of Saxon chiefs.

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“Devant li Dus alout cantant De Karlemaine e de Rollant, Ed ‘Olever e des Vassalls Ki morurent en Ronchevals.” Roman de Rou, Part ii. I. 13, 151.

Much research has been made by French antiquaries, to discover the old Chant de Roland, but in vain.

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W. PICT. Chron. de Nor.

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For, as Sir F. Palgrave shrewdly conjectures, upon the dismemberment of the vast earldom of Wessex, on Harold’s accession to the throne, that portion of it comprising Sussex (the old government of his grandfather Wolnoth) seems to have been assigned to Gurth.

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Harold’s birthday was certainly the 14th of October. According to Mr. Roscoe, in his “Life of William the Conqueror,” William was born also on the 14th of October.

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William Pict.

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Thus Wace,

“Guert (Gurth) vit Engleiz amenuisier, Vi K’il n’i ont nul recovrier,” etc.

“Gurth saw the English diminish, and that there was no hope to retrieve the day; the Duke pushed forth with such force, that he reached him, and struck him with great violence (par grant air). I know not if he died by the stroke, but it is said that it laid him low.”

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The suggestions implied in the text will probably be admitted as correct; when we read in the Saxon annals of the recognition of the dead, by peculiar marks on their bodies; the obvious, or at least the most natural explanation of those signs, is to be found in the habit of puncturing the skin, mentioned by the Malmesbury chronicler.

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The contemporary Norman chronicler, William of Poitiers. See Note (R).

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See Note (R).