1066 - Andrew Bridgeford [30]
Now Harold is taken to the door of Guy's hall; he is surrounded by no less than six guards, one of whom holds his confiscated sword [scene 7]. Harold enters, slowly, and with trepidation. A fellow Englishman from his party encourages him forward with a push in the back. Under the domed roof, captive and captor now converse, man to man, eye to eye, noble to noble, sizing each other up with sly glances, but just as in the tapestry's opening scene, when Harold met Edward, we do not know exactly what passes between them. UBI HAROLD ET WIDO PARABOLANT (Where Harold and Guy confer) is all that the inscription says. Do the discussions range over Harold's wealth? Are they talking of how much gold Harold is willing to hand over for his freedom?For the moment (for the picture, as it were) Harold has been handed back his unbelted sword. He stands throughout the meeting, whereas Guy makes a point of sitting on his comital throne, raised higher than Harold; the seated position is always indicative of authority in the tapestry. It is a dapper, ambitious young Frenchman, still in his twenties, whom Harold can see before him, now with his arm raised, pointing directly at his captive - 'I have you under my complete custody and control,' he seems to be saying. Guy's sword is held upright by the blade, like a sceptre, and his feet are resting on a cushioned footstool. His face is clean-shaven and his hair is worn in the northern French style, which is to say shorn very short at the back. This contrasts with the English who, like Harold, are in the habit of wearing their fair locks thick and long around the nape of the neck and a little stitch of a moustache underlining the nose. The count's dark cape lies over his shoulders like the wings of a mantling hawk; it is neatly buttoned in front with a large brooch. Guy's tunic is something like a long, unbelted dress, with folds and creases forming around his waist and uplifted knees; he wears a fine hose that has been carefully embroidered in horizontal black and brown stripes. His throne, scarcely less noble than a king's, has carved claw feet and its arms are made into sculptured animal heads. This is a man with a taste for luxury, but clearly someone who must be taken seriously within the boundaries of his own county. A contemporary monk at the monastery of Saint Riquier, the chief monastic centre in Ponthieu, described him as pitiless, haughty and corrupted by greed: 'only gold would satisfy him', he said.3 In the next century William of Malmes-bury wrote that Count Guy was effeminate.4
If Guy seemed vaguely familiar to Harold, it was because he had met him, or at least seen him, once before. Harold had not often travelled to the continent but during a visit to Flanders, some eight years earlier, he had been called upon by Count Baldwin of Flanders to lend his name as a witness to a local charter.5 It was the practice for nobles and officials to attest legal transactions in order to give them greater authority, and Harold duly obliged. The young Guy was presumably visiting Baldwin's court too, for the two names 'Duke Harold'and 'Count Guy' appear side by side in the same document, among twenty-eight other witnesses. The surviving diploma, subscribed at the Flemish town of St-Omer, bears the date 13 November 1056. To what extent they conversed in 1056 is unknown, but there was presumably ample opportunity for the assembled nobles gathered at Baldwin's court to mingle and to indulge in feasting and entertainment. Under the late autumnal skies Harold and Guy would have been able to partake in their shared passion for falconry.
To those who were there at that noble Flemish gathering in 1056, Count Guy probably seemed a bitter and resentful youth. He had himself only recently