1066 - Andrew Bridgeford [42]
If the Norman account of the purpose of Harold's mission is true, why is Harold so apologetic on his return? Why is Edward admonishing him in this manner? By promising his support to William, Harold has surely done no more than fulfil his supposed mission. He should be congratulated, not criticised. Again we are reminded of the Canterbury tale told by Eadmer. 'On being questioned by the King,' says Eadmer, 'Harold told him what had happened and what he had done. The King exclaimed: "Did I not tell you that I knew William well and that your going there might bring untold calamity upon this kingdom?'"26
These words could almost be an English subtitle to the tapestry's silent scene. Once more, close observation of the Bayeux Tapestry reveals that it is not the work of Norman propaganda that popular myth would have us believe, but a covert, subtle and substantial record of the English version of events, one whose true meaning has been largely lost for well-nigh a thousand years. It is nevertheless so cleverly designed that observers who expect to see a perfidious Harold have always seen what they expect to see. Many Normans would probably have seen little to quarrel with. They might have breezed up and down the length of the work, smirking here, laughing there, glowing everywhere with the haughty satisfaction of conquerors. They would have seen what they wanted to see: but the pictorial clues tell a different story. The subtle subtext lies silently within the pictures rather than the words. Drawing on a similar or identical source, it tells much the same story that Eadmer was to record more explicitly in writing forty or fifty years later. In the process the tapestry adds considerable weight to Eadmer's already plausible story. The tapestry is much earlier than Eadmer, being almost contemporary with the events themselves, but unlike William of Poitiers, who wrote his Norman biography of Duke William at around the same time, the tapestry's artist had no motive to dissemble the facts, if he could get away with recording them, and he had no reason to spread propaganda. What we see in these threads is, therefore, very likely true.
Thus it appears that by the early 1060s King Edward no longer supported Duke William's claim. Harold, however, had been foolish enough to travel to Normandy on his own business and had fallen into a trap. He had been caught in a tragic dilemma from which he could only extricate himself by swearing a sacred oath to support the Norman claim. It is unlikely, even then, that Earl Harold had any intention of fulfilling that undertaking. He had escaped from Count Guy into the hands of Duke William and he had escaped from Duke William only by placing himself in the hands and at the mercy of his God. His journey back to Edward is accompanied by yet another border image of the ancient fable of the fox and the crow. Can there be any doubt that William is the greedy fox and that Harold is the naive and foolish crow?King Edward is frail and old; his time will soon be over and the moment when his successor must be chosen will surely arrive before the cornfields are golden again. The Bayeux Tapestry is appearing less and less as a triumphal monument. It is more with the rhythm and pathos of a Greek tragedy that the story is moving, stitch by stitch, towards its deadly climax.
7
The English Decision
As late as the summer of 1065 King Edward was still well enough for Harold to invite him hunting in south Wales, but as the days grew colder, and the barren winter blew sharply across the land, the health of the old man deteriorated rapidly. His grand projet, his last great offering to his God, his great legacy upon which he had lavished a large fortune, was to be a new church at the abbey of Westminster, close to his riverside palace. Westminster was then situated on a little island, known as Thorney Island; it was bounded on three sides not,