would be greatly against them ; fatigue with harassing skirmishes, straitened in provisions, deep and almost impassable roads, with the English ever active in front, they would fall an easy prey to them ; that at least, if he thought it necessary to hazard a battle, he ought not to expose his own person, but to withdraw himself, and employ his authority in mustering a new army, and to be ready to receive William with fresh forces . " And if," said he, " you please to commit the charge of this encounter to me, I will not fail to express both the love of a brother and the care and courage of a commander. For as I am not obliged to the duke by oath,[1] so shall I either prevail with the better cause, or with the quieter conscience die."
Harold's mother also in tears besought him that he would not venture his person in the battle : but he was deaf to all remonstrances, elated with his late victory, roused by his native courage at the thought of delaying battle, which might be construed into cowardice. " For," said he, "what honours have I gained in my former victories, if, when I come to the greatest pitch of danger, I should fearfully shrink ? With what heart would the soldiers fight, when they have not his presence for whom they fight, when they have not their general an eye-witness of their performances ; when they want his sight, his encouragement, his example, to inflame them to valour ? "
But whatever the Normans were, as he had, he said, digested in his mind the hardest events of battle, so either the infamy or suspicion of cowardice in no -
- ↑ This refers to the oath taken by Harold at Rouen, to render every assistance to the Duke in his pretensions to the crown of England, which Edward in his will intended to leave him. In order to render it more binding, he contrived to place under the altar, unknown to Harold, the reliques of some of the most renowned martyrs, and when he had taken the oath, he showed him the reliques, and admonished him to observe religiously an engagement which had been ratified by so tremendous a sanction.
