Harold Hardrada, King of Norway.

93

ART. IV. 1. Det Norske Folks Historie. P. A. MUNCH. Vols. i. ii. iii. Christiania, 1852-55. 2. Den Danske Erobring af England og Normandiet. J. J. A. WORSAAE. Copenhagen, Gyldendalske Boghhandling, 1863.

THE thread of our story was dropped at the death of Magnus the Good (Oct. 25, 1047): we now take it up to tell how his uncle Harold ruled Norway with undivided sway.

The wailing sound of the horns came heavily over the water to the wood in which Thorir and Ref were hid, and they at once set out on their way to Sweyn. They were only just in time, for we are told that Harold sent men after them as soon as the breath was out of his nephew's body, to cut them off, and so stay the message. Next, Harold called together all the Norwegian warriors to a Thing, in which he gave it out that he would not listen to the last wishes of Magnus as to his realm, that he was heir to Denmark just as much as he was heir to Norway, and that his purpose was to make for Viborg, call an Assembly of the Danes, and have himself chosen king of Denmark. If they could only now subdue that land, the Danes would bow their heads before the Norwegians for all time. But Einar again rose to thwart Harold's plans. It was far more his bounden duty, he said, to bear the body of King Magnus, his foster-son, to the grave, and to carry him to his father Saint Olaf, than to war in a foreign land with King Harold, though he were greedy of another king's realm and rule. For his part, he would sooner follow King Magnus dead than any other king alive. Then he took the body and laid it out handsomely in the dead king's ship, and set it up so high that the bier could be seen from all the other ships in the fleet. And then all the Drontheimers, and many other Norwegians, made ready to go home with the body, and the whole host broke up and split asunder. So Harold, against his will, was forced to yield, and to go back with the rest. Off the Cattegat he ran into the Bay," and landing went slowly up the country, passing from Thing to Thing till he came to Drontheim, and as he went he took an oath of fealty from the freemen that he was sole lawful king in Norway. Long before he reached Drontheim, Einar had got home with his mournful freight. All the dwellers in the town met the corse at the water's edge, and so it was laid in Saint Clement's Church, where his father's shrine was then kept. "Many a tall man," it is said, "stood weeping over the grave of King Magnus, and long grieved they for his loss." As soon as Harold reached Dron

theim, he called together the eight districts which were called Drontheim,' and there in a solemn meeting he was chosen king, and now none dared dispute his right to Norway.

Meantime Thorir and his companion had made their way to Sweyn, whom they caught just as he was leaving Denmark. They found him in Scania, which then and long after was Danish soil. He was just about to mount his horse to cross the border into Sweden, and to bid farewell for ever to Denmark. "What news from the host ?, what are the Norwegians about?" he eagerly asked. Ref told him that Magnus was dead, and gave him the message which made him king in Denmark; the only condition being that he should befriend Thorir. Then Sweyn answered with great feeling, "These are great tidings; as for thee Thorir, thou shalt be welcome, and we will show thee great honour, for so I trow would the good King Magnus show to my brother if so things had come about. And now I lay this vow in the hands of God, that never again, so long as I live, will I fly from Denmark." Then he sprang on his horse and rode back through Scania, and much folk flocked to him as soon as the news spread that Magnus was

That winter Sweyn had all Denmark under him, and all the Danes took him to be their king. The oath which he had given to Magnus was gone. His conscience was free and his people were free to choose whom they would. The struggle with Norway took a new shape, and the Danes went heart and soul with Sweyn.

And Harold though his mind was bent on war with Sweyn had enough to do at home. As the last of Harold Fairhair's race on the swordside none could challenge his hereditary right to the crown. But though he had rights he met with no love. The nation's heart was buried with Magnus. It looked for a stern and unforgiving lord in Harold, and it found one in him. Besides Norway needed such a ruler. The great chiefs and vassals were now too strong. On the ruins of the freemen's allodial rights they had risen to be a power in the State, and their houses were so many fortresses which threatened to defy the king's authority. Saint Olaf had seen the evil and fell in trying to check it. Then came a short period of national repentance, during the greater part of which the chiefs and vassals were all-powerful, for Magnus was but a child. At the end of his short reign, for he was not twentythree when he died, the relations between ruler and ruled were hearty and loving, but still the crown was, as it were, in

1 In those days Drontheim was the name of the district, and not of the town. Strictly speaking, the town was called Niđarós, that is, the town at the mouth of the river Nid.

Harold's Character as a King.

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commission in the hands of Einar and his fellows. Now the reign of love was over, the battle must be fought out to the last between the crown and its vassals, and Harold was just the man to win in such a struggle. "He was mighty," says the Saga, " and turned with a will to govern the land at home, and beyond measure wise and understanding, so that all said with one voice there was never a more understanding far-sighted king in the North. Besides, he was a surpassing warrior, strong and wellskilled in all feats of arms, and above all things, a man who knew how to work out his will." "Greedy he was of power, and he grew more and more greedy of it the firmer he felt himself in the land and government, and at last it went so far that most of those smarted for it who dared to speak against him, or to take other things in hand than those he thought good and right." His whole reign, as has been well shown by Munch, was one continuous effort and purpose to carry out his scheme of government with the most unbending will, to strengthen the power of the Crown, crush risings and rebellion, to stifle disturbances, and to bring the whole realm to a state of order and discipline, so that there might be one Norway under one king. Few kings could have done this in the face of strife at home and wasting war abroad; yet Harold did it so well, that he left at his death an orderly, flourishing, firmly-founded, and contented kingdom to his heirs. In him the National Church found a vigorous champion against the encroachments of the See of Bremen, and he left on it a stamp of liberty which the Papacy could not mar for centuries, if it ever quite succeeded. All this he could never have done had he not been a man of wonderful powers of mind, as well as will and daring. He must have had a good head as well as a heavy hand. As Magnus got his byname "The Good" in his lifetime, so Harold was known almost as soon as he stepped upon the throne by a just and fitting title: Harold Hardrada (Haraldr hinn Hardráđi) was what all men called him. Harold of hard redes as we should have said in early English; Harold "the hard-hearted," Harold the stern, a man whose terms were hard, and whose councils and conditions were hard to bear, for they looked to his profit and interest alone. This hardness was no doubt the fruit of the trials he had undergone in youth, not a little helped, perhaps, by that atmosphere of intrigue in which he had spent so many of his best years at the Greek Emperor's Court. And yet this man so hard, so stern, so greedy of fame and goods, had a heart if any one was lucky enough to find the way to it. Many stories prove that he could be affable, condescending, and entertaining, nay, more, that he could be loveable, liberal, and generous. His skill in poetry, and in all the literature of the age, showed a mind full of

taste and feeling, and a soul which, in better times, would have been capable of great things, in arts as well as in arms; but along with all those noble gifts he showed a tyrant's temper, in that he was fickle, hasty, and overbearing; none could tell how long he would be of the same mind, and, while basking in the sunshine of his favour, none knew how soon his smile would turn into a frown.

Such was the man whom Providence had pitted against the great Norwegian chiefs, who at one and the same time were vassals of the Crown.1 They were a formidable array, even if taken chief by chief, and vassal by vassal; but there had also happened what will ever happen in such a state of things, all these chiefs were more or less bound together by ties of kinship or marriage, and a blow struck at one branch of the tree shook all the rest. Harold's difficulty was the same as that which met and overthrew King Olaf. He had to fight against the same local and personal interests with the old enemy with the old face; but he had one advantage which the Saint had not, while the heads of these great houses clung to the old system, a younger generation was springing up who felt that Norway was a whole, and not a mere gathering together of parts and provinces. The old system might be said to have held together the several atoms of the State by frost, which melted before any hot trial like that of Canute's invasion, and each atom was left to itself. Saint Olaf's system, as worked out by Harold, aimed at welding all the atoms together by repeated blows given by the strong arm of the crown, and when Harold died he left Norway quite annealed and amalgamated; one kingdom, and not a mere congeries of provinces. But besides this advantage arising out of the awaking of national consciousness, he had another in his personal power and craft. He had the end in view, and in his policy the means were hallowed by the end. We have seen

1 First and foremost of these was Einar Paunchshaker, of whom we have so often heard. He was strong in the Drontheim district, and his wife, Bergliot, was sprung from the great Earl Hacon, so that their son Eindridi might boast of princely blood. Another great chief was the only earl in Norway Orm Eilif's son, of the Uplands, side by side with whom stood his kinsman, the young, fair, and gallant Hacon Ivar's son, whose father was the grandson of the same Earl Hacon. In Ringerike was Step-Thorir, the mightiest man in Gudbrandsdale. In the south-west was Aslak; in the Sognefirth Brynjolf, Helgi's son. In the north-west was the great House of the Arnmodlings. Eystein Orri or the Gorcock, at Giske, and Finn Arni's son, brother of that mighty Kalf, who fled from Norway at the reproaches of Magnus. He lived at Austratt on Yrje, at the mouth of the Drontheim Firth. In Helgeland to the north, in the strip of land between the skerries and the Fells, Einar the Fly of Thjotta, had rule. He was Harold's vassal or lendirman, and early in the reign is named as having the wardship of the Finnskatt or fur trade.

Harold's Second Marriage.

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that he was already wedded to Elizabeth. She had borne him two daughters, Maria and Ingigerd, but no son. It does not appear that Harold was ever separated from Jaroslav's daughter, and we know that she was with him at his end; but however that may be, it does appear that he strove to break up the compact array of the great chiefs by marrying a kinswoman of the mightiest of them. He turned his eyes therefore on Thora Eystein Gorcock's sister, and so became still more closely related to the Arnmodlings. This step left him with two wives on his hands, for it is certain that he was formally married to Thora, who is constantly called Queen in the Sagas, while Elizabeth is never mentioned except at the beginning and end of his reign. But two wives or one this marriage was a most politic step, for the Arnmodlings were widely connected, and by this single stroke not only Eystein Gorcock, but also Finn Arni's son, Hacon Ivar's son, and Einar the Fly, were brought over to Harold's party, for a time at least, and the stiff-necked Einar Paunchshaker, Step-Thorir, and some other Upland chiefs were his only enemies. Einar was strong, as we know, about Drontheim the old heart and capital of the country; and now as a set-off and balance to his weight, Harold made his trusty friend and old brother-in-arms, Ulf Ospak's son from Iceland, a vassal of the crown, and gave him great fiefs in the Drontheim district. At the same time he made him his marshal or master of the horse, and to crown all gave him Thora's sister Jorunna to wife, and Ulf by his faithfulness well deserved this good treatment. So Harold began his reign strong in himself and in his second marriage. Of yielding an inch to the unruliness of the freement there could be no question. All that had been left by Magnus of the Danish imposts and injustice he rigidly maintained, and even added to. No king before or after him ever stood so stiffly for his rights, or so systematically neglected those of others. Einar, so long as he lived, often upbraided him for breaking the law, but the king, strong in his policy of setting chief against chief, turned a deaf ear to his reproaches, or if he gave way for a moment, it was only to return to his purpose with firmer will and greater force. Nor did he scorn, in his eagerness to add to his resources, to bring in a very common medieval financial operation. He struck coin so debased that scarce one half of it was silver, the rest being copper. These, almost the first coins in Norway, were known as Harold's bits. And now arined at all points, he made ready to fight it out with Sweyn.

This war with Sweyn lasted nearly twenty years, and we see at once why it lasted so long. Harold was never, as Magnus had been, chosen king by the Danes, who had now, for the most part, rallied round Sweyn, and who looked upon Harold

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