if we grant thus much, the story reads on the whole as if it
happened a few years later than the English earl's return from
Rome.

It is therefore most likely that Harold did pay a second visit to
Gaul, whether a first or a second visit to Normandy, at some time
nearer to Edward's death than the year 1058. The English writers
are silent; the Norman writers give no date or impossible dates;
they connect the visit with a war in Britanny; but that war is
without a date. We are driven to choose the year which is least
rich in events in the English annals. Harold could not have paid a
visit of several months to Normandy either in 1063 or in 1065. Of
those years the first was the year of Harold's great war in Wales,
when he found how the Britons might be overcome by their own arms,
when he broke the power of Gruffydd, and granted the Welsh kingdom
to princes who became the men of Earl Harold as well as of King
Edward. Harold's visit to Normandy is said to have taken place in
the summer and autumn mouths; but the summer and autumn of 1065
were taken up by the building and destruction of Harold's hunting-
seat in Wales and by the greater events of the revolt and
pacification of Northumberland. But the year 1064 is a blank in
the English annals till the last days of December, and no action of
Harold's in that year is recorded. It is therefore the only
possible year among those just before Edward's death. Harold's
visit and oath to William may very well have taken place in that
year; but that is all.

We know as little for certain as to the circumstances of the visit
or the nature of the oath. We can say only that Harold did
something which enabled William to charge him with perjury and