who had been given as hostages on the return of Godwine, and had
been entrusted by the King to the keeping of Duke William. This
version is one degree less absurd; but no such hostages are known
to have been given, and if they were, the patriotic party, in the
full swing of triumph, would hardly have allowed them to be sent to
Normandy. A third version makes Harold's presence the result of
mere accident. He is sailing to Wales or Flanders, or simply
taking his pleasure in the Channel, when he is cast by a storm on
the coast of Ponthieu. Of these three accounts we may choose the
third as the only one that is possible. It is also one out of
which the others may have grown, while it is hard to see how the
third could have arisen out of either of the others. Harold then,
we may suppose, fell accidentally into the clutches of Guy, and was
rescued from them, at some cost in ransom and in grants of land, by
Guy's overlord Duke William.

The whole story is eminently characteristic of William. He would
be honestly indignant at Guy's base treatment of Harold, and he
would feel it his part as Guy's overlord to redress the wrong. But
he would also be alive to the advantage of getting his rival into
his power on so honourable a pretext. Simply to establish a claim
to gratitude on the part of Harold would be something. But he
might easily do more, and, according to all accounts, he did more.
Harold, we are told, as the Duke's friend and guest, returns the
obligation under which the Duke has laid him by joining him in one
or more expeditions against the Bretons. The man who had just
smitten the Bret-Welsh of the island might well be asked to fight,
and might well be ready to fight, against the Bret-Welsh of the
mainland. The services of Harold won him high honour; he was
admitted into the ranks of Norman knighthood, and engaged to marry