the crown, still less could the most powerful subject. Harold
could at most promise William his "vote and interest," whenever the
election came. But no one can believe that even Harold's influence
could have obtained the crown for William. His influence lay in
his being the embodiment of the national feeling; for him to appear
as the supporter of William would have been to lose the crown for
himself without gaining it for William. Others in England and in
Scandinavia would have been glad of it. And the engagements to
surrender Dover castle and the like were simply engagements on the
part of an English earl to play the traitor against England. If
William really called on Harold to swear to all this, he did so,
not with any hope that the oath would be kept, but simply to put
his competitor as far as possible in the wrong. But most likely
Harold swore only to something much simpler. Next to the universal
agreement about the marriage comes the very general agreement that
Harold became William's man. In these two statements we have
probably the whole truth. In those days men took the obligation of
homage upon themselves very easily. Homage was no degradation,
even in the highest; a man often did homage to any one from whom he
had received any great benefit, and Harold had received a very
great benefit from William. Nor did homage to a new lord imply
treason to the old one. Harold, delivered by William from Guy's
dungeon, would be eager to do for William any act of friendship.
The homage would be little more than binding himself in the
strongest form so to do. The relation of homage could be made to
mean anything or nothing, as might be convenient. The man might
often understand it in one sense and the lord in another. If
Harold became the man of William, he would look on the act as
little more than an expression of good will and gratitude towards
his benefactor, his future father-in-law, his commander in the