strictness, do not scruple to throw temptation in the way of a
fellow man in the hope that he will yield to that temptation. They
exact a promise, because the promise is likely to be broken, and
because its breach would suit their purposes. Through all
William's policy a strong regard for formal right as he chose to
understand formal right, is not only found in company with much
practical wrong, but is made the direct instrument of carrying out
that wrong. Never was trap more cunningly laid than that in which
William now entangled Harold. Never was greater wrong done without
the breach of any formal precept of right. William and Lanfranc
broke no oath themselves, and that was enough for them. But it was
no sin in their eyes to beguile another into engagements which he
would understand in one way and they in another; they even, as
their admirers tell the story, beguile him into engagements at once
unlawful and impossible, because their interests would be promoted
by his breach of those engagements. William, in short, under the
spiritual guidance of Lanfranc, made Harold swear because he
himself would gain by being able to denounce Harold as perjured.

The moral question need not be further discussed; but we should
greatly like to know how far the fact of Harold's oath, whatever
its nature, was known in England? On this point we have no
trustworthy authority. The English writers say nothing about the
whole matter; to the Norman writers this point was of no interest.
No one mentions this point, except Harold's romantic biographer at
the beginning of the thirteenth century. His statements are of no
value, except as showing how long Harold's memory was cherished.
According to him, Harold formally laid the matter before the Witan,
and they unanimously voted that the oath--more, in his version,
than a mere oath of homage--was not binding. It is not likely that