of the king and his friend Saint Wulfstan Bishop of Worcester. It
was most likely now, as a seal of this reconciliation, that Harold
married Ealdgyth, the sister of the two northern earls Edwin and
Morkere, and the widow of the Welsh king Gruffydd. He doubtless
hoped in this way to win the loyalty of the earls and their
followers.

The accession of Harold was perfectly regular according to English
law. In later times endless fables arose; but the Norman writers
of the time do not deny the facts of the recommendation, election,
and coronation. They slur them over, or, while admitting the mere
facts, they represent each act as in some way invalid. No writer
near the time asserts a deathbed nomination of William; they speak
only of a nomination at some earlier time. But some Norman writers
represent Harold as crowned by Stigand Archbishop of Canterbury.
This was not, in the ideas of those times, a trifling question. A
coronation was then not a mere pageant; it was the actual admission
to the kingly office. Till his crowning and anointing, the
claimant of the crown was like a bishop-elect before his
consecration. He had, by birth or election, the sole right to
become king; it was the coronation that made him king. And as the
ceremony took the form of an ecclesiastical sacrament, its validity
might seem to depend on the lawful position of the officiating
bishop. In England to perform that ceremony was the right and duty
of the Archbishop of Canterbury; but the canonical position of
Stigand was doubtful. He had been appointed on the flight of
Robert; he had received the pallium, the badge of arch-episcopal
rank, only from the usurping Benedict the Tenth. It was therefore
good policy in Harold to be crowned by Ealdred, to whose position
there was no objection. This is the only difference of fact