between the English and Norman versions at this stage. And the
difference is easily explained. At William's coronation the king
walked to the altar between the two archbishops, but it was Ealdred
who actually performed the ceremony. Harold's coronation doubtless
followed the same order. But if Stigand took any part in that
coronation, it was easy to give out that he took that special part
on which the validity of the rite depended.

Still, if Harold's accession was perfectly lawful, it was none the
less strange and unusual. Except the Danish kings chosen under
more or less of compulsion, he was the first king who did not
belong to the West-Saxon kingly house. Such a choice could be
justified only on the ground that that house contained no qualified
candidate. Its only known members were the children of the
AEtheling Edward, young Edgar and his sisters. Now Edgar would
certainly have been passed by in favour of any better qualified
member of the kingly house, as his father had been passed by in
favour of King Edward. And the same principle would, as things
stood, justify passing him by in favour of a qualified candidate
not of the kingly house. But Edgar's right to the crown is never
spoken of till a generation or two later, when the doctrines of
hereditary right had gained much greater strength, and when Henry
the Second, great-grandson through his mother of Edgar's sister
Margaret, insisted on his descent from the old kings. This
distinction is important, because Harold is often called an
usurper, as keeping out Edgar the heir by birth. But those who
called him an usurper at the time called him so as keeping out
William the heir by bequest. William's own election was out of the
question. He was no more of the English kingly house than Harold;
he was a foreigner and an utter stranger. Had Englishmen been