battle. The last challenge to a single combat between Harold and
William of course appears only on the eve of the battle. Now none
of these accounts come from contemporary partisans of Harold; every
one is touched by hostile feeling towards him. Thus the
constitutional language that is put into his mouth, almost
startling from its modern sound, has greater value. A King of the
English can do nothing without the consent of his Witan. They gave
him the kingdom; without their consent, he cannot resign it or
dismember it or agree to hold it of any man; without their consent,
he cannot even marry a foreign wife. Or he answers that the
daughter of William whom he promised to marry is dead, and that the
sister whom he promised to give to a Norman is dead also. Harold
does not deny the fact of his oath--whatever its nature; he
justifies its breach because it was taken against is will, and
because it was in itself of no strength, as binding him to do
impossible things. He does not deny Edward's earlier promise to
William; but, as a testament is of no force while the testator
liveth, he argues that it is cancelled by Edward's later nomination
of himself. In truth there is hardly any difference between the
disputants as to matters of fact. One side admits at least a
plighting of homage on the part of Harold; the other side admits
Harold's nomination and election. The real difference is as to the
legal effect of either. Herein comes William's policy. The
question was one of English law and of nothing else, a matter for
the Witan of England and for no other judges. William, by
ingeniously mixing all kinds of irrelevant issues, contrived to
remove the dispute from the region of municipal into that of
international law, a law whose chief representative was the Bishop
of Rome. By winning the Pope to his side, William could give his
aggression the air of a religious war; but in so doing, he