ertain French powers if he should need it at any time.  The passage in which we are told of these negotiations is very obscure, but it is by no means improbable that Harold, when the death of the etheling had opened for him a possibility of succeeding to the crown, may have tried to find allies who would hamper the movements of his most formidable rival when the critical time came. Also it is not without significance that 1058 is the year of Varaville, a date at which French jealousy of Norman power would be at its height. At any rate we may at this point stop to consider the relative position occupied by the earl and the duke respectively with respect to their chances of succeeding to the splendid inheritance of the oldest dynasty in Western Europe.
The first point which deserves discussion is the nature of the title to the English crown. " Hereditary" and "elective," the words which one naturally contrasts in this connection, are terms of vague and fluctuating meaning in any case, while it has always been recognised that neither can be employed in relation to the tenure of the crown at any period of English history without due qualification. To say simply that the English monarchy was "elective" at the period with which we are dealing, is an insufficient statement unless we also consider the limits within which the choice lay on any given occasion, the process involved in the act of election, and the body which exercised the elective right. With regard to the first of these matters there undoubtedly existed an ancient and deep-seated feeling that a king should only be chosen from a kingly stock; in the eleventh century the sentiment still survived with which at an earlier period the nation had demanded that its rulers should have sprung from the blood of the gods. This idea was far older than any feeling of nationality, to which it might from time to time run counter it helps, for instance, to explain the ease with which the English had accepted the royal Dane Cnut for their ruler but with this highly important reservation it is very improbable that the succession was determined by anything which could be called general principles. The crown would naturally pass to the most popular kinsman of the late ruler, and the question of the exact relationship between the dead king and his heir would be a secondary matter.
William of Normandy was of sufficiently noble birth to satisfy the popular sentiment in the former respect, for Rollo himself was the scion of an ancient line of Norwegian chieftains. Harold on his mother's side inherited royal blood, for Gytha, Earl Godwine's wife, was descended from the family of the kings of Sweden; but whereas no writer near the time remarks on this feature in Harold's descent, the origin of the "jarls of Normandy " was still a living memory in the north. Far more important in every way, however, was the undoubted kinship between William and King Edward, a fact which William made the very foundation of his claim and which was undoubtedly recognised by the men of the time as giving him an advantage which could not be gainsaid. At the present day, indeed, it is rather difficult to understand the influence exercised by the somewhat distant relationship which was all that united William and Edward, especially in view of the fact that Edgar, son of Edward the Etheling, still continued the male line of the royal house of Wessex. We can only explain it on the ground that in 1066 Edgar was under the age at which he would be competent to rule independently, and that the public opinion of the time would not accept a minor as king so long as there existed another candidate connected with the royal house and capable of taking up the reins of government in his own hands. In fact, of the three candidates between whom the choice lay on the Confessor's death William, after all, was the one who combined the greatest variety of desirable qualifications. Edgar was nearest to the throne by order of birth, but his youth placed him at a fatal disadvantage; Harold was a man of mature years and of wide experience