behaved as a united body, and that it was the adhesion of individual nobles to the most likely heir which really invested him with the royal power.  According to this account, such traces of election in the wider sense as are discernible in the eleventh century may with probability be set down to Danish influence, for the three Scandinavian nations had advanced much further than other Teutonic peoples in the development of their native institutional forms. But, even so, there is much in the history of the year 1066 to suggest that the older ideas still prevailed: William claimed the throne by hereditary right and it was the submission of Stigand, Edwin, Morcar, Edgar the Etheling, and the citizens of London, not the vote of any set assembly, which gave sanction to his claim.
In the light of this anticipation we may now consider the most perplexing question in William's life, the truth underlying the famous story of Harold's visit to Normandy and the oath which lie there swore to William. Unlike most questions relating to the eleventh century, the difficulty in the present case arises from the wealth of our information on the subject; with the exception of those purely English writers Florence of Worcester and the authors of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, the significance of whose silence will be seen shortly, every historical writer of the fifty years succeeding the Conquest tells the story at length, and no two writers tell the same story. And yet we cannot safely reject the tale as fabulous for two reasons: the silence of those who wrote with native sympathies proves that there was an element of truth in the Norman story which they did not feel themselves at liberty to deny, while the rapid diffusion of the tale itself among writers widely separated in point of place and circumstance would be unintelligible if it were the result of sheer invention. Nor is a story necessarily suspicious because its details are romantic.
The skeleton of the tale is that Harold, happening, for reasons diversely stated, to be sailing in the Channel, was driven by a storm on to the coast of Ponthieu, and that being thereby regarded as the lawful prey of the count he was thrown into prison at Beaurain, evidently to be held to ransom. While Harold was in prison the Duke of Normandy became apprised of the fact, and sending to Count Guy, who had become his feudal dependant after the battle of Mortemer, William had Harold brought with all honour into the duchy. For an indefinite time the earl stayed at the court of the duke, and even accompanied him on the Breton expedition which was described in the last chapter; but before his departure he placed himself under some obligation to his host, the nature of which is the key to the whole matter, but with regard to which scarcely any two writers are in unison. There is no doubt that Harold became William's man, and it would seem certain that he took an oath which bore some reference to the rivalry for the English throne in which both were evidently engaged. Most writers make the essence of the oath to be a promise on the part of Harold to do all in his power to secure the crown for William upon Edward's death, and there is a powerful current of tradition which asserts that Harold pledged himself to marry one of William's daughters. In other words, Harold undertook to recognise William as king of England in due season, and to secure for him the adhesion of such of the English nobility as were under his influence; his marriage with William's daughter being doubtless intended to guarantee his good faith when the critical moment came. Such an agreement would still leave Harold obviously the first man to England; indeed the relationship which would have been created between William and Harold, if it had been carried into effect, would in some respects have reproduced the relationship in which Edward the Confessor had stood with regard to Earl Godwine in 1042. This fact mates it difficult to believe that Harold was necessarily acting under compulsion when he took the oath; he had many rivals and enemies in Eng