If Harold really swore to all of them, it must have been simply because he felt that he was practically in William's power, without any serious intention of keeping the oath.If Harold took any such oath, he undoubtedly broke it; but we may safely say that any guilt on his part lay wholly in taking the oath, not in breaking it.For he swore to do what he could not do, and what it would have been a crime to do, if he could.If the King himself could not dispose of the crown, still less could the most powerful subject.Harold could at most promise William his "vote and interest," whenever the election came.But no one can believe that even Harold's influence could have obtained the crown for William.His influence lay in his being the embodiment of the national feeling; for him to appear as the supporter of William would have been to lose the crown for himself without gaining it for William.Others in England and in Scandinavia would have been glad of it.And the engagements to surrender Dover castle and the like were simply engagements on the part of an English earl to play the traitor against England.If William really called on Harold to swear to all this, he did so, not with any hope that the oath would be kept, but simply to put his competitor as far as possible in the wrong.But most likely Harold swore only to something much simpler.Next to the universal agreement about the marriage comes the very general agreement that Harold became William's man.In these two statements we have probably the whole truth.In those days men took the obligation of homage upon themselves very easily.Homage was no degradation, even in the highest; a man often did homage to any one from whom he had received any great benefit, and Harold had received a very great benefit from William.Nor did homage to a new lord imply treason to the old one.Harold, delivered by William from Guy's dungeon, would be eager to do for William any act of friendship.The homage would be little more than binding himself in the strongest form so to do.
The relation of homage could be made to mean anything or nothing, as might be convenient.The man might often understand it in one sense and the lord in another.If Harold became the man of William, he would look on the act as little more than an expression of good will and gratitude towards his benefactor, his future father-in-law, his commander in the Breton war.He would not look on it as forbidding him to accept the English crown if it were offered to him.Harold, the man of Duke William, might become a king, if he could, just as William, the man of King Philip, might become a king, if he could.
As things went in those days, both the homage and the promise of marriage were capable of being looked on very lightly.
But it was not in the temper or in the circumstances of William to put any such easy meaning on either promise.The oath might, if needful, be construed very strictly, and William was disposed to construe it very strictly.Harold had not promised William a crown, which was not his to promise; but he had promised to do that which might be held to forbid him to take a crown which William held to be his own.If the man owed his lord any duty at all, it was surely his duty not to thwart his lord's wishes in such a matter.If therefore, when the vacancy of the throne came, Harold took the crown himself, or even failed to promote William's claim to it, William might argue that he had not rightly discharged the duty of a man to his lord.He could make an appeal to the world against the new king, as a perjured man, who had failed to help his lord in the matter where his lord most needed his help.And, if the oath really had been taken on relics of special holiness, he could further appeal to the religious feelings of the time against the man who had done despite to the saints.If he should be driven to claim the crown by arms, he could give the war the character of a crusade.
All this in the end William did, and all this, we may be sure, he looked forward to doing, when he caused Harold to become his man.
