, that, if foreign invasion and conquest
be an evil, from that evil England was preserved as long as his crafty
and subtle head remained above ground; and had he lived thirteen years
longer, the accumulated and concentrated scoundrelism of Europe would
have been dashed away in foam and blood from the English shore. Properly
understood, Godwin's whole life was one protracted agony for the
salvation of his country. He had to contend with every species of
deleterious influence,--ferocious, drunken, dissolute, and imbecile
kings, the reckless intrigues of monasticism at the instigation of Rome,
and the unprincipled and infamous ambition of the Norman Bastard, who
crept into England during this great man's exile, and fled in all haste
at his return. What he had to contend with, what plots he frustrated,
what malice he counteracted, what superstition and stupidity he rendered
harmless, will never be known in detail. We perceive the indefinite and
indistinct forms of these things floating through the mists of history,
but cannot grasp and fix them for the instruction of posterity."[L] This
portraiture may be somewhat too highly colored, but it is better
painting than we get from Norman writers, who were no more capable of
writing justly of Godwin and Harold, than Roman authors of Hannibal and
Spartacus. Godwin was an abler man than his son and successor, and
probably the latter would never have been able to aspire to royalty, and
for a few months to wear a crown, had not the fortunes of his house been
raised so high by his father. Nevertheless, Harold was worthy of his
inheritance, and possessed rare qualities, such as made him not
undeserving a throne, and of better fortune than he found at Hastings.
He was patriotic, magnanimous, brave, humane, honorable, and energetic.
His chief fault seems to have been a deficiency in judgment, which led
him rashly to engage in undertakings that might better have been
deferred. Such, at least, is the impression that we derive from his
fighting the battle of Hastings, when he had everything to gain from
delay, and when every day that an action was postponed was as useful to
the Saxon cause as it was injurious to that of the Normans.

Harold's rival was the illegitimate son of Robert the Devil, as he is
commonly called, because he has been, though improperly, "identified
with a certain imaginary or legendary hero," but who was a much better
man than his diabolic _sobriquet_ implies. William's