measure, they were
obliged to conceal their sentiments; and the new prince, taking a
general silence for consent, and founding his title on the supposed
suffrages of the people, which appeared unanimous, was, on the day
immediately succeeding Edward's death, crowned and anointed king, by
Aldred, Archbishop of York. The whole nation seemed joyful to
acquiesce in his elevation.
[FN [e] G. Pict. p. 196. Ypod. Neust. p. 436. Order. Vitalis, p.
492. M. West. p. 221 W. Malm. p. 93. Ingulph. p. 68. Brompton, p.
957. Knyghton, p. 2339. H. Hunt. p. 210. Many of the historians
say, that Harold was regularly elected by the states: some, that
Edward left him his successor by will.]

The first symptoms of danger which the king discovered came from
abroad, and from his own brother Tosti, who had submitted to a
voluntary banishment in Flanders. Enraged at the successful ambition
of Harold, to which he himself had fallen a victim, he filled the
court of Baldwin with complaints of the injustice which he had
suffered; he engaged the interest of that family against his brother:
he endeavoured to form intrigues with some of the discontented nobles
in England: he sent his emissaries to Norway, in order to rouse to
arms the freebooters of that kingdom, and to excite the hopes of
reaping advantage from the unsettled state of affairs on the
usurpation of the new king: and that he might render the combination
more formidable, he made a journey to Normandy, in expectation that
the duke, who had married Matilda, another daughter of Baldwin, would,
in revenge of his own wrongs, as well as those of Tosti, second, by
his counsels and forces, the projected invasion of England [f].
[FN [f] Order. Vitalis, p. 492.]

The Duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of Harold's
intrigues and accession, had been moved to the highest pitch of
indignation; but that he might give the better colour to his
pretensions, he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince
with his breach of faith, and summoning him to resign immediately
possession of the kingdom. Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors,
that the oath with which he was reproached had been extorted by the
well-grounded fear of violence, and could never, for that reason, be
regarded as obligatory: that he had had no commission either from the
late king, or the states of England, who alone could dispose of the
crown, to make any tender of the succession to the Duke of Norm