begun when delegations came up to meet him, bringing the submission of
that city and of other places in Kent. Soon after leaving Dover the duke
himself fell ill, very possibly with the prevailing disease, but if we
may judge by what seems to be our best evidence, he did not allow this to
interrupt his advance, but pushed on towards London with only a brief
stop at any point.[1] Nor is there any certain evidence to be had of
extensive harrying of the country on this march. His army was obliged to
live on what it could take from the inhabitants, and this foraging was
unquestionably accompanied with much unnecessary plundering; but there is
no convincing evidence of any systematic laying waste of large districts
to bring about a submission which everything would show to be coming of
itself, and it was not like William to ravage without need. He certainly
hesitated at no cruelty of the sort at times, but we can clearly enough
see reasons of policy in most at least of the cases, which may have made
the action seem to him necessary. Nearly all are instances either of
defensive action or of vengeance, but that he should systematically
ravage the country when events were carrying out his plan as rapidly as
could be expected, we have no reason to consider in accordance with
William's policy or temper. In the meantime, as the invading army was
slowly drawing near to London, opinion there had settled, for the time at
least, upon a line of policy. Surviving leaders who had been defeated in
the great battle, men high in rank who had been absent, some purposely
standing aloof while the issue was decided, had gathered in the city.
Edwin and Morcar, the great earls of north and middle England, heads of
the house that was the rival of Harold's, who seem to have been willing
to see him and his power destroyed, had now come in, having learned the
result of the battle. The two archbishops were there, and certain of the
bishops, though which they were we cannot surely tell. Other names we do
not know, unless it be that of Esegar, Harold's staller and portreeve of
London, the hero of a doubtful story of negotiations with the approaching