Christian the hermit

"Harold was thought by his companions to be mortally wounded, and was, to all appearance, dead; but when the field of battlewas examined,by somewomen searching for their friends, it was discovered that life still lingered in the body. By the care of two English franklins he was removed to Winchester, where his wounds were healed by the surgical skill of a certain cunning woman of oriental extraction; and, during two long years, he remained in concealment in an obscure dwelling. With the return of his wonted strength of body and energy of mind, a melancholy spectacle presented itself to him. He saw his kingdom under the dominion of a foreign enemy; he noticed the firmness with which the policy and courage of William had established him on the throne; and he every where marked the wide-spreading ramifications of the feudal system; attaching, by military tenure and self-interest, a sturdy Norman holder to each rood of subjugated England. His nobles were now petty franklins ; his subjects were hereditary bondsmen. They had lost much of that independence of spirit which is born and dies with liberty; and they were contented hewers of wood, and drawers of water, for their new masters. They had made no effort to throw off the yoke which had been placed on their necks; town after town, and county after county, had submitted without opposition; and William, the conqueror of England, was now its crowned and acknowledged sovereign. Harold saw that foreign assistance was necessary, ere he could hope to redeem his country from the bondage of the invaders. His first attempt was to obtain aid from Saxony: in this he was unsuccessful. Thence he proceeded to Denmark, but found that a mission from William had secured the good graces, or, at least, the neutrality of that kingdom. The bitter disappointment originating in this ruin of his hopes was succeeded. by another feeling; he recognised, in these baffled attempts, the workings of a superior power, admonishing him to abandon all idea of a restoration to the throne of England. New ideas and feelings awoke in his heart; his dreams of ambition and revenge were succeeded by humiliation and penance; he threw the helmet from his brow, and the mail from his breast, and went, a barefooted pilgrim, to the land of Palestine. During many years spent in this pious occupation, he subjected himself to the greatest privations and austerities. Warned by the approaching weakness of old age that his dissolution was at hand, he yielded to the desire which now haunted him of dying in the island which gave him birth. He landed at Dover; he climbed the lofty cliff; and again he saw the land which was once his own. Our legend does not expatiate upon the feelings which must have swelled within his breast as he gazed; we are told, however, that they were checked and subdued by the predominating influence of religion, which had taught him to understand the relative happiness of his former and his present condition. Having assumed the name of Christian, and concealed his scarred features beneath a cowl, he journeyed through Kent, and arrived at a secluded spot in Shropshire, which the legend names Ceswrthin. Here he constructed himself a cell, in which he remained ten years; but at length he was compelled to seek some other abode; not, says the legend, because he shrank from enduring the annoyances to which the Welsh frequently exposed him by beating him and stealing his clothes, but because he wished to devote the remainder of his existence to undisturbed meditation and prayer. He left this cell without any definite idea as to his future residence; but having wandered to Chester, he there received a supernatural intimation that he would find a dwelling prepared for him in the chapel of St. James, within the churchyard of St. John the Baptist, situated upon the banks of the river Dee, a little beyond the walls of that city. Upon arriving at the spot thus pointed out, he found that a hermit, the late tenant of the cell, had recently expired, and he gladly took possession of the new residence thus provided for him. During the space of seven years which he spent in Chester, circumstances occurred which originated and gradually strengthened into certainty the suspicion that this recluse was a Saxon chief of former importance, if not Harold himself. When questioned as to his name and origin, he returned evasive answers, but never a direct negative to those who asserted that he was once the king of England. He admitted that he had been present at the battle of Hastings; and that no one was nearer or dearer to Harold the king than was Christian the hermit. But the approach of death revealed the secret, and converted doubt into certainty; for he acknowledged in his last confession that he was indeed the last Saxon king of England." -- Wace