We know as little for certain as to the circumstances of the visit or the nature of the oath.  We can say only that Harold did something which enabled William to charge him with perjury and breach of the duty of a vassal.  It is inconceivable in itself, and unlike the formal scrupulousness of William’s character, to fancy that he made his appeal to all Christendom without any ground at all.  The Norman writers contradict one another so thoroughly in every detail of the story that we can look on no part of it as trustworthy.  Yet such a story can hardly have grown up so near to the alleged time without some kernel of truth in it.  And herein comes the strong corroborative witness that the English writers, denying every other charge against Harold, pass this one by without notice.  We can hardly doubt that Harold swore some oath to William which he did not keep.  More than this it would be rash to say except as an avowed guess.

As our nearest approach to fixing the date is to take that year which is not impossible, so, to fix the occasion of the visit, we can only take that one among the Norman versions which is also not impossible.  All the main versions represent Harold as wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, as imprisoned, according to the barbarous law of wreck, by Count Guy, and as delivered by the intervention of William.  If any part of the story is true, this is.  But as to the circumstances which led to the shipwreck there is no agreement.  Harold assuredly was not sent to announce to William a devise of the crown in his favour made with the consent of the Witan of England and confirmed by the oaths of Stigand, Godwine, Siward, and Leofric.  Stigand became Archbishop in September 1052:  Godwine died at Easter 1053.  The devise must therefore have taken place, and Harold’s journey must have taken place, within those few most unlikely months, the very time when Norman influence was overthrown.  Another version makes Harold go, against the King’s warnings, to bring back his brother Wulfnoth and his nephew Hakon, who had been given as hostages on the return of Godwine, and had been entrusted by the King to the keeping of Duke William.  This version is one degree less absurd; but no such hostages are known to have been given, and if they were, the patriotic party, in the full swing of triumph, would hardly have allowed them to be sent to Normandy.  A third version makes Harold’s presence the result of mere accident.  He is sailing to Wales or Flanders, or simply taking his pleasure in the Channel, when he is cast by a storm on the coast of Ponthieu.  Of these three accounts we may choose the third as the only one that is possible.  It is also one out of which the others may have grown, while it is hard to see how the third could have arisen out of either of the others.  Harold then, we may suppose, fell accidentally into the clutches of Guy, and was rescued from them, at some cost in ransom and in grants of land, by Guy’s overlord Duke William.