The tenth day of Christmas, 3rd January. In 1066 this was a Wednesday. There was no feast day assigned to this day in 1066, as far as I can determine.
Edward was sleeping for the two days preceding his death - this is day two.
“Up till then, for the last two days or more, weakness had so tired him that when he spoke scarcely anything he said had been intelligible.”
Prior to his death Edward awakens and relates a predicitve dream he has had about two monks who convey to him a message from God. The story is in both Barlow's life of Edward and in the later Matthew Paris version.
Barlow's Life: p75 the prophecy of the monks
“ since, they said, those who have climbed to the highest offices in the kingdom of England, the earls, bishops, and abbots, and all those in holy orders, are not what they seem to be, but on the contrary, are servants of the devil, on a year and one day after the day of your death God has delivered all this kingdom, cursed by him, into the hands of the enemy, and devils shall come through al this land with fire and sword and the havoc of war”
Note that this states overtly that William the conqueror is Edward’s enemy.
The later Life repeats and expands the prophecy.
These two appeared to me ;
"What God bids me by these two,
And commands you to hear.
Lords all, for God’s sake, hear,
For for that I am reinvigorated.
Too much now is virtue failing
In England, and sin rising ;
Nor can God's long-suffering endure
That He take not a mighty vengeance ;
The longer He waits to defer it,
The more fearfully will He strike.
Bishops, prelates, and priests,
No longer seek to be good pastors ;
They seek not to feed the sheepfolds ;
But to sell them is each one s business ;
To rescue them from the wolf none pains
Takes, but only for the milk and the wool.
Princes and counts and barons
Go seeking only vain-glory,
Nor do they live but to swallow money.
The poor they strip and illtreat;
But vengeance for it shall come,
It shall last a year and a day ; ,
This shall be by war and by fire.'
Thus they finished their speech.
The meaning is clear, England is corrupt and God will have his vengeance and use William to bring it about within a year and a day of Edward's death. If William is perceived to be the enemy, this would explain his absence.
Barlow's Life continues p76
"When those who were present had heard these words - that is to say, the queen, who was sitting on the floor warming his feet in her lap, her brother, Earl Harold, and Rodbert the steward of the royal palace and a kinsman of the king, also Archbishop Stigand and a few more whom the blessed king when roused from sleep had ordered to be summoned - they were all sore afraid as men who had heard a speech contaning many calamities and a denial of the hope of pity."
At the end of p76 - Archbishop Stigand denies the prophecy and says that Edward is rambling.
“ And while all were stupified and silent from the effect of terror, the archbisop himself, who ought to have been the first to fear or give a word of advice, with folly at heart whispered into the ear of the earl that the king was broken with age and disease and knew not what he said.”
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