Cathedrals, abbeys and churches of England and Wales : descriptive, historical, pictorial . munificence is unknown. Legend states that he wascured of a paralysis by the touch of the Holy Rood; but for this explanationthere is no foundation. The college flourished, became a monastery, underwentvarious changes, some of which can still be traced in the fragments whichremain, was finally suppressed, and the greater portion of it, together with themonastic buildings, except a gateway and one or two fragments, utterly destroyed. The nave of the Romanesque church is all that remains. The addition of
Cathedrals, abbeys and churches of England and Wales : descriptive, historical, pictorial . munificence is unknown. Legend states that he wascured of a paralysis by the touch of the Holy Rood; but for this explanationthere is no foundation. The college flourished, became a monastery, underwentvarious changes, some of which can still be traced in the fragments whichremain, was finally suppressed, and the greater portion of it, together with themonastic buildings, except a gateway and one or two fragments, utterly destroyed. The nave of the Romanesque church is all that remains. The addition of a largedecorated chapel to the south, and of a debased tower to the west, the destructionof the eastern part of the church, and of the whole conventual buildings, havebetween them converted the once splendid church at Waltham into a patchedand mutilated fragment. Too true; but a fragment of no small grandeur, ofno little interest. But was Harold buried in Waltham Abbey ? On this point there is a conflictof testimony. As to his final resting-place, there are three accounts at least. The. <? cqm< < XE- Waltham and Battle] THE DEATH OF HAROLD. 495 one declares that he did not fall on the field of Senlac, but, escaping under coverof the night, made his way to Chester, and there, after living some time as ananchorite in a cell near the city walls, which is still pointed out, died and wasburied. This theory is by no means of modern growth. It is mentioned, but ofcourse not favourably, in Liber de Inventione Sanctas Crucis, the author of which,a canon of Waltham Abbey, wiote in the reign of Henry I. On this story, how-ever, we need not dwell, nor on the variation of it which makes him end hisdays as a monk at Waltham. As the best authority on the subject informs us,nothing is more certain than that Harold fell on the field of Senlac. Still, grantingthis, it is doubtful where he was buried. Upon this point the earliest authors are notagreed. Some say that his body was given up
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