The actual election of Harold which stood in his way, hurried as it was, he did not recognize as valid.

But with this constitutional claim was inextricably mingled resentment at the private wrong which Harold had done him, and a resolve to exact vengeance on the man whom he regarded as untrue to his oath.

The difficulties in the way of his enterprise were indeed enormous.

He could reckon on no support within England itself.

At home he had to extort the consent of his own reluctant baronage; to gather a motley host from every quarter of France and to keep it together for months; to create a fleet, to cut down the very trees, to build, to launch, to man the vessels; and to find time amidst all this for the common business of government, for negotiations with Denmark and the Empire, with France, Britanny, and Anjou, with Flanders and with Rome which had been estranged from England by Archbishop Stigand's acceptance of his pallium from one who was not owned as a canonical Pope.
[Sidenote: Stamford Bridge] But his rival's difficulties were hardly less than his own.