The tapestry is coiled round a machine like that which lets down the buckets to a well, and a female unrols and explains it. It is worked in different coloured worsteds on white cloth, to which time has given the tinge of brown holland; the parts intended to represent flesh are left untouched by the needle. The colours are somewhat faded, and not very multitudinous. Perhaps it is the little variety of colours which Matilda and her ladies had at their disposal which has caused them to depict the horses of any colour--"blue, green, red, or yellow." The outline, too, is of course stiff and rude.[28] At the top and bottom of the main work is a narrow allegorical border; and each division or different action or event is marked by a branch or tree extending the whole depth of the tapestry; and most frequently each tableau is so arranged that the figures at the end of one and the beginning of the next are turned from each other, whilst above each the subject of the scene and the names of the principal actors are wrought in large letters. The subjects of the border vary; some of AEsop's fables are depicted on it, sometimes instruments of agriculture, sometimes fanciful and grotesque figures and borders; and during the heat of the battle of Hastings, when, as Montfaucon says, "le carnage est grand," the appropriate device of the border is a _layer of dead men_. "From the fury of the Normans, good Lord deliver us," was, we are told, in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries a petition in the Litanies of all nations.[29] For long did England sorrow under their "fury," though _in time_ the Conquest produced advantageous results to the kingdom at large. Whether this Norman subjugation was in accordance with the will of the monarch Edward, or whether it was entirely the result of Duke William's ambition, must now ever remain in doubt. Harold asserted that Edward the Confessor appointed him his successor (of which, however, he could not produce proof); to this must be opposed the improbability of Edward thus ennobling a family of whom he felt, and with such abundant cause, so jealous. Probably the old chronicler (Fabyan) has hit the mark when he says, "This Edgarre (the rightful heir) was yonge, and specyally for Harolde was stronge of knyghtes and rychesse, he wanne the reygne." Be this as it may, however, Harold on the very day of Edward's interment, and that was only the day subsequent to his death, was crowned king in St. Paul's; apparently with the concurrence of all concerned, for he was powerful and popular. And his government during the chief part of his short kingly career was such as to increase his popularity: he was wise, and just, and gracious. "Anone as he was crowned, he began to fordoo euyll lawes and customes before vsed, and stablysshed the good lawes, and specyally whiche (suche) as were for the defence of holy churche, and punysshed the euyll doers, to the fere and example of other."[30]