The first symptoms of danger which the king discovered came from abroad, and from his own brother Tosti, who had submitted to a voluntary banishment in Flanders. Enraged at the successful ambition of Harold, to which he himself had fallen a victim, he filled the court of Baldwin with complaints of the injustice which he had suffered; he engaged the interest of that family against his brother: he endeavoured to form intrigues with some of the discontented nobles in England: he sent his emissaries to Norway, in order to rouse to arms the freebooters of that kingdom, and to excite the hopes of reaping advantage from the unsettled state of affairs on the usurpation of the new king: and that he might render the combination more formidable, he made a journey to Normandy, in expectation that the duke, who had married Matilda, another daughter of Baldwin, would, in revenge of his own wrongs, as well as those of Tosti, second, by his counsels and forces, the projected invasion of England [f]. [FN [f] Order. Vitalis, p. 492.] The Duke of Normandy, when he first received intelligence of Harold’s intrigues and accession, had been moved to the highest pitch of indignation; but that he might give the better colour to his pretensions, he sent an embassy to England, upbraiding that prince with his breach of faith, and summoning him to resign immediately possession of the kingdom. Harold replied to the Norman ambassadors, that the oath with which he was reproached had been extorted by the well-grounded fear of violence, and could never, for that reason, be regarded as obligatory: that he had had no commission either from the late king, or the states of England, who alone could dispose of the crown, to make any tender of the succession to the Duke of Normandy; and if he, a private person, had assumed so much authority, and had even voluntarily sworn to support the duke’s pretensions, the oath was unlawful, and it was his duty to seize the first opportunity of breaking it: that he had obtained the crown by the unanimous suffrages of the people; and should prove himself totally unworthy of their favour, did he not strenuously maintain those national liberties, with whose protection they had entrusted him: and that the duke, if he made any attempt by force of arms, should experience the power of an united nation, conducted by a prince, who, sensible of the obligations imposed on him by his royal dignity, was determined that the same moment should put a period to his life and to his government [g]. [FN [g] W. Malm. p. 99. Higden, p. 285. Matth. West. p. 222. De Gest. Angl. ancento auctore, p. 331.]