Two lines spoken dry over dulcimer and cello, then sung. No guitars.
Sixty-two, and I counted every one of them myself, Sixty-two hulls off the Flemish shore at dawn, and the tide going out from under all of them, and my son standing up on the first one, four years after I asked,
Pre-Chorus
Psaltery enters, guitars driving in, the cello lower.
He did not come when I was losing, he came when it was won,
Chorus 1
Driving full band. The Latin office sings the words with her.
Sixty-two ships, and he could have sent me one, sixty-two ships, and I would have taken one, Twice a queen — and I counted them in,
Riff Break
Tremolo guitars, the dulcimer underneath.
Verse 2
Psaltery and dulcimer, guitars holding.
The other one died in March without a fight, and the country he had went quiet as a field, and nobody put a hand up for his mother, and nobody put a hand up for her son,
Pre-Chorus 2
Cello lower, guitars palm-muted, the drums driving.
There was a hall that ate at eight, and there is nobody in it now,
Chorus 2
Bigger, the twin leads climbing under her.
Sixty-two ships, and he could have sent me one, sixty-two ships, and I would have taken one, Twice a queen — and the water was full of them,
Verse 3
Dulcimer and one bare voice. Nothing else.
I did not go and look at where they put him, I went home the way I came, by water, and the coast came up the way it always does, and I did not feel anything at all,
Guitar Solo
Twin harmonised lead guitars over half-time drums.
Bridge
Half-tempo. Solo alto flute over cello, her voice alone, the office gone.
He is twenty-two and he has a fleet, and he has never asked me for advice, and he will not take it now, and I am so glad to see him, that I do not say any of that,
Instrumental
Dulcimer and cello, the drums building.
Final Chorus
The biggest pass — full band, a low war-horn, the Latin office over the top of her.
Sixty-two ships, and he could have sent me one, sixty-two ships, and I never said a word about it, Twice a queen — and I got what I asked for, and it took the asking out of me,
Outro
Her voice alone with the cello. Dry, then a hard cut.
He was crowned in June. He was dead in two years. I did not know that yet.
The history
Bruges and the Channel, March–June 1040 · Harold Harefoot dead at Oxford · Harthacnut’s fleet sails for Sandwich with his mother
Source: Anglo-Saxon Chronicle s.a. 1039–40; Encomium Emmae Reginae III; John of Worcester, Chronicon s.a. 1040
Named figures
Emma of NormandyIn exile at Bruges since 1037; comes home queen-mother — I counted them in
HarthacnutHer son by Cnut, about twenty-two; lands at Sandwich in June 1040 with sixty-two warships and is accepted as king. Dead within two years
Harold HarefootKing of England since 1037; dies at Oxford on 17 March 1040 — the other one
Ælfgifu of NorthamptonHarold’s mother and Emma’s rival for twenty years; vanishes from the record after 1040 — nobody put a hand up for his mother
What this song renders
Emma was driven out of England in 1037 and received at Bruges by Count Baldwin of Flanders. Harthacnut joined her there in 1039 and began to prepare an invasion. Before he could use it, Harold Harefoot died at Oxford on 17 March 1040. The English sent to Bruges for Harthacnut, and he landed at Sandwich seven days before midsummer with sixty-two warships. There was no battle. The number is the Chronicle’s.
The Chronicle is sour about the fleet: it was paid for by a heavy tax, and Harthacnut then had Harold’s body dug up from Westminster and thrown into a fen. The song looks away from both — I did not go and look at where they put him. Ælfgifu of Northampton, the mother of Harold, is not heard of again after his death, which is why her fall in Verse 2 has no event in it.
The rest is the song’s. Emma counting the hulls herself, the four-year grievance and the withheld gladness on the bridge are the album’s reading of a mother who had spent the 1030s asking a son to come, and the outro’s “crowned in June” stands for his being taken as king that summer. The outro’s second line is true: Harthacnut died at Lambeth on 8 June 1042, “as he stood at his drink.”
Verdict
Documented. Harold’s death, the summons to Bruges, the sixty-two ships, the landing without a fight and Harthacnut’s death two years later are all in the Chronicle. Emma’s count, her silence and what she felt on the crossing are the song’s.