CHAPTER VII

.

FROM THE ELECTION OF EADWARD TO THE BANISHMENT OF GODWINE.[1] 1042–1051.

We have thus far gone through the course of those events which acted as the more distant causes of the Norman Conquest; with the accession of Eadward we [Sidenote: The struggle between Normans and Englishmen begins with the accession of Eadward.] stand on the threshold of the Conquest itself. The actual subjugation of England by force of arms is still twenty-four years distant; but the struggle between Norman and Englishman for dominion in England has already begun. That such would be the result of Eadward’s accession was certainly not looked for by those who raised him to the throne. Never was any prince called to assume a crown by a more distinct expression of the national will. “All folk chose Eadward to King.” The [Sidenote: Import of Eadward’s election; resolve of the English people to have none but an English King.] choice expressed the full purpose of the English nation to endure no King but one who was their bone and their flesh. No attachment to the memory of the great Cnut could survive the utter misgovernment of his sons. The thought of another Danish King was now hateful. Yet the royal house of Denmark contained at least one prince who was in every way worthy to reign. Could the [Sidenote: Other possible candidates; Swend Estrithson;] national feeling have endured another Danish ruler, Swend Estrithson might have governed England as prudently and as prosperously as he afterwards governed Denmark. But the great qualities of Swend had as yet hardly shown themselves. He could have been known at this time only as a young adventurer, who had signally failed in the only great exploit which he had attempted.[2] And, above all things, the feeling of the moment called for an Englishman, for an Ætheling of the blood of Cerdic. One [Sidenote: Eadward the son of Eadmund.] such Ætheling only was at hand. One son of Eadmund Ironside was now grown up to manhood, but he had been from his infancy an exile in a distant land. Most likely no one thought of him as a possible candidate for the Crown; it may well be that his very existence was [Sidenote: Position of Eadward.] generally forgotten. In the eyes of Englishmen there was now only one representative of the ancient royal house. Eadward, the son of Æthelred and Emma, the brother of the murdered and half-canonized Ælfred, had long been familiar to English imaginations, and, since the accession of his half-brother Harthacnut, the English Court had been his usual dwelling-place. Eadward, and Eadward alone, stood forth as the heir of English royalty, the representative of English nationality. In his behalf the popular voice spoke out at once and unmistakeably. “Before the King buried were, all folk chose Eadward to King at London.”

§ 1. _The Election and Coronation of Eadward._ 1042–1043.

[Sidenote: Popular election of Eadward. June, 1042.]

The general course of events at this time is perfectly plain, but there is a good deal of difficulty as to some of the details.[3] The popular election of Eadward took place in June, immediately on the death of Harthacnut, and even before his burial; but it is very remarkable that [Sidenote: His coronation delayed till the next year.] the coronation of the new King did not take place till Easter in the next year.[4] This delay is singular, and needs explanation. The consecration of a King was then not [Sidenote: Importance of the coronation-rite.] a mere pageant, but a rite of the utmost moment, partaking almost of a sacramental character. Without it the King was not King at all, or King only in a very imperfect sense. We have seen how impossible it was for the uncrowned Harthacnut to retain his hold upon Wessex.[5] The election of the Witan gave to the person chosen the sole right to the Crown, but he was put into actual possession of the royal office only by the ecclesiastical consecration. Eadward then, for nearly ten months after his first election, could not be looked on as “full King,”[6] but as at most King-elect. What could be the cause of such a delay? The notion of a general war with the Danes in England, which might otherwise account for it, I have elsewhere shown to be without foundation.[7] The circumstances of the time would seem to have been singularly unsuited for any delay. We should have expected that the same burst of popular feeling which carried Eadward’s immediate and unanimous election would also have demanded the exclusion of any possible competitor by an immediate [Sidenote: Probable causes of the delay; Eadward most likely absent from England, and unwilling to accept the Crown.] coronation. But the fact was otherwise. The explanation of so singular a state of things is most likely to be found in certain hints which imply that it was caused, partly by Eadward’s absence from England, partly by an unwillingness on his part to accept the Crown. There is strong reason to believe that Eadward was not in England at the moment of his half-brother’s death. Harthacnut had indeed recalled him to England, and his court had become the English Ætheling’s ordinary dwelling-place. But this fact in no way shuts out the possibility that Eadward may have been absent on the Continent at any particular moment, on a visit to some of his French or Norman friends, or on a pilgrimage to some French or Norman sanctuary. Meanwhile the sudden death of Harthacnut left the throne vacant. As in other cases before and after,[8] the citizens of London, whose importance grows at every step, together with such of the other Witan as were at hand, met at once and chose Eadward King. As he was absent, and his consent was doubtful, an embassy [Sidenote: Embassy to Eadward.] had to be sent to him, as embassies had been sent to his father Æthelred[9] and to his brother Harthacnut,[10] inviting him to return and receive the Crown. That embassy, we are told, consisted of Bishops and Earls; we can hardly doubt that at the head of their several orders stood two men whom all accounts set before us as the leaders in the promotion of Eadward. These were Lyfing, Bishop of [Sidenote: Negotiations between Eadward and Godwine.] Worcester, and Godwine, Earl of the West-Saxons.[11] A remarkable negotiation now took place between the Earl and the King-elect. Details of private conversations are always suspicious, but the dialogue attributed to the Earl and the Ætheling contains nothing but what is thoroughly suited to the circumstances of the case. We can fully understand that Eadward, either from timidity or from his monastic turn, might shrink from the labour and responsibility of reigning at all, and that, with his Norman tastes, he might look forward with very little satisfaction to the prospect of reigning over Englishmen. Such scruples [Sidenote: Speech of Godwine.] were driven away by the arguments and eloquence of the great Earl. The actual speech put into his mouth may be the composition of the historian, but it contains the arguments which cannot fail to have been used in such a case. It was better to live gloriously as a King than to die ingloriously in exile. Eadward was the son of Æthelred, the grandson of Eadgar; the Crown was therefore his natural inheritance. His personal position and character would form a favourable contrast to those of the two worthless youths who had misgoverned England since the death of Cnut.[12] His years and experience fitted him to rule; he was of an age to act vigorously when severity was needed; he had known the ups and downs of life; he had been purified by poverty and exile, and would therefore know how to show mercy when mercy was called for.[13] If he had any doubts, he, Godwine, was ready to maintain his cause; his power was great enough both to procure the election of a candidate, and to secure [Sidenote: Eadward accepts the Crown.] his throne when elected.[14] Eadward was persuaded; he consented to accept the Crown; he plighted his friendship to the Earl, and it may be that he promised to confer honours on his sons and to take his daughter in marriage. But stories of private stipulations of this kind are always doubtful. It is enough that Godwine had, as all accounts agree, the chief hand in raising Eadward to the throne.

[Sidenote: He returns to England.]

Eadward now seems to have returned to England, probably in company with Godwine and the other am[Sidenote: Witenagemót of Gillingham. 1042–3.] *bassadors. The Witan presently met at Gillingham in Wiltshire; and it would seem that the acceptance of Eadward’s claims was now somewhat less unanimous than it had been during the first burst of enthusiasm which followed the death of Harthacnut. Godwine brought forward Eadward as a candidate, he urged his claims with all his powers of speech, and himself set the example of [Sidenote: Opposition to Eadward’s election;] becoming his man on the spot. Still an opposition arose in the Assembly, which it needed all the eloquence of Godwine and Lyfing to overcome. They had even, as it would seem, to stoop to a judicious employment of the less noble arts of statesmanship. The majority indeed were won over by the authority of the man whom all England looked on as a father.[15] But the votes of some had to be gained by presents, or, in plain words, by bribes.[16] Others, it would seem, stood out against Eadward’s [Sidenote: apparently in the interest of Swend.] election to the last. This opposition, we cannot doubt, came from a Danish party which supported the claims of Swend Estrithson. That prince, on return from his first unsuccessful war with Magnus, had found his cousin Harthacnut dead, and Eadward already King as far as his first election could make him so.[17] But the delay of the coronation, the uncertainty of Eadward’s acceptance of the Crown, might well make the hopes of [Sidenote: Alleged negotiations between Eadward and Swend.] Swend and his partisans revive. We can hardly believe the tale, though it rests apparently on the assertion of Swend himself, that he demanded the Crown, and that Eadward made peace with him, making the usual compromise that Swend should succeed him on his death, even though he should leave sons.[18] Such an agreement would of course be of no force without the consent of the Witan. That consent may have been given in the Assembly at Gillingham; but such an arrangement seems hardly credible. The English nation no doubt fully intended that the Crown should remain in the House of Cerdic, and Godwine probably already hoped that in the next generation the blood of Cerdic would be united with the blood of Wulfnoth. But it is certain that Swend was in some way or other reconciled to Eadward and Godwine, for we shall presently find Swend

## acting as the friend of England, and Godwine acting as the special

champion of the interests of Swend.[19] The son of Ulf was, it will be remembered, the nephew of Gytha, and this family connexion no doubt pleaded for him as far as was consistent with Godwine’s higher and nearer objects. One of Swend’s brothers, Beorn, remained in England, where he was soon raised to a great Earldom, and seems to have been counted in all respects as a member of the house of Godwine. But the friends of Swend in general were set down for future punishment.[20] In the end confiscation or banishment fell on the most eminent of them. Among them was Osbeorn, another brother of the Danish King, whom we shall hear of in later times as betraying the claims of his brother, and therewith the hopes of England, into the hand of the Norman Conqueror.

[Sidenote: Eadward the only possible choice.]

Eadward was thus raised to the throne mainly through the exertions of the two patriotic leaders, Godwine and Lyfing. It is vain to argue whether Godwine did wisely in pressing his election. There was in truth no other choice. The only other possible candidates were Swend, and Magnus of Norway, of whose claims we shall hear again presently. But English feeling called for an English King, and there was no English King but Eadward to be had. That Godwine could have procured his own election to the Crown, that the thought of such an election could have occurred to himself or to any one else, is an utterly wild surmise.[21] If Godwine met with some opposition when pressing the claims of Eadward, that opposition would have increased tenfold had he ventured to dream of the Crown for himself. The nomination of the West-Saxon Earl would have been withstood to the death, not only by a handful of Danes, but by Leofric and Siward, probably, in Siward’s case at least, at the head of the whole force of their Earldoms. The time was not yet come for the election of a King not of the royal house. There was no manifest objection to the election of Eadward, and, though Godwine was undoubtedly the most powerful man in England, he had not reached that marked and undisputed preeminence which was enjoyed by his son twenty-four years later. No English candidate but Eadward was possible. And men had not yet learned, Godwine himself probably had not fully learned, how little worthy Eadward was to be called an English candidate.[22] And when in after years they learned the unhappy truth, still there does not seem to have been at any time the least thought of displacing Eadward in favour of either of his Scandinavian competitors, or even of calling in Swend to succeed him. In raising Eadward to the throne, Godwine acted simply as the mouthpiece of the English people. The opposition, as far as we can see, came wholly from the Danes of what we may call the second importation, those who had come into England with Cnut and Harthacnut. There is nothing to show that the old-settled Danish population of Northumberland acted apart from the rest of the country.

[Sidenote: Claims of Eadward to the Crown; different statements of his right according to the political views of the writers.]

Eadward then was King. He reigned, as every English King before him had reigned, by that union of popular election and royal descent which formed the essence of all ancient Teutonic kingship.[23] But it would seem that, even in those days, the two elements in his title, the two principles to whose union he and all other Kings owed their kingly rank, spoke with different degrees of force to different minds. Already, in the eleventh century, we may say that there were Whigs and Tories in England. At any rate there were men in whose eyes the choice of the people was the primary and legitimate source of kingship. There were also men who were inclined to rest the King’s claim to his Crown mainly on his descent from those who had been Kings before him. The difference is plainly shown in the different versions of the Chronicles. One contemporary winter, a devoted partisan of Godwine, grounds the King’s right solely on the popular choice—“All folk chose Eadward to King.” That the entry was made at the time is plain from the prayer which follows, “May he hold it while God grants it to him.”[24] Another version, the only one in any degree hostile to the great Earl, seems purposely to avoid the use of any word recognizing a distinct right of choice in the people. “All folk received Eadward to King, as was his right by birth.”[25] A third writer, distinctly, though less strongly, Godwinist, seems pointedly to combine both statements; “All folk chose Eadward, and received him to King, as was his right by birth.”[26] There can be no doubt that this last is the truest setting forth both of the law and of the facts of the case. The people chose Eadward, and without the choice of [Sidenote: Union of elective and hereditary right.] the people he would have had no right to reign. But they chose him because he was the one available descendant of the old kingly stock, because he was the one man at hand who enjoyed that preference by right of birth, which required that, in all ordinary cases, the choice of the electors should be confined to the descendants of former Kings. It might therefore be said with perfect truth that Eadward was chosen because the Kingdom was his by right [Sidenote: Eadward not next in succession according to modern notions.] of birth. But it must not be forgotten, what is absolutely necessary for the true understanding of the case, that this right by birth does not imply that Eadward would have been, according to modern ideas, the next in succession to the Crown. Eadward’s right by birth would have been no right by birth at all in the eyes of a modern lawyer. The younger son of Æthelred could, according to our present ideas, have no right to succeed while any representative of his elder brother survived. The heir, in our sense of the word, was not the Eadward who was close at hand in England or Normandy, but the Eadward who was far away in exile in Hungary or Russia. Modern writers constantly speak of this last Eadward and of his son Eadgar as the lawful heirs of the Confessor. On the contrary, according to modern notions, the Confessor was their lawful heir, and, according to modern notions, the Confessor must be pronounced to have usurped a throne [Sidenote: The right of the elder branch not thought of.] which of right belonged to his nephew. In his own time such subtleties were unknown. Any son of Æthelred, any descendant of the old stock, satisfied the sentiment of royal birth, which was all that was needed.[27] To search over the world for the son of an elder brother, while the younger brother was close at hand, was an idea which would never have entered the mind of any Englishman of the eleventh century.

[Sidenote: Eadward crowned at Winchester, April 3, 1043.]

The coronation ceremony probably followed soon after the meeting at Gillingham. It was performed on Easter Day at Winchester,[28] the usual place for an Easter Gemót, by Archbishop Eadsige, assisted by Ælfric of York and most of the other Prelates of England.[29] We are expressly [Sidenote: Exhortation of Eadsige; condition of the Kingdom.] told that the Metropolitan gave much good exhortation both to the newly made King and to his people.[30] The peculiar circumstances of the time might well suggest such a special admonition. There was a King, well nigh the last of his race, a King chosen by the distinct expression of the will of the people, as the representative of English nationality in opposition to foreign rule. But the King so chosen as the embodiment of English feeling was himself an Englishman in little more than in the accident of being born on English ground[31] as the son of a father who was a disgrace to the English name. There was a Kingdom to be guarded against foreign claimants, and there were the wounds inflicted by two unfortunate, though happily short, reigns to be healed at home. The duties which were laid upon the shoulders [Sidenote: Relations between Eadward and Godwine.] of the new King were neither few nor easy. He had indeed at hand the mightiest and wisest of guardians to help him in his task. But we can well understand that the feelings of Eadward towards the man to whom he owed his Crown were feelings of awe rather than of love. There could be little real sympathy between the stout Englishman and the nursling of the Norman court, between the chieftain great alike in battle and in council and the timid devotee who shrank from the toils and responsibilities of an earthly Kingdom. And we can well believe that, notwithstanding Godwine’s solemn acquittal, there still lingered in the mind of Eadward some prejudice against the man who had once been charged with his [Sidenote: Relations of the three great Earls.] brother’s death. And again, though it was to Godwine and his West-Saxons that Eadward mainly owed his Crown, yet Godwine and his West-Saxons did not make up the whole of England. Their counsels and interests had to be reconciled with the possibly opposing counsels and interests of the other Earldoms and of their rulers. Eadward could not afford to despise the strong arm of the mighty Dane who ruled his countrymen north of the Humber. He could not afford to despise the possible prejudices of the great Earl of central England, who, descendant of ancient Ealdormen, perhaps of ancient Kings, may well have looked with some degree of ill-will on the upstarts North and South of him. Eadward, called to the throne by the unanimous voice of the whole nation, was bound to be King of the English and not merely King of the West-Saxons. He was bound yet more strongly to be King of the English in a still higher sense, to cast off the trammels of his Norman education, and to reign as became the heir of Ælfred and Æthelstan. We have now to see how far the good exhortations of Eadsige were effectual; how far the King chosen to the Crown which was his right by birth discharged the duties which were laid upon him alike by his birth and by his election.

[Sidenote: Foreign Ambassadors at Eadward’s coronation.]

It was perhaps ominous of the character of Eadward’s future reign that his coronation was attended by an apparently unusual assemblage of the Ambassadors of foreign princes.[32] It was natural that Eadward should be better known, and that his election should awaken a greater interest, in other lands than could usually be the case with an English King. He was connected by birth or marriage with several continental sovereigns, and his long residence in Normandy must have brought him more nearly within [Sidenote: Eadward’s foreign connexions.] the circle of ordinary continental princeship than could commonly be the case with the Lord of the island Empire, the Cæsar as it were of another world. The revolutions of England also, and the great career of Cnut, had evidently fixed the attention of Europe on English affairs to an unusual degree. Add to this that, when a King was chosen and crowned immediately on the death of his predecessor, the presence of congratulatory embassies from other princes was hardly possible. But the delay in Eadward’s consecration allowed that great Easter-feast at Winchester to be adorned with the presence of the representatives of all the chief sovereigns of Western Christendom. Some there were whom England was, then as ever, bound to welcome as friends and brethren, and some whose presence, however friendly was the guise of the moment, might to an eye which could scan the future [Sidenote: Ambassadors from King Henry.] have seemed a foreboding of the evil to come. First came the ambassadors of the prince who at once held the highest place on earth and adorned it with the noblest display of every kingly virtue. King Henry of Germany, soon to appear before the world as the illustrious Emperor,[33] the great reformer of a corrupted Church, sent an embassy to congratulate his brother-in-law[34] on the happy change in his fortunes, to exchange promises of peace and friendship, and to present gifts such as Imperial splendour and liberality might deem worthy of the one prince whom [Sidenote: from the King of the French;] a future Emperor could look on as his peer.[35] The King of the French too, a prince bearing the same name as the mighty Frank,[36] but far indeed from being a partaker in his glory, sent his representatives to congratulate one whom he too claimed as a kinsman,[37] and to exchange pledges of mutual good-will between the two realms. [Sidenote: from other German and French princes;] And, along with the representatives of Imperial and royal majesty, came the humbler envoys of the chief Dukes and princes of their two kingdoms, charged with the like professions of friendship—our flattering historian would fain have us believe, of homage.[38] Among these we can hardly doubt that a mission from the Court of Rouen held a distinguished place. It may be that, even then, the keen eye of the youthful Norman was beginning to look with more than a neighbour’s interest upon the land to which he had in some sort given her newly-chosen King. We [Sidenote: from Magnus of Denmark.] are even told that an embassy of a still humbler kind was received from a potentate who soon after appeared on the stage in a widely different character. Magnus of Norway had received the submission of Denmark on the death of Harthacnut, by virtue of the treaty by which each of those princes was to succeed to the other’s dominions.[39] He now, we are told, sent an embassy to Eadward, chose him as his father,[40] promised to him the obedience of a son, and strengthened the promise with oaths and hostages. Now in the language used with regard both to Magnus and to the German and French princes, there is doubtless much of the exaggeration of a panegyrist, anxious to raise his hero’s reputation to the highest point. But it is possible that Magnus might just now take some pains to conciliate Eadward, in order to hinder English help from being continued to his competitor Swend. In the reception of the Imperial and the Danish envoys there is nothing which has any special meaning; but it is specially characteristic of this reign that the congratulations of the French princes [Sidenote: Eadward’s gifts to the French princes.] were acknowledged by gifts from the King personally, and that some of them were continued in the form of annual pensions.[41] These were undoubtedly, even if the Norman Duke himself was among the pensioners, the gifts of a superior to inferiors; the point is that the connexion between England and the different French states, Normandy above them all, was constantly increasing in amount, and receiving new shapes at every turn.

[Sidenote: Gifts of the English nobles.]

Besides the gifts of foreign princes, the new King also received many splendid presents from his own nobles. First among them all shone forth the magnificent offering [Sidenote: Godwine presents a ship to the King.] of the Earl of the West-Saxons.[42] Godwine had given a ship to Harthacnut as the price of his acquittal on his memorable trial;[43] he now made the like offering to Eadward as a token of the friendship which was to reign between the newly-chosen King and his greatest subject. Two hundred rowers impelled the floating castle. A golden lion adorned the stern; at the prow the national ensign, the West-Saxon Dragon, shone also in gold, spreading his wings, the poet tells us, over the awe-struck waves.[44] A rich piece of tapestry, wrought on a purple ground with the naval exploits of former English Kings,[45] the sea-fights, no doubt, of Ælfred, the peaceful triumphs of Eadgar, [Sidenote: [992.]] perhaps that noblest fight of all when the fleets of Denmark gave way before the sea-faring men of the merchant-city,[46] formed an appropriate adornment of the offering of the English Earl to the first—men did not then deem that he was to be the last—prince of the newly-restored English dynasty.

§ 2. _Condition of England during the early years of Eadward._

[Sidenote: Character of Eadward.]

Before we go on to the events of the reign of Eadward, it will be well to endeavour to gain a distinct idea of the King himself and of the men who were to be the chief actors in English affairs during his reign. In estimating the character of Eadward, we must never forget that we [Sidenote: His position as a Saint.] are dealing with a canonized saint. In such cases it is more needful than ever to look closely to a man’s recorded acts, and to his character as described by those who wrote before his formal canonization. Otherwise we shall be in danger of mistaking hagiology for history. When a man is once canonized, his acts and character immediately pass out of the reach of ordinary criticism. Religious edification, and not historical truth, becomes the aim of all who speak or write of one who has been formally enrolled as an object of religious reverence.[47] We must also be on our guard even in dealing with authors who wrote before his formal canonization, but after that popular canonization which was so often the first step towards it. It was of course the general reverence in which a man was held, the general belief in his holiness and miraculous powers, which formed the grounds of the demand for his formal canonization. But, while we must be specially on our guard in weighing the character of particular acts and the value of particular panegyrics, we must remember that the popular esteem which thus led to canonization proves a great deal as to [Sidenote: Nature of his claims to sanctity.] a man’s general character. It proves still more when, as in the case of Eadward, there was no one special act, no one marked deed of Christian heroism or Christian endurance, which formed the holy man’s claim to popular reverence. Eadward was not like one of those who died for their faith or for their country, and who, on the strength of such death, were at once revered as martyrs, without much inquiry into their actions and characters in other respects. He was not even like one of those, his sainted uncle and namesake for instance,[48] who gained the honours of martyrdom on still easier terms, by simply dying an unjust death, even though no religious or political principle was at stake. The popular reverence in which Eadward was held could rest on no ground except the genuine popular estimate of his general character. There were indeed strong political reasons which attached men to his memory. He was the one prominent man of [Sidenote: Eadward’s memory acceptable both to Englishmen and to Normans on political grounds.] the days immediately before the Conquest whom Normans and Englishmen could agree to reverence. The English naturally cherished the memory of the last prince of the ancient stock. They dwelt on his real or supposed virtues as a bright contrast to the crimes and vices of his Norman successors. Under the yoke of foreign masters they looked back to the peace and happiness of the days of their native King. The King who reigned on the English throne without a spark of English feeling became the popular embodiment of English nationality, and men called for the Laws of King Eadward as in earlier times they had called for the Laws of Cnut or of Eadgar.[49] On the other hand, it suited the policy of the Normans to show all respect to the kinsman of their own Duke, the King by whose pretended bequest their Duke claimed the English Crown, and whose lawful successor he professed himself to be. In English eyes Eadward stood out in contrast to the invader William; in Norman eyes he stood out in contrast to the usurper Harold. A King whom two hostile races thus agreed in respecting could not fail to obtain both popular and formal canonization on somewhat easy [Sidenote: Popular reverence for him grounded also on personal qualities.] terms. Still he could hardly have obtained either the one or the other only on grounds like these. He must have displayed some personal qualities which really won him popular affection during life and maintained him in popular reverence after death. It is worth while to study a little more at length the character of a man who obtained in his own age a degree of respect which in our eyes seems justified neither by several of his particular actions nor by the general tenour of his government.

That Eadward was in any sense a great man, that he displayed any of the higher qualities of a ruler of those days, no one probably will assert. He was doubtless in some respects a better man than Cnut, than Harold, or than William; as a King of the eleventh century no one will venture to compare him with those three mighty ones. His wars were waged by deputy, and his civil government [Sidenote: Eadward’s personal character.] was carried on largely by deputy also. Of his many personal virtues, his earnest piety, his good intentions in every way, his sincere desire for the welfare of his people, there can be no doubt. Vice of every kind, injustice, wanton cruelty, were hateful to him. But in all kingly qualities he was utterly lacking. In fact, so far as a really good man can reproduce the character of a thoroughly bad one, Eadward reproduced the character of his father Æthelred. Writers who lived before his canonization, or who did not come within the magic halo of his sanctity, do not scruple to charge him, as his father is [Sidenote: Points of likeness to his father.] charged, with utter sloth and incapacity.[50] Like his father, he was quite incapable of any steady attention to the duties of royalty;[51] but, like his father, he had occasional fits of energy, which, like those of his father, often came at the wrong time.[52] His contemporary panegyrist allows that he gave way to occasional fits of wrath, but he pleads that his anger never hurried him into unbecoming language.[53] It hurried him however, more than once, into very unbecoming intentions. We shall find that, on two memorable occasions, it needed the intervention of his better genius, in the form first of Godwine and then of Harold, to keep back the saintly King from massacre and civil war.[54] Here we see the exact parallels to Æthelred’s mad expeditions against Normandy, Cumberland, and Saint David’s.[55] But Eadward was not only free from the personal vices and cruelties of his father; there can be no doubt that, except when carried away by ebullitions of this kind, he sincerely endeavoured, according to the measure of his ability, to establish a good administration of justice throughout his dominions. But the duties of secular government, although doubtless discharged conscientiously and to the best of his ability, were with Eadward always something which went against the [Sidenote: His virtues wholly monastic.] grain. His natural place was, not on the throne of England, but at the head of a Norman Abbey. Nothing, one would think, could have hindered him from entering on the religious life in the days of his exile, unless it were a vague kind of feeling that other duties were thrown upon him by his birth. For all his virtues were those of a monk; all the real man came out in his zeal for collecting relics, in his visions, in his religious exercises, in his gifts to churches and monasteries, in his desire to mark his reign, as its chief result, by the foundation of his great Abbey of Saint Peter at Westminster. In a prince of the manly piety of Ælfred things of this sort form only a part, a pleasing and harmonious part, of the general character. In Eadward they formed the whole man. His time was oddly divided between his prayers and the pastime which seems least suited to the character of [Sidenote: His love of hunting.] a saint. The devotion to the pleasures of the chase was so universal among the princes and nobles of that age that it is needless to speak of it as a feature in any man’s character, unless when some special circumstance forces it into special notice. We remark it in the two Williams, because it was their love of hunting which led them into their worst acts of oppression; we remark it in Eadward, because it seems so utterly incongruous with the other features of his character.[56] There were men even in those times who could feel pity for animal suffering and who [Sidenote: Contrast with the humanity of Anselm.] found no pleasure in the wanton infliction of pain. Tenderness for animals is no unusual feature in either the real or the legendary portraits of holy men. Anselm, the true saint, like Ceadda in earlier times, saved the life of the hunted beast which sought his protection, and made the incident the text of a religious exhortation to his companions. He saw a worthy object for prayer in the sufferings of a bird tortured by a thoughtless child, and his gentle heart found matter for pious rejoicing in the escape of the feathered captive.[57] Humanity like this met with very little response in the breast of the saintly monarch. The piercing cry, the look of mute agony, of the frightened, wearied, tortured beast awakened no more pity in the heart of the saintly King than in that of the rudest Danish Thegn who shared his savage pastime. The sufferings of the hart panting for the water-brooks, the pangs of the timid hare falling helpless into the jaws of her pursuers, the struggles of the helpless bird grasped in the talons of the resistless hawk, afforded as keen a delight to the prince who had never seen steel flash in earnest, as ever they did to men whom a life of constant warfare in a rude age had taught to look lightly on the sufferings and death even of their own kind.[58] Once, we are told, a churl, resisting, it well may be, some trespass of the King and his foreign courtiers on an Englishman’s freehold, put some hindrance in the way of the royal sport. An unsaintly oath and an unkingly threat at once rose to the lips of Eadward; “By God and his Mother, I will hurt you some day if I can.”[59] Had Anselm, in the might of his true holiness, thus crossed the path of his brother saint, he too, as the defender of the oppressed, might have become the object of a like outburst of impotent wrath. A delight in amusements of this kind is hardly a fair subject of blame in men of any age to whom the rights of the lower animals have perhaps never been presented as matter for serious thought. But in a man laying claim to special holiness, to special meekness and gentleness of character, we naturally look for a higher standard, a standard which a contemporary example shows not to have been unattainable even in that age.

[Sidenote: Personal appearance and habits of Eadward.]

In person Eadward is described as being handsome, of moderate height, his face full and rosy, his hair and beard white as snow.[60] His beard he wore long, according to what seems to have been the older fashion both of England and of Normandy.[61] Among his younger contemporaries this fashion went out of use in both countries, and the Normans shaved the whole face, while the English left the hair on the upper lip only. He was remarkable for the length and whiteness of his hands. When not excited by passion, he was gentle and affable to all men; he was liberal both to the poor and to his friends; but he had also the special art of giving a graceful refusal, so that the rejection of a suit by him was almost as pleasing as its acceptance by another.[62] In public he preserved his kingly dignity intact; but he took little pleasure in the pomp of royalty or in wearing the gorgeous robes which were wrought for him by the industry and affection of his Lady.[63] In private company, though he never forgot his rank, he could unbend, and treat his familiar friends as an equal.[64] He avoided however one bad habit of his age, that of choosing the time of divine service as the time for private conversation. It is mentioned as a special mark of his devotion that he scarcely ever spoke during mass, except when he was interrupted by others.[65] The [Sidenote: His favourites at different periods of his reign.] mention of his friends and familiar companions leads us directly to his best and worst aspects as an English King. Like his father, he was constantly under the dominion of favourites. It was to the evil choice of his favourites during the early part of his reign that most of the misfortunes of his time were owing, and that a still more direct path was opened for the ambition of his Norman kinsman. In the latter part of his reign either happy accident, or returning good sense, or perhaps the sheer necessity of the case, led him to a better choice. Without a guide he could not reign, but the good fortune of his later years gave him the wisest and noblest of all guides. The most honourable feature in the whole life of Eadward is that the last thirteen years of his reign were virtually the reign of Harold.

[Sidenote: Eadward’s fondness for foreigners.]

But in the days before that great national reaction, in the period embraced in the present Chapter, it is the peculiar character of the favourites to whose influence Eadward was given up which sets its special mark on the time. The reign of Eadward in many respects forestalls the reign of Henry the Third. The part played by Earl Godwine in many respects forestalls the part played [Sidenote: His connexion with Normandy.] by Earl Simon of Montfort. Eadward was by birth an Englishman; but he was the son of a Norman mother; he had been carried to Normandy in his childhood; he had there spent the days of his youth and early manhood; England might be the land of his duty, but Normandy was ever the land of his affection. With the habits, the feelings, the language, of the people over whom he was called to rule he had absolutely no sympathy. His heart was French. His delight was to surround himself with companions who came from the beloved land and who spoke the beloved tongue, to enrich them with English estates, to invest them with the highest offices of the English Kingdom. Policy might make him the political ally of his Imperial brother-in-law, but a personal sentiment made him the personal friend of his Norman cousin. The needs of his royal position made him accept Godwine as his counsellor and the daughter of Godwine as his [Sidenote: Promotion of Normans to high office.] wife. But his real affections were lavished on the Norman priests[66] and gentlemen who flocked to his Court as to the land of promise. These strangers were placed in important offices about the royal person,[67] and before long they were set to rule as Earls and Bishops over the already half-conquered soil of England. Even when he came over as a private man in the days of Harthacnut, Eadward had brought with him his French nephew,[68] and Ralph the Timid Earl was but the precursor of the gang of foreigners who were soon to be quartered upon the country, as these were again only the first instalment of the larger gang who were to win for themselves a more lasting [Sidenote: The Norman Conquest begins under Eadward.] settlement four and twenty years later. In all this the seeds of the Conquest were sowing, or rather, as I once before put it,[69] it is now that the Conquest actually begins. The reign of Eadward is a period of struggle between natives and foreigners for dominion in England. The foreigners gradually win the upper hand, and for a time they are actually dominant. Then a national reaction overthrows their influence, and the noblest of living Englishmen becomes the virtual ruler. But this happy change did not take place till the strangers had become accustomed to look on English estates and honours as their right, a right which they soon learned to think they might one day assert by force of arms. The foreign favourites of Eadward were in truth the advanced guard of William. The conquests of England by Swend and Cnut, the wonderful exploits of his own countrymen in the South of Europe, no doubt helped to suggest to the Norman Duke that it was not impossible to win England for himself with his sword. But it must have been the feeling, on the part both of himself and of his subjects, that England was a land already half won over to Norman rule, which made the succession to the English Crown the cherished aim of the life of the mighty ruler who was now growing up to manhood and to greatness on the other side of the sea.

[Sidenote: Relations between Eadward and Godwine.]

The elevation of Eadward to the throne of course involved the establishment in still greater honour and authority of the man to whom his elevation was mainly owing, the great Earl of the West-Saxons. I have already thrown out some hints as to what the real relations between [Sidenote: Norman calumnies against Godwine and his sons.] Eadward and Godwine probably were.[70] There is not a shadow of evidence for the calumnies of the Norman writers which represent Godwine and his sons as holding the King in a sort of bondage, as abusing his simplicity and confidence, sometimes as behaving to him with great personal insolence, sometimes, they even venture to add, practising all kinds of injustice and oppression throughout the Kingdom. The English writers tell a widely different tale. The contrast between the two accounts is well set forth by a writer whose sympathies lie wholly on the Norman side, but who makes at least an effort to deal fairly between the two. In the English version Godwine and his sons appear as high-minded and faithful counsellors of the King, who stood forward as the leaders of the national feeling against his foreign favourites, but who were never guilty of any undutiful word or deed towards the prince whom they had themselves raised to power.[71] Eadward probably both feared and suspected Godwine. But there is nothing to show that, up to the final outbreak between Godwine and the foreigners, the great Earl had ever deviated from even formal loyalty to his sovereign. There is distinct evidence that more than one of his sons had gained Eadward’s warmest personal affection. From [Sidenote: Character of Godwine.] all that we can see, Godwine was not a man likely to win the same sort of personal affection from Eadward, perhaps not even from the nation at large, which was afterwards won by Harold. That Godwine was the representative of all English feeling, that he was the leader of every national movement, that he was the object of the deepest admiration on the part of the men at least of his own Earldom, is proved by the clearest of evidence. But it is equally clear that Godwine was essentially a wary statesman, and in no sense a chivalrous hero. We have seen that, mighty as was the power of his eloquence, he did not trust to his eloquence only.[72] He knew how to practise the baser as well as the nobler arts of statesmanship. He knew how to win over political adversaries by bribes, threats, and promises, and how to find means of chastisement for those who remained to the last immoveable by the voice of the charmer. When we think of the vast extent of his possessions,[73] most or all of which must have been acquired by royal grant, it is almost impossible to acquit him of [Sidenote: His relation to ecclesiastical bodies.] a grasping disposition. It is also laid to his charge that, in the acquisition of wealth, he did not always regard the rights of ecclesiastical bodies.[74] This last charge, it must be remembered, is one which he shares with almost every powerful man of his time, even with those who, if they took with one hand, gave lavishly with the other. And accusations of this sort must always be taken with certain deductions. Monastic and other ecclesiastical writers were apt to make little or no distinction between acts of real sacrilege, committed by fraud or violence, and the most legal transactions by which the Church happened to be [Sidenote: Godwine’s lack of bounty to the Church.] a loser. Still it should be noticed that Godwine stands perhaps alone among the great men of his own age in having no ecclesiastical foundation connected with his name. As far as I am aware, he is nowhere enrolled among the founders or benefactors of any church, religious or secular.[75] Such a peculiarity is most remarkable. How far it may have arisen from enlightenment beyond his age, how far it was the result of mere illiberality or want of religious feeling, it is utterly impossible to say. But it is clear that Godwine is, in this respect, distinguished in a marked way from his son, whose liberality, guided as it was by a wise discretion, was conspicuous among his other great qualities. Again, it is hardly impossible to acquit Godwine of being, like most fathers who have the [Sidenote: Godwine’s over care for his own household.] opportunity, too anxious for the advancement of his own family. He promoted his sons, both worthy and unworthy, to the greatest offices in the Kingdom, at an age when they could have had but little personal claim to such high distinctions. In so doing, he seems to have overstepped the bounds of policy as well as those of fairness and good feeling. Such an accumulation of power in one family could not but raise envy, and higher feelings than envy, in the breasts of rivals, some of whom may have had as good or better claims to promotion. That Godwine sacrificed his daughter to a political object is a charge common to him with princes and statesmen in all ages. Few men in any time or place would have thrown away the opportunity of having a King for a son-in-law, and, as Godwine doubtless hoped, of becoming, at least in the female line, the ancestor of a line of princes.

[Sidenote: Godwine’s government of his Earldom.]

The faults of the great Earl then are manifest. But his virtues are equally manifest. In the eyes of contemporary Englishmen such faults as I have mentioned must have seemed little more than a few specks on a burnished mirror. His good government of his Earldom is witnessed, not only by the rhetoric of his panegyrist, which however may at least be set against the rhetoric of his accusers, but by the plain facts of the welcome which greeted him on his return from banishment, and the zeal [Sidenote: His strict administration of justice.] in his behalf displayed by all classes.[76] As a ruler, Godwine is especially praised for what in those days was looked on as the first virtue of a ruler, merciless severity towards all disturbers of the public peace. In our settled times we hardly understand how rigour, often barbarous rigour, against thieves and murderers, should have been looked on as the first merit of a governor, one which was always enough to cover a multitude of sins. Public feeling went along with the prince or magistrate who thus preserved the peace of his dominions, however great might be his own offences in other ways, and however cruel in our eyes might be the means by which he compassed this first end of government. To have discharged this great duty stands foremost in the panegyrics of Godwine and of Harold.[77] It was accepted at the hands of the Norman Conqueror as almost an equivalent for the horrors of the Conquest.[78] It won for his son Henry a splendid burst of admiration at the hands of a native writer who certainly was not blind to the oppression of which that prince himself was guilty.[79] A certain amount of tyranny was willingly endured at the hands of a man who so effectually rid the world of smaller tyrants. And, in opposition to the praise thus bestowed on Godwine, Harold, William, and Henry, we find the neglect of this paramount duty standing foremost in the dark indictments against the ruffian Rufus[80] and the heedless Robert.[81] Godwine is set forth to us, in set phrases, it may be, but in phrases which do not the less express the conviction of the country, as a ruler mild and affable to the good, but stern and merciless to the evil [Sidenote: Godwine never reached the same power as Harold afterwards.] and unruly.[82] But with all his vigour, all his eloquence, it is clear that Godwine never reached to the same complete dominion over King and Kingdom which, in later years, fell to the lot of his nobler son. He always remained an object of jealousy, not only to the French favourites of Eadward, but to the Earls of the other parts of England. We shall find that his eloquent tongue could not always command a majority in the Meeting of the Wise.[83] [Sidenote: Importance of eloquence.] But the importance attributed to his oratory, the fluctuations of success and defeat which he underwent in the great deliberative Assembly, show clearly how advanced our constitution already was in an age when free debate was so well understood, and when free speech was so powerful.[84] In this respect the Norman Conquest undoubtedly threw things back. We shall have to pass over several centuries before we come to another chief whose influence clearly rested to so great a degree on his power of swaying great assemblies of men, on the personal affection or personal awe with which he had learned to inspire the Legislature of his country.

[Sidenote: Godwine’s family.]

The marriage of Godwine with his Danish wife Gytha had given him a numerous and flourishing offspring. Six sons and three daughters surrounded the table of the Earl of the West-Saxons. In the names which several of them bore we may discern the influence of their Danish mother.[85] The sons of Godwin were Swegen,[86] Harold, Tostig, Gyrth, Leofwine, and Wulfnoth. His daughters were Eadgyth, Gunhild, and perhaps a third, Ælfgifu.[87] As twenty-three years had now passed since Godwine’s marriage, we may assume that all of them were already born, though some of the younger ones may still have been children. The elder sons had reached manhood, and we shall find two at least of them filling the rank of Earl during the period [Sidenote: Swegen Earl, 1043.] with which we are now dealing. Swegen, the eldest son, seems to have been invested with an Earldom from the very beginning of Eadward’s reign, as he signs a charter with that rank in the King’s second year.[88] Gytha’s [Sidenote: Beorn Earl, 1045?] nephew, Beorn, also remained in England, while his brother Osbeorn was banished, and while his other brother Swend was putting forth his claims to the Crown of Denmark. He had doubtless attached himself firmly to the interests of his uncle. He was also, probably at a somewhat later time, raised to an Earldom, apparently the Earldom of the Middle-Angles, lately held by Thored.[89] The Earldom held by Swegen was geographically most anomalous. It took in the Mercian shires of Hereford, Gloucester, and Oxford, and the West-Saxon shires of Berkshire and Somerset.[90]

[Sidenote: First appearance of HAROLD the son of GODWINE. [Earl of the East-Angles, 1045?]]

But, along with the comparatively obscure names of Swegen and Beorn, a greater actor now steps upon the field. We have now reached the first appearance of the illustrious man round whom the main interest of this history will henceforth centre. The second son of Godwine lived to be the last of our native Kings, the hero and the martyr of our native freedom. We have indeed as yet to deal with him only in a subordinate capacity, and in some sort in a less honourable character. The few recorded actions of Harold, Earl of the East-Angles, could hardly have enabled men to look forward to the glorious career of Harold, Earl of the West-Saxons, and of Harold, King of the English. To his first great government, a trying elevation indeed for one in the full vigour of youth and passion, he was apparently raised about three years after the election of Eadward, when he himself could not have passed his twenty-fourth year. While still young, he experienced somewhat of the fluctuations of human affairs, and he seems to have learned wisdom by experience. Still there must have been in him from the beginning the germs of those great qualities which shone forth so conspicuously in his later career. [Sidenote: His character.] It is not hard to paint his portraiture, alike from his recorded actions, and from the elaborate descriptions of [Sidenote: Contemporary testimonies.] him which we possess from contemporary hands. The praises of the great Earl sound forth in the latest specimen of the native minstrelsy of Teutonic England. And they sound forth with a truer ring than the half conventional praises of the saintly monarch, whose greatest glory, after all, was that he had called Harold to the [Sidenote: Evidence of the Biographer.] government of his realm.[91] The biographer of Eadward, the panegyrist of Godwine, is indeed the common laureate of Godwine’s whole family; but it is not in the special interest of Harold that he writes. He sets forth the merits of Harold with no sparing hand; he approves of him as a ruler and he admires him as a man; but his own personal affection plainly clings more closely to the rival brother Tostig. His description of Harold is therefore the more trustworthy, and it fully agrees with the evidence of his recorded actions. Harold then, the second son of Godwine, is set before us as a man uniting every gift of mind and body which could attract to him the admiration and affection of the age in which he lived.[92] Tall in stature, beautiful in countenance, of a bodily strength whose memory still lives in the rude pictorial art of his time,[93] he was foremost alike in the active courage and in the passive endurance of the warrior. [Sidenote: His military genius.] In hunger and watchfulness, in the wearing labours of a campaign no less than in the passing excitement of the day of battle, he stood forth as the leader and the model of the English people.[94] Alike ready and vigorous in action, he knew when to strike and how to strike; he knew how to measure himself against enemies of every kind, and to adapt his tactics to every position in which the accidents of warfare might place him. He knew how to chase the light-armed Briton from fastness to fastness, how to charge, axe in hand, on the bristling lines of his Norwegian namesake, and how to bear up, hour after hour, against the repeated onslaughts of the Norman horsemen and the more terrible thundershower of the Norman arrows. It is plain that in him, no less than in his more successful, and therefore more famous, rival, we have to admire, not only the mere animal courage of the soldier, but that true skill of the leader of armies which would have placed both Harold and William high among the captains of any age.

[Sidenote: Harold’s civil virtues.]

But the son of Godwine, the heir of his greatness, was not merely a soldier, not merely a general. If he inherited from his father those military qualities which first drew on Godwine the notice alike of the English Ætheling[95] and of the Danish King, he inherited also that eloquence of speech, that wisdom in council, that knowledge of the laws of the land,[96] which made him the true leader and father of the English people. Great as Harold was in war, his character as a civil ruler is still more remarkable, still more worthy of admiration. One or two actions of his earlier life show indeed that the spirit of those days [Sidenote: His singular forbearance.] of violence had laid its hand even on him. But, from the time when he appears in his full maturity as the acknowledged chief of the English nation, the most prominent feature in his character is his singular gentleness and mercy. Never, either in warfare or in civil strife, do we find Harold bearing hardly upon an enemy. From the time of his advancement to the practical government of the Kingdom, there is not a single harsh or cruel action with which he can be charged. His policy was ever a policy of conciliation. His panegyrist indeed confines his readiness to forgive, his unwillingness to avenge, to his dealings with his own countrymen only.[97] But the same magnanimous spirit is shown in cases where his conduct was less capable of being guided by mere policy than in his dealings with Mercian rivals and with Northumbrian revolters. We see the same generous temper in his treatment of the conquered Princes of Wales and of the defeated invaders of Stamfordbridge. As a ruler, he is described as walking in the steps of his father, as the terror of evildoers [Sidenote: His championship of England against strangers.] and the rewarder of those who did well. Devoted, heart and soul, to the service of his country, he was no less loyal in personal attention and service to her wayward and half-foreign King.[98] Throughout his career he was the champion of the independence of England against the dominion of strangers. To keep the court of England free from the shoals of foreigners who came to fatten on English estates and honours, and to meet the same enemies in open arms upon the heights of Senlac, were only two different ways of discharging the great duty to which his whole energies were devoted. And yet no man was ever more free from narrow insular prejudices, from any unworthy [Sidenote: His foreign travels.] jealousy of foreigners as such. His own mind was enlarged and enriched by foreign travel, by the study of the politics and institutions of other nations on their own soil. He not only made the pilgrimage to Rome, a practice which the example of Cnut seems to have made fashionable among English nobles and prelates, but he went on a journey through various parts of Gaul, carefully examining into the condition of the country and the policy of its rulers, among whom we may be sure that the renowned Duke of Rouen was not forgotten.[99] And Harold was ever ready to welcome and to reward real merit in men of foreign birth. He did not scruple to confer high offices on strangers, and to call men of worth from foreign lands to help him in his most cherished undertakings. [Sidenote: Harold’s patronage of Germans as opposed to Frenchmen.] But, while the bounty of Eadward was squandered on Normans and Frenchmen, men utterly alien in language and feeling, it was the policy of Harold to strengthen the connexion of England with the continental nations nearest to us in blood and speech.[100] All the foreigners promoted by Harold, or in the days of his influence, were natives of those kindred Teutonic lands whose sons might still almost be looked upon as fellow-countrymen.

[Sidenote: His personal character.]

Such was Harold as a leader of Englishmen in war and in peace. As for his personal character, we can discern that in the received piety of the age he surpassed his [Sidenote: His alleged spoliation of monasteries.] father. The charge of invasion of the rights of ecclesiastical bodies is brought against him no less than against Godwine; but the instance which has brought most discredit upon his name can be easily shown to be a mere tissue of misconceptions and exaggerations.[101] But it is far [Sidenote: His friendship with Saint Wulfstan.] more certain that Harold was the intimate friend of the best and holiest man of his time. Wulfstan, the sainted Bishop of Worcester, was the object of his deepest affection and reverence; he would at any time go far out of his way for the benefit of his exhortations and prayers; and the Saint repaid his devotion by loyal and vigorous [Sidenote: His foundation of the College at Waltham. [1060–2.]] service in the day of need.[102] Of his liberality his great foundation at Waltham is an everlasting monument, and it is a monument not more of his liberality than of his wisdom. To the monastic orders Harold seems not to have been specially liberal;[103] his bounty took another and a better chosen direction. The foundation of a great secular College, in days when all the world seemed mad after monks, when King Eadward and Earl Leofric vied with each other in lavish gifts to religious houses at home and abroad, was in itself an

## act displaying no small vigour and independence of mind. The details too

of the foundation were such as showed that the creation of Waltham was not the act of a moment of superstitious dread or of reckless bounty, but the deliberate deed of a man who felt the responsibilities of lofty rank and boundless wealth, and who earnestly sought the welfare of his Church and nation [Sidenote: His personal demeanour frank and open.] in all things. As to his personal demeanour, he was frank and open in his general bearing, to a degree which was sometimes thought to be prejudicial to his interests.[104] Yet he could on occasion dissemble and conceal his purpose, a gift which seems sometimes to have been misconstrued,[105] and which apparently led him to the one great error of his life. He appears not to have been wholly free from [Sidenote: Charges of rashness.] the common fault of noble and generous dispositions. The charge of occasional rashness was brought against him by others, and it is denied by his panegyrist in terms which seem to imply that the charge was not wholly groundless.[106] And we must add that, in his private life, he did not, at least in his early days, imitate either the monastic asceticism of the King or the stern domestic purity of his rival [Sidenote: His connexion with Eadgyth Swanneshals.] the Conqueror. The most pathetic incident connected with his name, tells us of a love of his early days, the days apparently of his East-Anglian government, unrecognized by the laws of the Church, but perhaps not wholly condemned by the standard of his own age, which shows, perhaps above every other tale in English history or legend, how much the love of woman can do and suffer.[107]

[Sidenote: Harold Earl of the East-Angles, 1045; Earl of the West-Saxons, 1053; King, 1066.]

Such was the man who, seemingly in the fourth year of Eadward, in the twenty-third or twenty-fourth of his own age, was invested with the rule of one of the great divisions of England; who, seven years later, became the virtual ruler of the Kingdom; who, at last, twenty-one years from his first elevation, received, alone among English Kings, the Crown of England as the free gift of her people, and, alone among English Kings, died, axe in hand, on her own soil, in the defence of England against foreign invaders. One prince alone in the later history of Europe rivals the peculiar glory which attaches to the name of Harold. For him we must seek in a distant age and in a distant land, but in a land connected with our own by a strangely abiding tie. English warriors, soldiers of Harold, chafing under the yoke of the Norman Conqueror, sought service at the court of the Eastern Cæsar, and there retained for ages their national tongue, their national weapon,[108] and the proud inheritance of their [Sidenote: Comparison of Harold with Constantine Palaiologos.] stainless loyalty. The memory of England and of Harold becomes thus strangely interwoven with the memory of the one prince of later times who died in a still nobler cause than that of the freedom of England. The King who died upon the hill of Senlac finds his only worthy peer in the Emperor who died before the Gate of Saint Rômanos. The champion of England against the Southern invader must own a nobler martyr still in the champion of the faith and liberty of Christendom against the misbelieving horde who have ever since defiled the fairest and most historic regions of the world. The blood of Harold and his faithful followers has indeed proved the most fertile seed of English freedom, and the warning signs of the times seem to tell us that the day is fast coming when the blood of Constantine shall no longer send up its cry for vengeance unheeded from the earth.

[Sidenote: Character of Swegen.]

The second son of Godwine was no doubt raised to greatness in the first instance mainly because he was a son of Godwine; but his great qualities gradually showed that the rank to which he was raised by his father’s favour was one which he was fully entitled to retain by his own merits. The earlier elevation of the great Earl’s eldest born was less fortunate. Swegen lived to show that he had a soul of real nobleness within him; but his crimes were great, he was cut off just as he was beginning to amend his ways, and he has left a dark and sad memory behind him. A youth, evidently of no common powers, but wayward, violent, and incapable of self-control, he was hurried first into a flagrant violation of the sentiment of the age, and next into a still fouler breach of the eternal laws of right. His end may well arouse our pity, but his life, as a whole, is a dark blot on the otherwise chequered escutcheon of the house of Godwine. It was clearly felt to be so; the panegyrist of the family never once brings himself to utter the [Sidenote: Of the Lady Eadgyth. 1045.] name of Swegen. Only one other child of Godwine calls for personal notice at this stage of our history. Eadgyth, his eldest daughter, became, nearly two years after Eadward’s coronation,[109] the willing or unwilling bride of the saintly monarch. She is described as being no less highly gifted among women than her brothers were among men; as lovely in person and adorned with every female accomplishment, as endowed with a learning and refinement unusual in her age, as in point of piety and liberality a fitting help-meet for Eadward himself.[110] But there are some strange inconsistencies in the facts which are recorded of her. Her zeal and piety did not hinder her from receiving rewards, perhaps, in plain words, from taking bribes. Undoubtedly this is a subject on which the feelings of past times differed widely from those of our own; but we are a little staggered when we find the saintly King and his pious Lady receiving money from religious houses to support claims which, if just, should have been supported for nothing, and, if unjust, should not have been supported at all.[111] But Eadgyth has been charged with far heavier offences than this. She [Sidenote: Suspicions of her loyalty to England.] seems to have become in some degree infected with her husband’s love of foreigners, perhaps even in some sort to have withdrawn her sympathies from the national cause. She has won the doubtful honour of having her name extolled by Norman flatterers as one whose heart was [Sidenote: Her alleged share in the murder of Gospatric.] rather Norman than English.[112] And all her reputation for gentleness and piety has not kept her from being branded in the pages of one of our best chroniclers as an accomplice in a base and treacherous murder.[113] Her character thus [Sidenote: Her relation to her husband.] becomes in some sort an ænigma, and her relation to her husband is not the least ænigmatical part of her position. One of Eadward’s claims to be looked on as a saint was the general belief, at least of the next generation, that the husband of the beautiful Eadgyth lived with her only [Sidenote: Eadward’s alleged chastity.] as a brother with a sister.[114] If this story be true, a more enlightened standard of morality can see no virtue, but rather a crime, in his conduct. We can see nothing to admire in a King who, in such a crisis of his country, himself well nigh the last of his race, and without any available member of the royal family to succeed him, shrank, from whatever motive, from the obvious duty of raising up [Sidenote: Evidence of the earliest writers.] direct heirs to his Crown. But it seems probable that this report is merely part of the legend of the saint and not part of the history of the King. His contemporary panegyrists undoubtedly praise Eadward’s chastity. But it is not necessary to construe their words as meaning more than might be asserted of Ælfred, of William, of Saint Lewis, or of Edward the First. The conjugal faith of all those great monarchs remained, as far as we know, unbroken; but not one of them thought it any part of his duty to observe continence towards his own wife. Still, from whatever cause, the marriage of Eadward and Eadgyth was undoubtedly childless; and the relations of the royal pair to each other in other respects are hardly more intelligible. Eadgyth is described as the partaker of all her husband’s good works, and as nursing him with the most affectionate care during his last illness.[115] Yet, at the moment of his reign when he could most freely exercise a will of his own, if he did not absolutely of his own accord banish her from his court, he consented, seemingly without any reluctance, to her removal from him by the enemies of her family and her country.[116] The anxiety of Eadward’s Norman favourites to separate Eadgyth from her husband is, after all, the most honourable record of her to be found among the singularly contradictory descriptions of her character and actions.

[Sidenote: Greatness of Godwine and his house.]

We thus find, within a few years after the accession of Eadward, the whole of the ancient Kingdoms of Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex, East-Anglia, and part of Mercia, under the government of Godwine, his two elder sons, and his nephew. His daughter meanwhile shared the throne of England with a King whom he had himself placed upon it. Such greatness could hardly be lasting. It rested wholly on Godwine’s own personal character and influence, for the fame of Harold was yet to be won. The [Sidenote: The other Earldoms;] part of Mercia which was not otherwise occupied remained, [Sidenote: Mercia under Leofric;] as before, in the hands of Leofric the son of Leofwine. This Earl and his famous wife Godgifu, the Lady Godiva of legend,[117] were chiefly celebrated for their boundless liberality to ecclesiastical foundations.[118] Worcester, Leominster, Evesham, Chester, Wenlock, Stow in Lindesey, and, above all, Coventry, were special objects of their bounty. They seem not to have been satisfied with mere grants of lands and privileges, but to have taken a special interest in the buildings and ornaments of the houses which they favoured. The minster of Coventry, rebuilt and raised to cathedral rank after their time, has utterly vanished from the earth, and recent changes have abolished even the titular position of the city as a see of a Bishop. But at Stow, the ancient Sidnacester, a place even then of infinitely less consideration than Coventry, portions of the church enriched by Leofric still remain.[119] Leofric, his son Ælfgar, his grandsons and his granddaughter, play an important part in the history of this period down to the complete establishment of the Norman power in [Sidenote: Relations between Leofric and Godwine.] England. It is clear that Leofric must have been more personally annoyed by the rise of Godwine and his house than any other of the great men of England. A race whom he could not fail to look down upon as upstarts hemmed him in on every side except towards the North. Later in the reign of Eadward, we shall find the rivalries and the reconciliations of the two houses of Godwine and Leofric forming a considerable portion of the history. But, while Leofric himself lived, he continued to play the part which we have already seen him playing,[120] that part of a mediator between two extreme parties, which was dictated to him by the geographical position of his Earldom.

[Sidenote: Northumberland under Siward.]

North of the Humber, the great Dane, Siward the Strong, still ruled over the Earldom which he had won by the murder of his wife’s uncle.[121] The manners of the Northumbrians were so savage, murders and hereditary deadly feuds were so rife among them, that it is quite possible that the slaughter of Eadwulf may, by a party at least, have been looked on as a praiseworthy act of vigour. Perhaps however, as we go on, we may discern signs that Siward and his house were not specially popular in Northumberland, and that men looked back with regret to the more regular line of their native Earls. At any rate, Siward remained for the rest of his days in undisturbed possession of both the Northumbrian governments, and along with these he seems to have held the Earldoms of Northampton and Huntingdon within the proper limits of Mercia.[122] He ruled, we are told, with great firmness and severity, labouring hard to bring his troublesome province into something like order.[123] Nor was he lacking in that bounty to the Church, which might seem specially needful as an atonement for the crime by which he rose to power.[124]

[Sidenote: England not tending to separation but to union.]

The mention of these great Earls suggests several considerations as to the constitutional and administrative systems of the time. It is quite a mistake to think, as often has been thought, that the position of these powerful viceroys at all proves that England was at this time tending to separation. It was in truth tending to closer union, and the position of the great Earls is really one of the [Sidenote: Comparison with Frankish history.] signs of that tendency. A mistaken parallel has sometimes been drawn between the condition of England under Eadward and the condition of France under the later Karlings. The transfer of the English sceptre to the house of Godwine is of course likened to the transfer of the French sceptre to the house of Hugh of Paris. But, if we are to look for a parallel in the history of Gaul, we shall find one, by no means exact but certainly the closer of the two, in the state of things under the later Merwings, and in the transfer of the Frankish sceptre to the Carolingian dynasty. The position of Godwine and Harold is, of the two, more akin to the position of Charles Martel and Pippin than it is to that of Hugh the Great and Hugh Capet. [Sidenote: Nature of the Earldom as affected by the Danish Conquest.] The Earls of Eadward’s reign were, as I have already explained,[125] not territorial princes, gradually withdrawing themselves from the authority of their nominal overlord, but great magistrates, wielding indeed a power well nigh royal within their several governments, but wielding it only by delegation from the common sovereign. The Danish Conquest, and the fearful slaughter of the ancient nobility in the wars of Swend and Cnut, had done much to break up the force of ancient local associations and the influence of the ancient local families. Many of these families, the East-Anglian Earls for instance, doubtless became extinct. From the accession of Cnut we find a new state of things. The rule of the old half-kingly families, holding an almost hereditary sway over whole kingdoms, and apparently with subordinate Ealdormen in each shire, gradually dies out. Cnut divided the Kingdom as he pleased, appointing Danes or Englishmen, and Englishmen of old or of new families, as he thought good. England was now divided among a few Earls, who were distinctly representatives of the King. In Northumberland and Mercia the claims of ancient princely families were to some extent regarded; in Wessex and East-Anglia not at all. The rank of Earl is now held by a very few persons, connected either with the royal family or with the men whose personal influence was great at the time.[126] The Earls of Eadward’s reign are always either his own kinsmen or else [Sidenote: Position of Northumberland.] kinsmen of Godwine or Leofric. Siward alone keeps his Earldom for life; but, while he lives, his influence hardly extends beyond his own province, and, after his death, Northumberland falls under the same law as the rest of the Kingdom. No doubt Northumberland still retained more of the character of a distinct state than any other part of England; still the forces of Northumberland march at the command of the King,[127] and the Northumbrian Earldom is at the disposal of the King and his Witan.[128] We do not however find the same signs of the constant immediate exercise of the royal power in Northumberland which we find in Wessex, Mercia, and East-Anglia. We have throughout this reign a series of writs [Sidenote: Evidence of the King’s writs.] addressed to the Bishops and Earls of those districts, which show that an Earl of one of those great Earldoms commonly acted as the local Earl of each shire in his province, with no subordinate Earl or Ealdorman under him. While such writs are exceedingly common in Wessex and East-Anglia, one such writ only exists addressed to a Northumbrian Earl, and that is in the days of Tostig.[129] In Siward’s days possibly the King’s writ hardly ran in Northumberland. Those addressed to the Earls of the house of Leofric are also rare. It is clear that the King’s power was more fully established under the Earls of Godwine’s family than elsewhere. No doubt the royal authority was formally the same in every part of the Kingdom, but the memories and traces of ancient independence in Northumberland and Northern Mercia made its practical exercise more difficult in those districts.

[Sidenote: Further evidence of the writs as to a change in the condition of the Folkland.]

The class of writs of which I have just spoken throw some light on constitutional questions in another way. They come in under Cnut,[130] and they become very common under Eadward, being found alongside of documents of the more ancient form. They are announcements which the King makes to the Bishop, Earl, Sheriff, Thegns, and others of some one shire, or sometimes to the Bishops, Earls, and Thegns of the whole Kingdom, which do not, like documents of the ancient form, bear the signatures of any Witan. They are the manifest prototypes of the royal writs of later times. They are, like the other documents, mostly grants of one kind or another; only they seem to proceed from the King’s personal authority, without any confirmation from a national Gemót. Now it is hardly possible that the mass of grants of this sort which are preserved can all of them have been grants out of the King’s private estate. And, if they are grants of folkland to be turned into bookland on whatever tenure, allodial or feudal, a very important question arises. If the King could make such grants by his own authority, a change must have taken place in the ideas entertained as to folkland. In short, the change which was completed after the Conquest[131] must have already been in progress. The Folkland must have been beginning to be looked on as _Terra Regis_. In short, strictly feudal ideas were gradually coming in on this as on other matters. And doubtless, in this respect, as in others, the Danish Conquest did much to prepare the way for the [Sidenote: General powers of the Witan not lessened.] Norman. But, if the Witenagemót insensibly lost its authority in a matter in which we may well believe that its voice had long been nearly formal, it retained its general powers undiminished. It still, as of old, elected Kings, outlawed Earls, discussed and determined the foreign relations of the Kingdom. The fame of Eadward as a lawgiver is mythical; but the fame of government carried on in strict conformity to the laws and constitution of the country, is one which fairly belongs to him, or rather to the illustrious men by whom his power was practically wielded.

[Sidenote: Scotland under Macbeth.]

I have now to end this sketch by a brief view of the condition of the subordinate Kingdoms and of the relations of England to foreign countries. Scotland was now ruled by the famous Macbeth. He had, as Maarmor or under-King of Moray, done homage to Cnut[132] along with his [Sidenote: Reign and death of Duncan. 1040.] superior Malcolm. Duncan, the youthful grandson of Malcolm, unsuccessful, as we have seen, in his invasion of England,[133] was equally so in his warfare with the Northmen of Orkney.[134] Soon after this last failure, he was murdered by his own subjects, Macbeth being at least the prime mover in the deed.[135] The murdered prince had married a kinswoman of the Earl of the Northumbrians,[136] by whom he left two infant sons, Malcolm, afterwards famous as Malcolm Canmore, and Donald Bane. But the [Sidenote: Reign of Macbeth. 1040–1058.] Crown was assumed by Macbeth, on some claim, it would seem, of hereditary right, either in himself or in his wife Gruach.[137] Macbeth, and still more Gruach, have been so immortalized in legend that it is not easy to recall them to their true historical personality. But, from what little can be recovered about them, they certainly seem not to have been so black as they are painted. The crime of Macbeth against Duncan is undoubted; but it was, to say the least, no baser than the crime of Siward against Eadwulf; and Macbeth, like Siward, ruled well and vigorously the dominion which he had won by crime. All genuine Scottish tradition points to the reign of Macbeth as a period of unusual peace and prosperity in that disturbed [Sidenote: Macbeth distributes money at Rome. 1050.] land.[138] Macbeth and Gruach were also bountiful to churches in their own land, and Macbeth’s munificence to certain unknown persons at Rome was thought worthy of record by chroniclers beyond the bounds of Scotland.[139] One hardly knows whether this was merely by way of alms, like the gifts of Cnut, and it seems uncertain whether Macbeth, like Cnut and Harold, personally made the Roman pilgrimage.[140] The words however in which the gifts of Macbeth are spoken of might almost imply that his bounty had a political object. It is possible that, even at this early time, the Scottish King may have thought it desirable to get the Roman Court on his side, and he may have found, like later princes and prelates, that a liberal distribution of money was the best way of winning the favour of the Apostolic See. The high character of the reigning Pontiff, Leo the Ninth, puts him personally above all suspicion of unlawful gain; but then, as afterwards, subordinates were probably less scrupulous. The few notices which we find of Scottish affairs during the early years of Eadward might suggest that Macbeth felt his position precarious with regard to his English overlord. He had done homage to Cnut, but there is no record of his having renewed it to Eadward. There is however no sign of open enmity for many years.

[Sidenote: Gruffydd of North Wales. 1039–1063.]

In Wales a remarkable power was growing up, which will often call for notice throughout the whole of the reign of Eadward. The year before the death of Harold, Gruffydd the son of Llywelyn became King of Gwynedd or North Wales, a description which now begins to be used in its modern sense. He ruled with great vigour and ability. He gradually extended his dominion over the whole of Wales, not scrupling to avail himself of Saxon help against enemies of his own race. On the other hand, he more than once, sometimes alone, sometimes in concert with English traitors, proved himself a really formidable enemy to England. He was the last prince under whom any portion of the Welsh nation played a really important part in the history of Britain. He was, for Wales in the narrower sense, pretty well what Cadwalla had been, ages before, for Strathclyde.[141] In the [Sidenote: 633.] very first year of his reign, he made an inroad into Mercia, [Sidenote: His victory at Rhyd-y-Groes. 1039.] which has been already spoken of.[142] He penetrated as far as Rhyd-y-Groes, near Upton-on-Severn, a spot still retaining its British name,[143] and there he fought the battle in which Eadwine, the brother of Earl Leofric, was killed. [Sidenote: His wars in South Wales.] At the time of Eadward’s accession he was busily engaged in various conflicts with the princes of South Wales, who did not scruple to call in the help of the heathen Danes of Ireland against him.[144] In the year of [Sidenote: 1042.] Eadward’s election, he had just won a great victory over a combined host of this kind at Aberteifi or Cardigan.[145]

[Sidenote: Eadward’s friendly relations with foreign powers.]

The relations of King Eadward to foreign powers were, for the most part, friendly. With Normandy and other French states they were, as we have seen and shall see, only too friendly. But this was a time of growing intercourse, not with France only, but with Continental nations generally. Pilgrimages to Rome, and other foreign journeys and embassies, were becoming far more usual than before among eminent Englishmen, both clergy and laity. Earl Harold’s travels, undertaken in order to study the condition and resources of foreign countries on [Sidenote: Connexion with Germany.] the spot, form a memorable example.[146] The connexion between England and Germany was now very close; the great Emperor Henry the Third sedulously sought the friendship of his English brother-in-law; and there is, as we have seen, little doubt that the German connexion was cultivated by the patriotic party as a counterpoise to the French tendencies of the King.[147] The promotion of German churchmen began early in Eadward’s reign, when it could hardly have taken place except with the sanction of Godwine. The only danger that seemed to threaten [Sidenote: Relations with the North; claims of Magnus.] lay in the North. Magnus of Norway conceived himself to have acquired, by virtue of his agreement with Harthacnut, a claim on the Crown of England;[148] but his wars with Swend hindered him from putting it forward for some years to come.

[Sidenote: The reign of Eadward comparatively peaceful.]

The reign of Eadward was, on the whole, a reign of peace. His admirers use somewhat exaggerated language on the subject,[149] as his reign was certainly more disturbed than those of either Eadgar or Cnut. Still, compared with most periods of the same length in those troubled times, the twenty-four years of Eadward form a period of unusual tranquillity. Foreign war, strictly so called, there was none. England was threatened by Norway, and she herself interfered in the affairs of Flanders; but no actual fighting seems to have taken place on either occasion. Within the island matters were somewhat less quiet. Scotland was successfully invaded, and the old royal line restored. A few incursions of Scandinavian pirates are recorded, and Gruffydd of Wales remained for many years a thorn in the side of his English neighbours. But the main interest of this reign gathers round domestic affairs, round the revolts, the banishments, and the reconciliations of the great Earls, and, still more, round that great national movement against French influence in Church and State, of which Godwine and his family were the representatives and leaders.

§ 3. _From the Coronation of Eadward to the Remission of the War-Tax._ 1043–1051.

[Sidenote: Character of the years 1043–1051.]

This first period of the reign of Eadward is not marked by any very striking events till we draw near to its close. At home we have to mark the gradual expulsion, already spoken of, of those who had been conspicuous in opposing Eadward’s election, and, what is of far more importance, the gradually increasing influence of the foreign favourites. This is most easily traced in the disposition of ecclesiastical preferments. The foreign relations of England at this time lay mainly with the kingdoms of the North, where the contending princes had not yet wholly bidden farewell to the hope of uniting all the crowns of the Great Cnut on a single brow. But the relations between England and the Empire were also of importance, and the affairs of Flanders under its celebrated Count Baldwin the Fifth form a connecting link between those of England, Germany, and Scandinavia. The usual border warfare with Wales continues; with the renowned usurper of Scotland there was most likely a sort of armed truce. These various streams of events seem for some years to flow, as it were, side by side, without commingling in any marked way. But towards the end of our period they all in a manner unite in the tale of crime and misfortune which led to the disgrace and downfall of the eldest son of Godwine, but which thereby paved the way for the elevation of the second.

[Sidenote: Relations between Eadward and his mother.]

The first act of the new King was one which was perhaps neither unjust nor impolitic, but which, at first sight, seems strangely incongruous with his character for sanctity and gentleness. With all his fondness for Normans, there was one person of Norman birth for whom he felt little love, and to whom indeed he seems to have owed but little gratitude. This was no other than his own mother. It is not very easy to understand the exact relations between Emma and her son. We are told that she had been very hard upon him, and that she had done less for him than he would—contributed too little, it would seem, from her accumulated hoards—both before he became King and since.[150] Now it is not clear what opportunities Emma had had of being hard upon her son since the days of his childhood. During the greater part of their joint lives, Eadward had been an exile in Normandy, while Emma had shared the throne of England as the wife of Cnut. Her fault must rather have been neglect to do anything for his interests, refusal, it may be, to give anything of her wealth for the relief of his comparative poverty, rather than any actual hardships which she could have inflicted on him. She had, as we have seen, altogether thrown in her lot with her second husband, and had seemingly wished her first marriage to be wholly forgotten.[151] But there seems not to be the slightest ground for the scandal which represented her as having acted in any way a hostile part to her sons after the death of Cnut.[152] All the more probable versions of the death of Ælfred represent her as distinctly favourable to his enterprise.[153] She had herself suffered spoliation and exile in the days of Harold;[154] she had returned with Harthacnut, and, in his days, she seems almost to have been looked on as a sharer in the royal authority.[155] That authority she had at least not used to keep back her favourite son from the recall of his banished half-brother. It is not wonderful if, under these circumstances, there was little love between mother and son. Still there does not, up to the death of Harthacnut, seem to have been any unpardonable offence [Sidenote: Probable offence of Emma.] committed on the part of Emma. But the charge that she had done less for Eadward than he would, since he came to the Crown, seems to have a more definite meaning. It doubtless means that she had refused to contribute of her treasures to the lawful needs of the State. It may also mean that she had been, to say the least, not specially zealous in supporting Eadward’s claims to the Crown. She is described as dwelling at Winchester in the possession, not only of great landed possessions, the morning-gifts of her two marriages, but of immense hoarded wealth of every kind.[156] Harthacnut had doubtless restored, and probably increased, all that had been taken from her by Harold. Of her mode of employing her wealth we find different accounts; putting the two statements together, we may perhaps infer that she was bountiful to churches and monasteries, but niggardly to the poor.[157] But neither this bounty nor this niggardliness was a legal crime, and it is clear that some more definite offence must have lurked behind. Her treasures, or part of them, may have been gained by illegal grants from Harthacnut; it is almost certain, from the language of our authorities, that they had been illegally refused to the public service. But what happened seems to imply some still deeper offence. [Sidenote: Witenagemót of Gloucester. November, 1043.] The conduct of Emma became the subject of debate in a meeting of the Witan; her punishment was the result of a decree of that body, and all that was done to her was done with the active approval of the three great Earls, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward.[158] In the month of November after Eadward’s coronation, a Gemót—perhaps a forestalling of the usual Midwinter Gemót—was held at Gloucester. That town seems now to take the place which was held by Oxford a little earlier[159] as the scene of courts and councils.[160] It became during this reign, what it remained during the reign of the Conqueror, the place where the King wore his Crown at the Christmas festival, as he wore it at Winchester at Easter. It was convenient for such purposes as lying near at once to the borders of two of the great Earldoms. It lay also near to the borders of the dangerous Welsh, whose motions, under princes like the two Gruffydds, it was doubtless often expedient to watch with the whole wisdom and the whole force of the realm. The result of the deliberations of the Wise Men was that the King in person, accompanied by the [Sidenote: Eadward and the Earls despoil Emma of her treasures. November 16, 1043.] three great Earls,[161] rode from Gloucester to Winchester, came unawares[162] upon the Lady, occupied her lands,[163] and seized all that she had in gold, silver, jewels, and precious stones. They left her, however, we are told, enough for her maintenance, and bade her live quietly at Winchester.[164] She now sinks into utter insignificance for the remainder of her days.[165]

Now the last order, to live quietly at Winchester, seems to imply some scheme or intrigue on the part of Emma more serious than even an illegal refusal to contribute of her wealth to the exigencies of the State. Is it possible that she had been one of the opponents of her son’s election? A woman who had so completely transferred her affection to her second husband and his children, even though she had no hand in actual conspiracies against the offspring of her first marriage, may conceivably have preferred the nephew of Cnut to her own son by Æthelred. If so, her punishment was only the first act of a sort of persecution which during the next three or four years seems to have fallen upon all who had supported the claims of Swend to the Crown. The whole party became marked men, and were gradually sent out of the Kingdom as occasion served.[166] A few of their names may probably be recovered. We have records of several cases of banishment and confiscation during the early years of Eadward, which are doubtless those of the partisans of Eadward’s Danish opponent. First and foremost was a brother of Swend himself, Osbeorn, who, like his brother Beorn, seems to have [Sidenote: Banishments of Swend’s partisans. 1043–1046.] held the rank of Earl in England. The brothers must have taken different sides in the politics of the time, as Osbeorn was banished, while Beorn retained his Earldom.[167] The banishment of Osbeorn did not stand alone. The great [Sidenote: 1046.] Danish Thegn Osgod Clapa was banished a few years later,[168] and it was probably on the same account that Æthelstan the son of Tofig lost his estate at Waltham,[169] [Sidenote: 1044.] and that Gunhild, the niece of Cnut and daughter of Wyrtgeorn, was banished together with her two sons Heming and Thurkill.[170] She was then a widow for the second time through the death of her husband Earl Harold.[171] He had gone on a pilgrimage to Rome, and was on his way back to Denmark, when he was treacherously murdered by Ordulf, the brother-in-law of Magnus of Norway.[172] That Harold was bound for Denmark, and not for England, where his wife and children or stepchildren were, may perhaps tend to show that he was already an exile from England. It is not impossible that Godescalc the Wend ought to be added to the list.[173]

Whether the fall of Emma was or was not connected with the penalties which thus fell on the relics of the Danish party, it certainly carried with it the momentary [Sidenote: Stigand, appointed Bishop of Elmham, and deposed. April-November, 1043.] fall of one eminent Englishman. The disgrace of the Lady was accompanied by the disgrace of the remarkable—we might almost say the great—churchman by whose counsels she was said to be governed. We have already seen Stigand, once the Priest of Assandun,[174] appointed to a Bishoprick and almost immediately deprived of it.[175] The like fate now happened to him a second time. He was, it would seem, still unconsecrated;[176] but, seemingly about the time of Eadward’s coronation, he was named and consecrated to the East-Anglian Bishoprick of Elmham.[177] But the spoliation of Emma was accompanied by the deposition of Stigand from the dignity to which he had just been raised. He was deprived of his Bishoprick, and his goods were seized into the King’s hands, evidently by a sentence of the same Gemót which decreed the proceedings against the Lady. Whatever Emma’s fault was, Stigand was held to be a sharer in it. The ground assigned for his deposition was that he had been partaker of the counsels of the Lady, and that she had acted in all things by his advice.[178] That Stigand should have supported the claims of Swend is in itself not improbable. He had risen wholly by the favour of Cnut, his wife, and his sons. The strange thing is that so wary a statesman should not have seen how irresistibly the tide was setting in favour of Eadward. One thing is certain, that, if Stigand mistook his interest this time, he knew how in the long run to recover his lost place and to rise to places far higher.

[Sidenote: Importance of ecclesiastical appointments at this time.]

During the whole of this period ecclesiastical appointments claim special notice. They are at all times important witnesses to the state of things at any particular moment, and in a period of this kind they are the best indications of the direction in which popular and royal favour is setting. The patrons or electors of an ecclesiastical office can choose far more freely, they can set themselves much more free from the control of local and family influences, than those who are called on to appoint to temporal offices. For King Eadward to appoint a French Earl would prove much more than his appointment of a French Bishop. It would prove much more as to his own inclinations; it would prove much more again as to the temper of the people by whom such an appointment was endured. To appoint a French or German Earl as the successor of Godwine or Leofric would doubtless have been impossible. But Eadward found means to fill the sees of Canterbury, London, and Dorchester with French Prelates. In those matters he had a freer choice, because, in the case of an ecclesiastical office, no hereditary claim or preference could possibly be put forward. The same freedom of choice still remains to the dispensers of church patronage in our own times. The Lord Lieutenant, the Sheriff, the ordinary magistrates, of any county are necessarily chosen from among men belonging to that county. But the Bishop, the Dean, the ordinary clergy, may never have set foot in the diocese till they are called on to exercise their functions within it. Then, as now, various influences limited the choice of temporal functionaries which did not limit the choice of spiritual functionaries. It is therefore of special moment to mark the course of ecclesiastical appointments at this time, as supplying our best means of tracing the growth of the foreign influence and the course of the resistance made to it.

[Sidenote: Mode of appointing Bishops.]

It is not very clear what the exact process of appointing a Bishop at this time was. It is clear that the royal will was the chief power in the appointment. It is clear that the official document which gave the Bishop-elect a claim to consecration was a royal writ, to which now, under the French influences of Eadward’s court, a royal seal, in imitation of continental practice, was beginning to be attached.[179] It is also clear that the appointment was regularly made in full Witenagemót.[180] This of course implies that the Witan had at least the formal right of saying Yea or Nay to the King’s nomination. But we hear at the same time of capitular elections,[181] which clearly were not a mere form, though it rested with the King to accept or reject the selected candidate. No doubt some process was in use, in which the Chapter, the Witan, and the King all took their parts,[182] but in ordinary speech the appointment is always said to rest with the King, who is constantly described as giving a Bishoprick to such and such a man. The King too at this time exercised the right, which afterwards became the subject of so much controversy, of investing the Bishop-elect with the ring and staff.[183] It is clear also, from the case of Stigand just recorded, that the King and his Witan had full power of [Sidenote: Increased connexion with Rome.] deposing a Bishop. On the other hand, probably owing to the number of foreign ecclesiastics now in the Kingdom, references to the Court of Rome become from this time far more frequent. For an Archbishop to go to Rome for his pallium was nothing new; but now we hear of Bishops going to Rome for consecration or confirmation, and of the Roman Court claiming at least a veto on the nomination of the English King.[184]

[Sidenote: Prevalence of simony.]

It is perhaps more startling to find that the court of Saint Eadward was no more free from the suspicion of simony than the courts of ruffians like Harold and Harthacnut.[185] It is clear however that it was neither on the King personally nor on the Earl of the West-Saxons that this disgraceful imputation rested. One can hardly help suspecting that it was the itching palms of the King’s foreign favourites which proved the most frequent resting-place for the gold of those who sought for ecclesiastical dignities by corrupt means. In the year after Eadward’s coronation we meet with a story which brings out all [Sidenote: Siward appointed coadjutor to Archbishop Eadsige. 1044.] these points very strongly. Archbishop Eadsige found himself incapacitated by illness from discharging his functions, and wished either to resign his see or, as it would rather seem, to appoint a coadjutor. But he feared lest, if his intentions were made publicly known, some man whom he did not approve of might beg or buy the office.[186] He therefore took into his counsels none but the two first men in the realm, Earl Godwine and King Eadward himself. Godwine would naturally be glad of the opportunity to put some check on the growing foreign influences, and Eadward, easily as he was led astray, would doubtless be anxious, when the case was fairly placed before him, to follow any course which tended to preserve the purity of ecclesiastical rule. By the authority then of Eadward and Godwine, but with the knowledge of very few other persons,[187] Siward, Abbot of Abingdon, was consecrated as Coadjutor-Archbishop.[188] He acted on behalf of the Primate [Sidenote: He returns to Abingdon and dies. 1048–50.] for about six years, till illness caused him in his turn to resign his office and return to Abingdon, where he died.[189] On this Eadsige again assumed the administration of the Archbishoprick,[190] for a short time before his own death.

[Sidenote: Death of Bishop Ælfweard of London. July 25, 1044.]

But a more memorable appointment was made in the course of the same year. Ælfweard, Bishop of London and Abbot of Evesham, a Prelate whose name has already occurred in our history,[191] fell sick of leprosy. He returned to his Abbey, but the brotherhood with one consent refused him admission. They met, we are told, with the just reward of their churlishness. Ælfweard turned away to the distant Abbey of Ramsey, where he had spent his early years, and where he was gladly received. He soon after died, leaving great gifts to the hospitable monks of Ramsey.[192] Rumour however added that they largely consisted of his own former gifts to Evesham, and that he even did not scruple to remove from that undutiful house some precious things which had been the gifts of other benefactors.[193] Two great spiritual preferments were thus vacated, one of them, the see of London, one of the most important in the Kingdom. The lesser office at Evesham was conferred on an Englishman, Wulfmær or Mannig, a monk of the house;[194] but in the nomination to the great East-Saxon Bishoprick, the foreigners obtained one of their [Sidenote: He is succeeded by Robert of Jumièges. August 10?] most memorable triumphs. In a full Witenagemót, holden in London in the month of August, the Bishoprick of the city in which the Assembly was held was bestowed on one Robert, a Norman monk, who had first been Prior of Saint Ouen’s at Rouen, and afterwards Abbot of the great house of Jumièges.[195] He has there left behind him a noble memorial in the stately minster which still survives in ruins, [Sidenote: Baneful influence of Robert.] but in England it is not too much to say, that he became, in this high post and in the still higher post which he afterwards reached, the pest of the Kingdom. His influence over the mind of the feeble King was unbounded.[196] We are ludicrously told that, if Robert said that a black crow was white, King Eadward would at once believe him.[197] He is described at all hands as being the chief stirrer up of strife between Eadward and his native subjects. He it was who separated the husband from the wife, and [Sidenote: His calumnies against Godwine.] the King from his most faithful counsellors. He it was whose slanderous tongue again brought up against the great Earl[198] that charge of complicity in the death of Ælfred of which he had been solemnly pronounced guiltless by the [Sidenote: His connexion with the Norman invasion.] highest Court in the realm.[199] And the career of Robert is one of great historical importance. It is closely connected with the immediate causes—it may even be reckoned among the immediate causes—of the Norman invasion.[200] Robert’s appointment to the see of London may be fairly set down as marking a distinct stage in the progress of Norman influence in England. He was the first man of utterly alien speech who had held an English Bishoprick since the days of Roman, Scottish, or Cilician missionaries. [Sidenote: [1052.]] His overthrow at a later time was one of the first-fruits of the great national reaction against the strangers, and its supposed uncanonical character was one of the many pretences put forth by William to justify his invasion of England.

This appointment of Robert shows the great advance of the Norman influence. But it had not as yet reached its height. Godwine and the popular party seem to have been able to make a kind of compromise with the King. It was necessary to yield to the King’s strong personal inclination in the case of Robert; but the other vacant preferments were secured for Englishmen. We have seen that Ælfweard’s Abbey was not allowed to be held in plurality by his successor in the Bishoprick, but was bestowed [Sidenote: Stigand Bishop of Elmham.] on an Englishman of high character. Stigand too had by this time made his peace with Eadward and Godwine, and now began to climb the ladder of preferment afresh. He now again received the Bishoprick of [Sidenote: Banishment of Gunhild and her sons.] Elmham or of the East-Angles.[201] And it was in the same year, and seemingly at the same Gemót, that Gunhild, “the noble wife,” the widow of the Earls Hakon and Harold, the mother of Heming and Thurkill, was banished together with her sons.[202]

This last event was one of that series of banishments which have been already spoken of as gradually falling on all who had made themselves in any way prominent in opposition to the election of Eadward. But it was most likely not unconnected with the present threatening state [Sidenote: Condition of Northern Europe.] of affairs in Northern Europe. The early years of Eadward in England were contemporary with the great struggle between Swend and Magnus for the Crown of Denmark. [Sidenote: War of Swend and Magnus. 1044–1047.] The details of that warfare are told in our Scandinavian authorities with the usual amount of confusion and contradiction, and it seems hopeless to think of altogether reconciling their conflicting statements. Our own Chronicles, as usual, supply the most promising means of harmonizing them in some small degree. We have seen that Magnus was in actual possession of both Norway and Denmark at the time of Eadward’s coronation.[203] Swend, after several battles, had found himself forsaken [Sidenote: Connexion of Godescalc with Swend and Magnus.] by every one, and had taken refuge in Sweden.[204] Godescalc the Wend, who had accompanied him from England, had forsaken him with the rest,[205] and had entered on that mingled career as missionary and warrior among his heathen countrymen of which I have already spoken.[206] In this warfare he most likely acted as an ally of Magnus, who was also renowned for victories over the same enemy.[207] [Sidenote: Triumphant position of Magnus.] Magnus, now at the height of his power, King of Denmark and Norway, conqueror of his heathen neighbours, enjoying, as it would seem, the respect and attachment of the people of both his Kingdoms, regretted and retracted the engagements of fidelity, perhaps even of submission, which he had made to Eadward when his own [Sidenote: He claims the English Crown. 1045.] position seemed less secure. He now fell back on the claim by virtue of which he had possessed himself of Denmark, and which, in his eyes, gave him an equal right to the possession of England. Magnus sent an embassy to England, claiming the Crown, and setting forth his right.[208] He and Harthacnut had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other should succeed to his dominions. Harthacnut was dead; Magnus had, by virtue of that agreement, succeeded to the Crown of Denmark; he now demanded Harthacnut’s other Kingdom of England. [Sidenote: Eadward’s answer.] Eadward, we are told, answered in a magnanimous strain, in which he directly rested his right to the English Crown on the choice of the English people.[209] While his brother lived, he had served him faithfully as a private man, and had put forward no claim by virtue of his birth. On his brother’s death, he had been chosen King by the whole nation and solemnly consecrated to the kingly office. Lawful King of the English, he would never lay aside the Crown which his fathers had worn before him. Let Magnus come; he would raise no army against him, but Magnus should never mount the throne of England till he had taken the life of Eadward.[210] Magnus, so the Norwegian Saga tells us, was so struck with this answer, that he gave up all thoughts of attacking England, and acknowledged Eadward’s right to the English Crown. This account, as perhaps Eadward’s answer also, savours somewhat of romance. But that Magnus did contemplate an invasion of England is certain, and, as England had given him no cause for war, an invasion of England would seem to imply a [Sidenote: Preparations against Magnus. 1044–5.] claim on the English Crown. The Norwegian King was looked on as dangerous in the year after Eadward’s coronation, and in the next year he was kept back from an invasion of England only by a renewal of the war in the North. In both these years Eadward found it necessary to gather a fleet together at Sandwich.[211] In the first year the fleet amounted to thirty-five ships only; in the second year we are told that it was a fleet such as no man had ever seen before.[212] In this last case we are distinctly told that its object was to repel an expected invasion on the part of Magnus.

[Sidenote: The war renewed by Swend in partnership with HAROLD HARDRADA.]

The war was now renewed by Swend, seemingly in partnership with an actor of greater, though perhaps less [Sidenote: Early life and exploits of Harold. 1030–1044.] merited, renown than himself.[213] Harold the son of Sigurd, the half-brother of Saint Olaf, had escaped as a stripling from the field of Stikkelstad, where his brother, according to one view, received the crown of martyrdom, while, according to another, he received only the just reward of hasty and violent, however well-meant, interference with the ancient institutions of his country. Harold, surnamed Hardrada—the stern in council—lived to become the most renowned warrior of the North, the last Scandinavian King who ever set foot as an enemy on purely English ground, the last invader who was to feel the might of Englishmen fighting on their own soil for their own freedom, and who was, in his fall, to pave the way for the victory of an invader yet mightier than himself. The fight of Stamfordbridge, the fight of the two Harolds, will form one of the most striking scenes in a later stage of our history. As yet, Harold was known only as the hero of a series of adventures as wild and wonderful as any that have ever been recounted in poetry or romance. [Sidenote: Escape of Harold from Stikkelstad.] Wounded at Stikkelstad, the young prince was saved by a faithful companion, and was cherished during the following winter by a yeoman ignorant of his rank. He passed through Sweden into Russia, where he formed a [Sidenote: He goes to Constantinople.] friendship with King Jaroslaf of Novgorod. Thence, after a few years, he betook himself, with a small train [Sidenote: State of the Empire.] of companions, to the Byzantine Court. He found the Eastern Empire in one of those periods of decay which so strangely alternate in its history with periods of regeneration at home and victory abroad. The great Macedonian dynasty was still on the throne; but the mighty Basil was in his grave, and the steel-clad lancers of the New Rome were no longer the terror of Saracen, Bulgarian, [Sidenote: Reign of Zôê. 1028–1050.] and Russian. The Empire which he had saved, and which he had raised to the highest pitch of glory, had now become the plaything of a worthless woman, and the diadem of the Cæsars was passed on at every caprice of her fancy from one husband or lover to another. The Norwegian prince reached the Great City, the _Mickelgard_ of Northern story, in the period of Byzantine history known as the Reigns of the Husbands of Zôê.[214] The Eastern Cæsars had already begun to gather the Northern adventurers who appeared at their doors as friends or as [Sidenote: The Warangians.] enemies into that famous Warangian body-guard, the counterpart of the Housecarls of Cnut, which as yet seems to have been recruited wholly from Scandinavia, but which was afterwards to be reinforced by so large a body of exiles from our own land.[215] Harold apparently received the command of this force, and at their head he is said to have performed a series of amazing exploits.[216] It would almost seem as if the arrival of these Northern auxiliaries had inspired the Empire with a new life. Certain [Sidenote: Their services under Harold in Sicily. 1038–1040.] it is that, just about this time, we find the Byzantine armies, after an interval of torpor, once more in vigorous action, and that in the very region in which the Norwegian Saga places the most memorable exploits of Harold. He waged war, we are told, against the Saracens both in Sicily and in Africa; he fought eight pitched battles, and took castle after castle from the misbelievers. That is, there can be little doubt, Harold and his followers served in the Sicilian expedition of Maniakês, who was at this time waging a vigorous war against the Saracens of Sicily, and who recovered many of their towns to the Empire.[217] It does not appear that Maniakês actually ventured on an African campaign, but, as the Saracens of Africa undoubtedly aided their Sicilian brethren,[218] a landing of Imperial troops on their coast is quite possible. At all events, warfare with African Saracens anywhere might easily, in the half-legendary language of the Sagas, grow [Sidenote: His Crusade or Pilgrimage.] into a tale of an actual invasion of Africa. Harold is next represented as entering on another series of adventures for which it is more difficult to find a place in authentic history. He set out, we are told, on a premature Crusade; he marched with his followers to Jerusalem, clearing the way of robbers, and winning back countless towns and castles to the allegiance of Christ and Cæsar. Here we have of course the mere reflexion of the age of the writer, who could not conceive so famous a warrior as entering the Holy City in any character but that of a conqueror. But that Harold, as a peaceful pilgrim, the brother of a canonized Saint, visited Jerusalem, prayed and gave gifts at the Holy Sepulchre, and bathed in the hallowed stream of Jordan, is quite in the spirit of the age and of the man.[219] He shared in the penitential devotion of Robert the father of Norman William and of Swegen the brother of English Harold; and, more fortunate than either, he returned in safety and glory to his own land. He came back to Constantinople to find himself maligned at the Imperial Court, and to be refused the hand of a niece of the Empress.[220] Scandal went so far as to say that the cause of this refusal was that Zôê, a woman whose passions survived to an unusually late period of life, herself cast an eye of love on the valiant [Sidenote: Harold escapes from Constantinople.] Northman. Harold now made his escape from Constantinople, after—so his Northern admirers ventured to say—putting out the eyes of the Emperor Constantine Monomachos. This of course is pure fiction. The historical truth of Harold’s warlike exploits is in no way impugned by the silence of the Byzantine writers; but so striking an event as the blinding of an Emperor could hardly fail to have found a native chronicler. But we may believe, if we please, that Harold carried off the princess by force, that the Scandinavian galleys burst the chain which guarded the Bosporos, that Harold then left his fair prize on shore, bidding her tell her Imperial kinswoman how little her power availed against either the might or the craft of the [Sidenote: He returns to Russia,] Northman. Harold now returned to Russia. He had carried off the Byzantine princess only as a bravado; his heart was fixed on Elizabeth, the daughter of his former host Jaroslaf of Novgorod. He now hastened to her father’s court, obtained her in marriage, and passed over with [Sidenote: and finds Swend in Sweden.] her into Sweden. He there found Swend, defeated and in banishment. With him he concerted measures for a joint expedition against Magnus, now in possession of [Sidenote: Swend and Harold attack Magnus, and save England from invasion. 1045.] Denmark.[221] There can be little doubt that it was this joint expedition of Swend and Harold which saved England from a Norwegian invasion. King Eadward watched at Sandwich with his great fleet during the whole summer, expecting the approach of the enemy. But Magnus came not. Harold and Swend together, by their invasion of Denmark, gave him full occupation throughout the year.[222]

[Sidenote: Eadward marries Eadgyth. January 23, 1045.]

It was apparently early in this year of expected invasion that Eadward at last married Eadgyth the daughter of Godwine.[223] It is not easy to see why the marriage had been so long delayed; but, if the Norman influence was advancing, the wary Earl might well deem that no time was to be lost in bringing about the full completion of a promise which the King was probably not very eager to fulfil. Godwine’s power however was not as yet seriously shaken. [Sidenote: Earldoms given to Harold and Beorn.] It was also probably in this year, as we have seen, that his son Harold and his wife’s nephew Beorn received their Earldoms.[224] The ecclesiastical appointments of the year seem also to point to the predominance of the patriotic [Sidenote: Death of Bishop Brihtwold.] party. In this year died Brihtwold, Bishop of Wilton or Ramsbury, a Prelate who had in past times been honoured with a vision portending Eadward’s accession to the Crown, and who had had the good luck of living to [Sidenote: Hermann of Lotharingia succeeds. 1045.] see his prophecy fulfilled.[225] The appointment of his successor should be carefully noticed. He was Hermann of Lotharingia, a chaplain of the King’s, the first of the series of German or other Imperialist Prelates of whom [Sidenote: Promotion of German Prelates.] I have already spoken.[226] The promotion of Germans in England was not wholly new. It seems to have begun under Cnut, and it was probably a fruit of his friendship [Sidenote: Duduc Bishop of Wells. 1033–1060.] with the Emperor Conrad. In his time the Saxon Duduc had obtained the see of Wells,[227] and another German, [Sidenote: Wythmann Abbot of Ramsey.] Wythmann by name, had held the great abbey of Ramsey.[228] Had the appointment of Hermann stood alone, we might have simply looked on it as the result of Eadward’s connexion with King Henry. Or we might even have looked on it in a worse light, as a sign that Eadward preferred foreigners of any sort to his own countrymen. But several considerations may lead us to [Sidenote: The German appointments probably favoured by Godwine.] look on the matter in another way. These German appointments are clearly part of a system; the system is continued after the death of Henry the Third, when the close connexion between Germany and England ceases; Harold himself, in the height of his power, appears as a special promoter of German churchmen. We can therefore hardly fail to see in these appointments, as I have already hinted, an attempt of Godwine and the patriotic party to counterbalance the merely French [Sidenote: Policy of Lotharingian appointments.] tendencies of Eadward himself. We must observe that most of these Prelates were natives of Lotharingia, a term which, in the geography of that age, includes—and indeed most commonly means—the Southern Netherlands. That is to say, they came from the border land of Germany and France, where the languages of both kingdoms were already familiar to every educated man.[229] We can well understand that, in those cases in which the patriots found it impossible to procure the King’s consent to the appointment of an Englishman, they might well be content to accept the appointment of a German of Lotharingia as a compromise. One whose blood, speech, and manners had not wholly lost the traces of ancient brotherhood would be more acceptable to Godwine and to England than a mere Frenchman. And one to whom the beloved speech of Gaul was as familiar as his mother-tongue would be more acceptable to the denationalized Eadward than one of his own subjects. This policy was probably as sound as any that could be hit upon in such a wretched state of things. But its results were not wholly satisfactory. I know of no reason to believe that any of these Lotharingian Prelates actually proved traitors to England; but they certainly did not, as a class, offer the same steady resistance to French influences as the men who had been born in the land. And, if they were not Normannizers, they were at least Romanizers. They brought with them habits of constant reference to the Papal See, and a variety of scruples on points of small canonical regularity, to which Englishmen had hitherto been strangers. Still something was gained, if Godwine, on the death of Brihtwold, could procure the appointment of a Lotharingian, instead of a French, successor.[230] A slight counterpoise was thus gained to the influence of the Norman Bishop of London. But, at the next great ecclesiastical [Sidenote: Death of Bishop Lyfing. March 23 1046.] vacancy, the patriotic party were more successful. In the course of the next year England lost one of her truest worthies; the great Earl lost one who had been his right hand man in so many crises of his life, in so [Sidenote: His career and character.] many labours for the welfare of his country. Lyfing, the patriot Bishop of Worcester, died in March in the following year. Originally a monk of Winchester, he was first raised to the Abbacy of Tavistock. While still holding [Sidenote: 1027.] that office, he had been the companion of Cnut in his Roman pilgrimage, and had been the bearer of the great King’s famous letter to his English subjects.[231] The consummate prudence which he had displayed in that and in other commissions,[232] had procured his appointment to the Bishoprick of Crediton or Devonshire. With that see the Bishoprick of Cornwall had been finally united during his episcopate.[233] With that double see he had held, according [Sidenote: 1038.] to a vicious use not uncommon at the time, the Bishoprick of Worcester in plurality.[234] In that office, he had steadily adhered to the cause of the great Earl through all the storms of the days of Harold and Harthacnut, and he had had a share second only to that of Godwine himself in the work of placing Eadward upon the throne.[235] Either his plurality of benefices had given, as it reasonably might, offence to strict assertors of ecclesiastical rule,[236] or, what is at least as likely, the patriotic career of Lyfing had made him, like Godwine himself, a mark for Norman slander, whether alive or dead. His death, we are told, was accompanied by strange portents, which were however quite as capable of a favourable as of an unfavourable interpretation.[237] But his memory was loved and cherished in the places where he was best known. Long after the Norman Conquest, the name of the Prelate whose body rested in their minster still lived in the hearts and on the mouths of the monks of Tavistock.[238] And the simple entry of a Chronicler who had doubtless heard him with his own ears bears witness to that power of speech in the exercise of which he had so often stood side by side with his illustrious friend. The other Chronicles merely record his death; the Worcester writer adds the speaking title, “Lyfing the eloquent.”[239]

[Illustration: THE DIOCESES OF ENGLAND UNDER EADWARD THE CONFESSOR.]

[Sidenote: Leofric, Bishop of Crediton or Exeter. 1046–1072.]

The great mass of preferment held by Lyfing did not pass undivided to a single successor. The Bishopricks of Devonshire and Cornwall remained united, as they have done ever since. They were conferred on the King’s Chancellor, Leofric, who is described as a Briton, that is, doubtless, a native of the Cornish portion of his diocese.[240] His name however shows that he was of English, or at least of Anglicized, descent. But in feeling he was neither British nor English; as Hermann was a Lotharingian by birth, Leofric was equally a Lotharingian by education.[241] Four years after his appointment, he followed [Sidenote: He removes the see to Exeter. 1050.] the example of Ealdhun of Durham in removing his episcopal see to a new site.[242] He did not however, like Ealdhun, create at once a church and a city;[243] he rather forestalled the practice of Prelates later in the century by transferring his throne to the greatest town of his diocese. The humbler Crediton had to yield its episcopal rank to the great city of the West, the city which Æthelstan had fortified as a cherished bulwark of his realm,[244] the city whose valiant burghers had beaten back the Dane in his full might, and which had fallen into his hands only when the Norman traitor was set to guard its walls.[245] She whose fatal presence had caused that great misfortune still [Sidenote: 1003–1050.] lived. The first years of Emma in England beheld the capture and desolation of her noble morning-gift. Her last years saw the restored city become the spiritual capital of the great western peninsula. And, within the lifetime [Sidenote: 1067.] of many who saw that day, Exeter was again to stand a siege at the hands of a foreign King, and again to show forth the contrast between citizens as valiant as those who drove Swend from before their walls and captains as incompetent or as treacherous as Hugh the Churl. The church of Saint Peter in Exeter now became the cathedral church of the western diocese, and there Leofric was solemnly enthroned in his episcopal chair by the saintly King and his virgin wife.[246] Hitherto the church had been occupied by nuns. They were now removed, and the chapter of the Bishop was formed of secular Canons. Leofric however required them to conform to the stricter [Sidenote: He subjects his Canons to the rule of Chrodegang.] discipline which he had learned in Lotharingia. The rule of Chrodegang of Metz, the model rule of secular Canons, though it did not impose monastic vows, yet imposed on those who conformed to it much of the strictness of monastic discipline.[247] The clerks who submitted to it were severed, hardly less than actual monks, from all the ordinary habits of domestic life. They were condemned to the common table and the common dormitory; every detail of their life was regulated by a series of minute ordinances; they were cut off from lay, and especially from female, society, and bound to a strict obedience to their Bishop or other ecclesiastical superior. Still they were not monks; they were even strictly forbidden to wear the monastic garb,[248] and the pastoral duties of baptism, preaching, and hearing confession were strictly enforced upon them. In accordance with the precepts of Chrodegang, the Canons of Exeter were required to eat in a common hall and to sleep in a common dormitory. Their temporal concerns were managed by an officer, who provided them with daily food, and with a yearly change of raiment. This sort of discipline never found favour in England. All who were not actual monks clave earnestly to the usage of separate houses, in which they were often solaced by the company of wives and children. Every earlier and later attempt to introduce the Lotharingian rule in England utterly failed.[249] Leofric’s discipline seems to have lasted somewhat longer than commonly happened in the like cases. Vestiges of the severer rule still remained at Exeter in the next century, but even then the purity of ancient discipline had greatly fallen off.[250]

[Sidenote: Ealdred, Abbot of Tavistock, Bishop of Worcester, 1046; Archbishop of York, 1061–1069.]

One of the sees vacated by the death of Lyfing thus fell to the lot of a zealous ecclesiastical reformer, but a man who plays no important part in the general history of the time. The fate of Lyfing’s other Bishoprick was widely different. It was bestowed on a Prelate who, without ever displaying any very great qualities, played a prominent, and on the whole not a dishonourable, part for many years to come. The early career of the famous Ealdred, who now succeeded Lyfing in the see of Worcester, had led him through nearly the same stages as that of his predecessor. Like him, he had been a monk at Winchester; like him, he had been thence called to the government of one of the great monasteries of the West. The Abbey of Tavistock, [Sidenote: 997.] destroyed by Danish invaders in the reign of Æthelred,[251] had risen from its ashes, and it now proved a nursery of [Sidenote: Character of Ealdred.] Prelates like Lyfing and Ealdred.[252] The new Bishop was a man of ability and energy. He exhibits, like Harold, the better form of the increasing connexion between England and the continent. As an ambassador at the Imperial court, as a pilgrim at Rome and Jerusalem, he probably saw more of the world than any contemporary Englishman. He was renowned as a peacemaker, one who could reconcile the bitterest enemies.[253] But he was also somewhat of a time-server, and, in common with so many other Prelates of his time, he did not escape the charge of simony. This charge is one which it is easy to bring and often hard to answer, but the frequency with which it is brought shows that the crime itself was a familiar one. Like many other churchmen of his time, Ealdred did not scruple to bear arms both in domestic and in foreign warfare, but his campaigns were, to say the least, not specially glorious. His most enduring title to remembrance is that it fell to his lot to place, within a single year, the Crown of England on the brow, first of Harold and then of William, and to die of sorrow at the sight of his church and city brought to ruin by the mutual contentions of Normans, Englishmen, and Danes.

[Sidenote: Gruffydd ap Llywelyn reconciled with the King. 1046.]

We shall find the new Bishop of Worcester appearing a few years later in arms against the Welsh, to whose incursions the southern part of his diocese lay open. But as yet it was only his powers of persuasion and peacemaking which he was called upon to exercise in that quarter. It was probably by Ealdred’s intervention that a reconciliation was now brought about between the famous King of North Wales, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn,[254] and his English overlord.

[Sidenote: Expedition of Swegen and Gruffydd against Gruffydd ap Rhydderch. 1046.]

Gruffydd’s immediate neighbour to the east was Swegen, whose anomalous Earldom took in the border shires of Gloucester and Hereford. Gruffydd accordingly gave hostages, and accompanied Swegen in an expedition against the other Gruffydd, the son of Rhydderch, the King of South Wales.[255] On his triumphant return Swegen was guilty of an act which embittered the remainder of his days, a breach of the laws of morality which the ecclesiastical feelings of the time clothed with tenfold guilt. He sent for Eadgifu, Abbess of Leominster, kept her [Sidenote: Swegen seduces Eadgifu, Abbess of Leominster.] awhile with him, and then sent her home.[256] Like the Hamor of patriarchal story, he next sought, with a generosity as characteristic of his wayward temper as any [Sidenote: He seeks in vain to marry her.] of his worst deeds, to make reparation by marriage.[257] But the law of the Church stood in his way. Richard of Normandy, as we have seen, found it easy to raise his mistress to all the honours due to a matron and the wife of a sovereign. The Lady Emma herself, wife and mother of so many Kings, was the offspring of an union which the Church had thus hallowed only after the fact.[258] But no such means of reparation were open to the seducer of a consecrated virgin. The marriage was of course forbidden, [Sidenote: He throws up his Earldom, and goes to Denmark.] and Swegen, in his disappointment, threw up his Earldom, left his country, and betook himself, first to Flanders, the usual place of refuge for English exiles, and thence to the seat of war in the North.[259] A formal sentence of outlawry seems to have followed, as the lordships of Swegen were confiscated, and divided between his brother Harold and his cousin Beorn.[260] On Eadgifu and her monastery the hand of ecclesiastical discipline seems [Sidenote: Fate of Leominster monastery.] to have fallen heavily. The nunnery of Leominster, one of the objects of the bounty of Earl Leofric,[261] now vanishes from history. The natural inference is that the misconduct of Eadgifu led, not only to her own disgrace, but to the dissolution of the sisterhood over which she had so unworthily presided.[262] We hear of no later marriage on the part of Swegen, but in after years we shall meet with [Sidenote: Hakon son of Swegen.] a son of his, probably a child of the frail Abbess of Leominster. Born under other circumstances, he might have been head of the house of Godwine. As it was, the son of Swegen and Eadgifu was the child of shame and sacrilege, and the career to which he was doomed was short and gloomy.

[Sidenote: Banishment of Osgod Clapa. 1046.]

The banishment of the Staller Osgod Clapa, at the bridal of whose daughter King Harthacnut had come to his untimely end, took place this year.[263] Like the banishment of Gunhild, this measure was evidently connected with the movements in the North of Europe. Osgod was doubtless one of those who had been marked men ever since the election of Eadward,[264] and who, in the present state of Scandinavian affairs, were felt to be dangerous. The immediate peril came from Magnus; but there could be little doubt that, of the three princes who were disputing the superiority of Scandinavia, the successful one, whether Magnus, Harold, or Swend, would assert some sort of claim to the possession of England. Magnus had [Sidenote: 1066.] done so already. Harold lived to invade England and to perish in the attempt. It was only the singular prudence of Swend which kept him back from any such enterprise till he was able to interfere in English affairs in the guise [Sidenote: 1069.] of a deliverer. Partisans of any one of the contending princes were clearly dangerous in England. Osgod was driven out, seemingly by a decree of the Christmas Gemót,[265] and he presently, after the usual sojourn in Flanders, betook himself to the seat of war in Denmark.[266]

[Sidenote: Affairs of Scandinavia.]

Osgod and Swegen most probably took service with Swend Estrithson. The presence of Swegen would doubtless be welcome indeed to that prince’s

## partisans. The nephew of Ulf, the cousin of their own leader, the son of

the great English Earl, renowned in the North as the conqueror of the Wends,[267] was a recruit richly to be prized. And the cause of Swend Estrithson just then greatly needed recruits. His hopes, lately so flourishing, had been [Sidenote: Harold Hardrada joins Magnus and receives a share of the Kingdom of Norway. 1047.] again dashed to the ground. Magnus had contrived to gain over his uncle Harold to his side, by the costly bribe of a share in the Kingdom of Norway. The gift indeed was not quite gratuitous. Besides cooperating in the war with Swend, Harold was to share with Magnus the treasures which he had gathered in his Southern warfare.[268] The two Kings now joined their forces, and drove Swend out of Jütland and the Danish Isles. He retained only Scania, that part of the old Danish realm which lies on the Swedish side of the Sound, and which is now politically part of Sweden.[269] In the next year Swend was [Sidenote: Swend asks for English help.] again aiming at the recovery of his Kingdom. It was probably the presence of English exiles in his camp, which suggested to him the idea of obtaining regular help from England as an ally of the English King. He [Sidenote: His request is discussed by the Witan;] sent and asked for the help of an English fleet. In those days questions of peace and war were not decided either by the Sovereign only, or by the Sovereign and a few secret counsellors; they were debated openly by the Witan of the whole land. The demand of Swend was discussed in full Gemót. Swend had certainly acted, whether of set purpose or not, as a friend of England; the diversion caused by him had saved England from a Norwegian invasion. But, setting aside any feelings of gratitude on this account, any feelings of attachment to the kinsman of Cnut and of Godwine, it does not appear that England had any direct interest in embracing the cause of Swend. A party which sought only the immediate interest of England might argue that the sound policy was to stand aloof, and to leave the contending Kings of the North to wear out each other’s power and their own. Such however [Sidenote: Godwine supports the claim of Swend;] was not the view taken by Godwine. In the Gemót in which the question was debated, the Earl of the West-Saxons supported the petition of his nephew, and proposed that fifty ships should be sent to his help. It is clear that such a course might be supported by plausible arguments. It is clear that equally plausible arguments might be brought forward on the other side. And if, as is possible, this question was discussed in the same Gemót in which sentence of outlawry was pronounced against Swegen the son of Godwine, it is clear that the father of the culprit would stand at a great disadvantage in supporting the request of the prince with whom that culprit had taken service. It marks the still abiding influence of Godwine that he was able to preserve the confiscated lordships of Swegen for Harold and Beorn. But in his recommendation of giving armed support to Swend Estrithson all his [Sidenote: but his demand is opposed by Leofric, and rejected. 1047.] eloquence utterly failed. The cause of non-intervention was pleaded by Earl Leofric, and his arguments prevailed. All the people, we are told—the popular character of the Assembly still impresses itself on the language of history—agreed with Leofric and determined the proposal of Godwine to be unwise. The naval force of Magnus, it was said, was too great to be withstood.[270] Swend Estrithson had therefore to carry on the struggle with his own unaided forces. Against the combined powers of Magnus [Sidenote: Magnus defeats Swend and occupies Denmark.] and Harold those forces were utterly unavailing. Swend was defeated in a great sea-fight; Magnus took possession of all Denmark, and laid a heavy contribution upon the realm.[271] Swend again took refuge in Sweden, and now began to meditate a complete surrender of his claims upon Denmark. Just at this moment, we are told, a messenger appeared, bringing the news of the sudden death of [Sidenote: Sudden death of Magnus. 1047.] Magnus.[272] The victorious King had perished by an accident not unlike that which had caused the death of Lewis of France.[273] His horse, suddenly startled by a hare, dashed his rider against the trunk of a tree.[274] On his death-bed he bequeathed the crown of Norway to his uncle Harold [Sidenote: Harold succeeds in Norway, Swend in Denmark.] and that of Denmark to his adversary Swend. Such a bequest is quite in harmony with the spirit of the correspondence between Magnus and Eadward.[275] Swend returned [Sidenote: Their long warfare. 1048–1061.] and took possession of his Kingdom, and though he was for years engaged in constant warfare with Harold, he [Sidenote: Their embassies to England.] never wholly lost his hold upon the country. The first act of both the new Kings was to send embassies to England. Harold offered peace and friendship; Swend again asked for armed help against Harold.[276] The debate of the [Sidenote: Help again refused to Swend, and peace concluded with Harold. 1048.] year before was again reopened. Godwine again supported the request of his nephew, and again proposed that fifty ships should be sent to his help. Leofric again opposed the motion, and the people again with one voice supported Leofric. Help was refused to Swend and peace was concluded with Harold.[277] Swend, despairing of English aid, seems to have sought for protection in another quarter, and to have acknowledged himself a vassal of the Empire.[278]

[Sidenote: Physical phænomena. 1046–7.]

These two years seem to have been marked by several physical phænomena. In the former we hear of the [Sidenote: May 1, 1048.] unusual severity of the winter, accompanied by an extraordinary fall of snow.[279] In the latter several of the midland shires were visited by an earthquake.[280] We read also of epidemics both among men and beasts, and of the appearance called wild fire.[281] A few ecclesiastical appointments are also recorded; but one only calls for notice. [Sidenote: Death of Ælfwine of Winchester, Aug. 29, 1047. Stigand succeeds.] Ælfwine, Bishop of Winchester, died, and his Bishoprick fell neither to Frenchmen nor to Lotharingian. Stigand rose another step in the ladder of promotion by his translation from the humbler see of Elmham to the Bishoprick of the Imperial city.[282]

[Sidenote: Ravages of Lothen and Yrling. 1048.]

As far as we can make out through the confused chronology of these years, it was in the year of the peace with Norway that England underwent, what we have not now heard of for many years, an incursion of Scandinavian pirates.[283] Two chiefs, named Lothen and Yrling, came with twenty-five ships, and harried various parts of the coast. This event must have been in some way connected with the course of the war between Harold and Swend. Probably some enterprising Wikings in the service of one or other of those princes found a moment of idleness just as the two Kings were taking possession of their crowns, and thought the opportunity a good one for an attack on England. Such an attack was doubtless unexpected, especially as such good care had been taken to keep on good terms with both the contending Kings. But possibly the more daring policy of Godwine would really have been the safer.[284] Had fifty English ships, whatever their errand, been afloat in the Northern seas, Lothen and Yrling could hardly have come to plunder the shores of England. Anyhow the story shows us the sort of spirit which still reigned in the North. There were still plenty of men ready to seek their fortunes in any part of the world as soon as a moment of unwelcome quiet appeared at home. Harold and Swend at least did the world some service by finding employment for such men in warfare with one another. The Wikings harried far and wide. From Sandwich they carried off a vast booty in men, gold, and silver.[285] In the Isle of Wight they must have met with more resistance, as many of the best men of the island are said to have been slain.[286] In Thanet too the landfolk withstood them manfully, refused them landing and water, and drove them altogether away.[287] Thence they sailed to Essex, where they plundered at their pleasure.[288] By this time the King [Sidenote: Eadward and the Earls pursue the pirates, but they escape to Flanders.] and the Earls had got together some ships. The Earls were doubtless Godwine and Harold, on whose governments the attack had been made, and the words of our authorities seem to imply that Eadward was really present in person.[289] They sailed after the pirates, but they were too late. The enemy had already made his way to the common refuge of banished Englishmen and of foes of England. The Wikings were now safe in the havens of Flanders—of Baldwines land; there they found a ready market for the spoils of England, and thence they sailed back to their own country.[290]

[Sidenote: Analogy with the relations with Normandy in 991 and 1000.]

We here seem to be reading over again the history of the events which led to the first hostile relations between England and Normandy.[291] The Northmen are again plundering England, and a continental power again gives them so much of help and comfort as is implied in letting them sell their plunder in his havens. This time the offending power was not Normandy but Flanders, and Eadward, unlike his father, had no lack of powerful friends on the [Sidenote: Alliance with the Emperor Henry.] continent. The great prince who had, a year before,[292] been raised to the throne of the world was, as we have seen,[293] on the most intimate terms with his English brother, and it is plain that close alliance with the Empire formed part of the policy of the patriotic party. The illustrious Cæsar had filled the Papal chair with a Pontiff like-minded [Sidenote: The German Popes.] with himself. A series of German Popes of Imperial nomination had followed one another in a quick succession of short reigns, but they had had time to show forth in their virtues a marked contrast to the utter degradation of the Italian Pontiffs who had gone [Sidenote: Leo the Ninth. 1048–1054.] immediately before them. The throne of Peter was now filled, at the Imperial bidding, by Bruno, Bishop of Toul, a native of Elsass and kinsman of the Emperor, who had taken the name of Leo the Ninth.[294] He was now in his second year of office, having· been appointed in the year of the peace between England and Norway. It was perhaps only a later legend which told how, on his way to Rome, he fell in with the famous Hildebrand, then in exile, how he listened to his rebukes for the crime of accepting a spiritual office from an earthly lord, how he entered Rome as a pilgrim, and did not venture to ascend the Pontifical throne till he was again more regularly chosen thereto by the voice of the Roman clergy and people.[295] But, in any case, this concession to ecclesiastical rule or prejudice had abated nothing of Leo’s loyalty to his Teutonic sovereign, nothing of his zeal for the welfare, both spiritual and temporal, of lands which the Italian Pontiffs so seldom visited. The Pope was now at Aachen, [Sidenote: Rebellion of Godfrey and Baldwin against the Emperor. 1047.] ready with his spiritual weapons to help the Emperor against a league of his rebellious vassals. They had waged war against their suzerain; they had burned the city and church of Verdun; they had destroyed the noble palace of the Emperor at Nimwegen. Foremost among the offenders were Theodoric of Holland, Baldwin of Flanders, and Godfrey of Lotharingia. Godfrey was specially guilty. After a former rebellion he had been imprisoned and released, and now he was foremost in the new insurrection, especially in the deed of sacrilege at Verdun.[296] The Pope therefore did not hesitate to issue [Sidenote: Leo excommunicates Godfrey. 1049.] his excommunication against him. Godfrey yielded; the ban of the father of Christendom bent his soul; he submitted to scourging, he redeemed his hair at a great sum, he contributed largely to the rebuilding of the cathedral which he had burned, and himself laboured at the work [Sidenote: Continued ravages of Baldwin.] like a common mason. But Baldwin of Flanders, possibly trusting to his ambiguous position as a vassal both of the Empire and of the French Crown, was more obstinate, and still continued his ravages. The Emperor accordingly called on his vassals and allies for help against a prince whose power might well seem dangerous even to Kings [Sidenote: Swend and Eadward join the Emperor against Baldwin.] and Cæsars. King Swend of Denmark—so low had Denmark fallen since the days of Cnut—obeyed the summons as a vassal.[297] King Eadward of England contributed his help as an ally, and as one who was himself an injured party. The reception of English exiles at Baldwin’s court, the licence allowed to Scandinavian pirates of selling the spoils of England in Baldwin’s havens, caused every Englishman to look on the Count of Flanders as an enemy. The help which had been refused to Swend was therefore readily granted to Henry. The King of the English was not indeed asked to take any share in continental warfare by land. The share of the enterprise assigned to him was to keep the coast with his ships, in case the rebellious prince should attempt to escape by sea.[298] Again, as in the days of Æthelstan and Eadmund, an English fleet appeared in the Channel, ready, if need be, to take a part in continental warfare. But now, as in the days of [Sidenote: Baldwin defeated without actual English help.] Æthelstan and Eadmund,[299] nothing happened which called for its active service. Eadward and his fleet watched at Sandwich, while the Emperor marched against Baldwin by land. But the Count of Flanders, instead of betaking himself to the sea, submitted in all things to the will of the mighty overlord whom he had provoked.[300]

[Sidenote: The submission of Baldwin lets loose the English exiles.]

The immediate object for the assembling of the fleet had been attained; but the events which immediately followed showed that the fleet was just as likely to be needed for protection at home, as for a share in even just and necessary warfare abroad. The submission of Baldwin to the Emperor seems to have let loose the English exiles who had been flitting backwards and forwards between Flanders and Denmark,[301] and who had possibly taken a part on Baldwin’s side in the last campaign. Both Osgod Clapa and Swegen the son of [Sidenote: Swegen and Osgod return.] Godwine now appeared at sea. Swegen had only eight ships; but Osgod had—we are not told how—gathered a force of thirty-nine. While the King was still at Sandwich, Swegen returned to England. He sailed first to Bosham, a favourite lordship of his father’s, and one whose name we shall again meet with in connexion with events of still greater moment to the house of Godwine. He there left his ships, and went to the King at Sandwich, [Sidenote: Swegen’s reconciliation with Eadward. 1049.] and offered to become his man.[302] His natural allegiance as an English subject was perhaps held to be cancelled by his outlawry or by his having become the man of Swend of Denmark or of some other foreign prince. A new personal _commendation_ was seemingly needed for his reconciliation with his natural sovereign. He seems to have asked for his Earldom again; at any rate, he was tired of the life of a sea-rover, and asked that his lands which had been confiscated might be given back to him for his maintenance. He seems to have found favour, either with the King personally or with some of those who were about him, for it was proposed, if not actually resolved, that Swegen should be restored to all his former possessions.[303] But the strongest opponents of such a course [Sidenote: Harold and Beorn oppose his reconciliation.] were found in the kinsmen to whom his confiscated lands had been granted, his cousin Beorn and his brother Harold. They both refused to give up any part of what the King had given them.[304] Swegen’s petition was accordingly refused; [Sidenote: Swegen’s outlawry is renewed.] his outlawry was confirmed; only, as seems to have been usual in such cases, he was allowed four days to get him out of the country. How far Harold and Beorn were actuated in this matter by mere regard to their own interests, how far by a regard to the public good, how far by that mixture of motives which commonly determines men’s actions, we have no means of judging. This is not the only act of Harold’s early life which may be taken to show that he had not yet acquired those wonderful gifts of conciliation and self-restraint which mark his more mature career. Of the character of Beorn we know nothing except from this story; what we hear of him directly afterwards certainly sets him before us in a generous and amiable light. The tale is told us in a perfectly colourless way, without any hint how the conduct of the two cousins was judged of in the eyes of contemporaries in general or in those of Earl Godwine. At all events, Swegen went away from Sandwich disappointed. He thence went to Bosham, where his ships were lying in the land-locked haven of that place. This was just at the moment when the fleet, no longer needed for service against Baldwin, was beginning to disperse. We see that this fleet also had been gathered in the ancient way by the contingents or contributions of the shires,[305] and that only a small number of the ships were in the King’s permanent service. Those of the crews who had come from distant, especially inland, districts were naturally weary of tarrying when there was no prospect of active service, and the contingent of Mercia was accordingly allowed to return home.[306] The King remained at Sandwich with a few ships only. Meanwhile a rumour came that hostile ships had been seen ravaging [Sidenote: Godwine at Pevensey.] to the west. The Earl of the West-Saxons accordingly sailed forth to the rescue, with forty-two ships belonging to the men of his Earldom.[307] He took also two ships of the King’s, commanded respectively by Harold and by his third son Tostig, of whom we now hear for the first time.[308] Stress of weather however hindered them from getting further west than Pevensey. While they lay there, a change, of the motive of which we are not told, was made in the command of the two royal ships which had accompanied Godwine. Harold gave up the ship which he had commanded to his cousin Beorn.[309] This accidental change possibly saved Harold’s life.[310] For Swegen now came from Bosham to Pevensey, and there found his father and cousin. He there spoke with both of them. The result of their discourse was that Beorn [Sidenote: Beorn entrapped and slain by Swegen.] was persuaded to undertake the office of intercessor with the King on Swegen’s behalf. What arrangement was to be proposed—whether Beorn brought himself to consent to the sacrifice which he had before refused—whether Swegen was to be again invested with his Earldom or only with his private lordships—whether Harold, Beorn, or Swegen was to be compensated in any other way for the surrenders which one or more of them would have to make—of all this nothing is explained to us. We hear however that Beorn, trusting to his kindred with Swegen,[311] did not hesitate to set out to ride with him to the King at Sandwich. He even agreed to a proposal of Swegen’s, according to which they left the road from Pevensey to Sandwich, and went westward to Bosham. For this deviation from his original scheme Swegen made an excuse, which was doubtless more intelligible then than it is now, namely a fear lest the crews of his ships should forsake him, if they were not confirmed in their faith to him by the presence of Beorn. The young Earl fell into the snare, and accompanied his cousin to the haven of Bosham. But when Swegen pressed him to go on board one of his ships, Beorn’s suspicions were at last aroused, and he vehemently refused. At last Swegen’s sailors bound him, put him in a boat, rowed him to the ships, and there kept him a prisoner. They then hoisted their sails and steered for Dartmouth.[312] There Beorn was killed by Swegen’s orders, but his body was taken on shore and buried in a church. As soon as the murder became known, Earl Harold,[313] with others of Beorn’s friends, and the sailors from London—a clear mark of Beorn’s popularity—came and took up the body, carried it to Winchester, and there buried it in the Old Minster by the side of Beorn’s uncle King Cnut.

[Sidenote: Swegen declared _Nithing_ by the armed Gemót.]

The general indignation at the crime of Swegen was intense. The King and the army publicly declared the murderer to be _Nithing_.[314] This was the vilest epithet in the English language, implying utter worthlessness. It was evidently used as a formal term of dishonour. We shall find [Sidenote: 1087.] it at a later time resorted to by a Norman King as a means of appeal to his English subjects. William Rufus, when he needed English support, proclaimed in the like sort that all who failed to come to his standard should be declared to be _Nithing_. But this proclamation has a deeper importance than the mere use of this curious expression of public [Sidenote: Functions of the Witan discharged by the army.] contempt. It is to be noted that the proclamation is described as the act of the King and his army. Here is clearly a case of a military Gemót.[315] The army, as representing the nation, assumes to itself in time of war the functions which belonged to the regular Gemót in time of peace. The army declares Swend to be _Nithing_, and it was doubtless the army, in the same sense, which had just before hearkened to, and finally rejected, his petition for restoration to his estates. So it was the army, Cnut’s [Sidenote: 1014.] Danish army, which assumed to itself the functions of the English Witan by disposing of the English Crown on the death of King Swend.[316] In the ancient Teutonic constitution the army was the nation and the nation was the army. In the primitive Gemóts described by Tacitus,[317] to which all men came armed, no distinction could be [Sidenote: Nature of the military Gemót.] drawn between the two. But it should be noticed that the word used is not that which denotes the armed levy of the Kingdom, but that which expresses the army in its special relation to the King.[318] This fact exactly falls in with the practical, though not formal, change which had taken place in the constitution of the ordinary Gemóts.[319] The military Gemót which passed this sentence on Swegen was not the whole force of England, for we were just before told that the contingents both of Mercia and Wessex had left Sandwich. This assembly must have consisted of the King’s _Comitatus_ of both kinds, of the Thegns bound to him by the older and more honourable tie, and also of the standing force of the Housecarls, or at any rate of their officers.[320] Setting churchmen aside—though we have seen that even churchmen often bore arms both by land and by sea—such a body would probably contain a large proportion of the men who were likely to attend an ordinary Witenagemót. By an assembly of this kind, acting, whether constitutionally or not, in the character of a National Assembly, the outlawry and disgrace of Swegen were decreed.

[Sidenote: Swegen, deserted by most of his ships, escapes to Flanders.]

It would seem that this decree preceded the translation of Beorn’s body to Winchester, a ceremony which may not improbably have been ordered by the Assembly. For it was before that translation[321] that the men of Hastings, most probably by some commission from the King or his military council, sailed forth to take vengeance on the murderer. Swegen was already forsaken by the greater part of his following. Of his eight ships six had left him. Their crews were probably rough Wikings from the North, men familiar with all the horrors of ordinary pirate warfare, not troubled with scruples about harrying a land whose people had never wronged them, but who nevertheless shrank from the fouler wickedness of slaying a kinsman by guile. Two ships only remained with Swegen, those doubtless whose crews had been the actual perpetrators of the deed. The men of Hastings chased and overtook these ships, slew their crews, and brought the ships to the King.[322] How Swegen himself escaped it is not easy to see; possibly the men of Hastings still scrupled personally to lay hands upon a son of Godwine. At any rate the murderer baffled pursuit, and again took shelter in his old quarters. Baldwin, so lately restored to his dominions, again began his old practice of receiving English exiles, and Swegen spent the whole winter at the court of Flanders under the full protection of its sovereign.[323]

[Sidenote: Character of the act of Swegen.]

The story of the murder of Beorn is told in so minute and graphic a way that it seems impossible to throw doubt on any part of the tale. And every account represents the deed as a deed of deliberate treachery.[324] An act of mere violence would not have greatly offended the morality of that age. Had Swegen killed even a kinsman in a moment of provocation or in a fair fight to decide a quarrel, his guilt would not have seemed very black. Had he even used craft in carrying out an ancestral deadly feud, he might have quoted many precedents in Northumbrian history, and, among them, an act in the life of the reigning Earl of the North hardly inferior in guilt to the worst [Sidenote: Universal indignation against Swegen.] aspect of his own.[325] But to kill a kinsman, a confiding kinsman, one who had just granted a somewhat unreasonable prayer, was something which offended the natural instincts not only of contemporary Englishmen but of Scandinavian pirates. At the moment Swegen seems to have found no friends; the voice of all England was against him; there is no sign that any of his family stood by him; the sympathies of Harold clearly lay with his murdered cousin. It is hardly possible to conceive a blacker or more unpardonable crime. One would have thought that Swegen would have failed to find patrons or protectors in any [Sidenote: His reception by Baldwin.] corner of Christendom. Yet, strange to say, the murderer, forsaken by all, was at once received with favour by Baldwin, even though Baldwin must have known that by receiving him he was running the risk of again offending the King of the English and even the Emperor himself. [Sidenote: His outlawry is reversed and he returns to England. Midlent, 1050.] And what followed is stranger still. In the next year, in a Witenagemót held in London in Midlent, Swegen’s outlawry was reversed, and he was restored to his Earldom.[326] And, strangest of all, his restoration is attributed, not to the influence of Godwine or his family, not to any revulsion of feeling on the part of the King or the nation, but [Sidenote: Swegen reconciled to Eadward by Bishop Ealdred.] to the personal agency of Bishop Ealdred the Peacemaker. He it was who, it would seem, crossed over to Flanders, brought Swegen to England, and procured his restoration at the hands of the King and his Witan.[327] There is nothing to show that Ealdred was specially under the influence of Godwine. We shall before long find him acting in a manner which, to say the least, shows that he was not one of Godwine’s special followers. His episcopal city and the greater part of his diocese lay within the Earldom of Leofric; no part of it lay within the Earldom of Godwine.[328] And, if part of his diocese lay within the Earldom of the man whom he sought to restore, that only makes him the more responsible for the act which was so directly to affect a portion of his own flock. In the restoration of Swegen, Ealdred seems to have acted purely in his capacity of peacemaker.[329] At first sight it might seem that Ealdred strove to win the blessing promised to his class by labouring on behalf of a sinner whom the most enlarged charity could hardly excuse. The very strangeness of the act suggests that there must have been some explaining cause, intelligible at the time, but which our authorities have not recorded. The later history of Swegen shows that, if he was a great sinner, he was also a great penitent. We can only guess that Ealdred already marked in him some signs of remorse and amendment, that he had received from him some confession of his crime, to which we possibly owe the full and graphic accounts of the murder of Beorn which have been handed down to us.[330] If so, it was doubtless wise and charitable not to break a bruised reed; still again to entrust the government of five English shires to the seducer of Eadgifu and murderer of Beorn was, to say the least, a perilous experiment.

We must now go back to the time when King Eadward had just dismissed the Mercian contingent after the reconciliation [Sidenote: Various military operations of the year 1049.] between Baldwin and the Emperor. While the unhappy events which I have just narrated were going on, Englishmen had cause to be alert in more than one quarter of the island against assaults of various kinds. In the comparatively peaceful reign of Eadward this year stands forth as marked by warlike operations of every sort. England had to resist the assaults of foreign enemies, of faithless vassals, and of banished men seeking their restoration. [Sidenote: Movements of Osgod Clapa.] Besides the small force of Swegen, Osgod Clapa was, as has been already said,[331] at sea with a much larger number of ships. He first appeared at Wulpe near Sluys on the coast of Flanders, and the news of his arrival there was brought to Eadward at the moment when the King was left at Sandwich at the head of a very small force. The Mercian contingent had just been dismissed, and Godwine, with the force of Wessex, had sailed westward. Eadward was therefore nearly defenceless. He therefore countermanded the orders for the dismissal of the Mercian vessels, and as many of them as was possible were brought [Sidenote: He returns to Denmark.] back. Osgod however did not act personally as the enemy of England. He merely took his wife from Bruges, where she had been left, and sailed back to Denmark with [Sidenote: Piracy and destruction of his fleet.] six ships. The remainder of his fleet took to piracy off Eadulfsness in Essex, and there did much harm. But a violent storm arose and destroyed all the vessels except four.[332] These were chased and captured, and the crews slain, whether by Eadward’s own fleet in pursuit or by some of the foreign allies of England is not very clear.[333]

[Sidenote: Ships from Ireland in the Bristol Channel; joined by Gruffydd of South Wales. July, 1049.]

The rumour which had called Godwine westward from Sandwich was not wholly a false one. The ships which were then said to be ravaging the south coast, were doubtless Danish pirate vessels from Ireland, the same which, in the course of July, sailed up the Bristol Channel as far as the mouth of the Usk.[334] There they were welcomed by the South-Welsh King Gruffydd,[335] who was doubtless rejoiced at the prospect of such allies, alike against the English and against his Northern namesake, the momentary confederate of England. After a certain amount of harrying along the coast of the Channel, the combined forces of Gruffydd and the pirates crossed the Wye, and slew and [Sidenote: They invade Gloucestershire, and defeat Bishop Ealdred.] plundered within the diocese of Worcester. It is not clear who was the Earl responsible for the safety of the country since the banishment of Swegen. It was probably the King’s nephew, Ralph the Timid, whose name begins about this time to appear in the Charters with the title of Earl.[336] If this be so, this was the first appointment of a foreigner to a great temporal office, a further step in the downward course, still more marked than that of appointing foreign Prelates. Under such a chief as Ralph no vigorous resistance was to be looked for, and the person who really took upon himself the defence of the country was Bishop Ealdred. He gathered a force from among the inhabitants of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire; but part of his army consisted of Welshmen, whether mere mercenaries hired for the occasion, or Welshmen living as immediate subjects of England. But whoever these Welshmen were, their sympathies lay wholly with Gruffydd and not with Ealdred. They sent a secret message to the Welsh King, suggesting an immediate attack on the English army. Gruffydd willingly answered to the call. With his twofold [Sidenote: July 29, 1049.] force, Welsh and Danish, he fell on the English camp early in the morning, slew many good men, and put the rest, together with the Bishop, to flight.[337] Of the further results of this singular and perplexing campaign, especially when and how the retreat of the invaders was brought about, we hear nothing.

[Sidenote: Increasing connexion with the continent.]

Everything which happened about this time sets before us the great and increasing intercourse which now prevailed between England and the continent. Our fathers [Sidenote: English attendance at Synods.] were now brought into a nearer connexion with both the spiritual and the temporal chiefs of Christendom than they had ever known before. We have already seen England in close alliance with the Empire; we have now to contemplate her relations with the Papacy. The active and saintly Pontiff who now presided over the Church held at this time a series of Councils in various places, at most of which English Prelates attended. Leo, after receiving the submission of Godfrey at Aachen, entered France, at the request of Heremar, Abbot of Saint Remigius at Rheims, to hallow the newly built church of his monastery.[338] [Sidenote: Synod of Rheims.] He then held a synod, which sat for six days, and passed several canons of the usual sort, against the marriage of priests and against their bearing arms.[339] The days of Otto the Great seemed to have returned, when the Pope and the Emperor,[340] seemingly without reference to the Parisian King, held a Council on French ground, attended by a vast multitude of Prelates, clergy, and laity from the Imperial Kingdoms and from other parts of Europe. There, besides the Metropolitan of the city in which the synod was held, was the Archbishop of Burgundy, as our Chronicles call him,[341] that is, the Archbishop of the great see of Lyons, Primate of all the Gauls, but no subject or vassal of the upstart dynasty of Paris. There were the Archbishops of Trier and Besançon; and from England came Duduc, the Saxon Bishop of Wells, and the Abbots Wulfric of Saint Augustine’s and Ælfwine of Ramsey, whom King Eadward had sent to bring him word of all that should be done for the good of Christendom.[342] [Sidenote: Synod of Mainz.] It does not appear that any English Prelates were present at the synod which Leo held soon after at Mainz;[343] but the two Italian synods which were held soon after were, as we shall see, connected in a singular manner with English affairs. There seems to have been about [Sidenote: Deaths of Bishops and Abbots.] this time a kind of mortality among the English Prelates. Among those who died was the Abbot of Westminster or Thorney, the humbler foundation which was soon to give way to the great creation of the reigning King. He bore the name of Wulfnoth, a name which suggests the likelihood of kindred with the house of Godwine. Another was Oswiu, the Abbot of the other Thorney in the fen land, the neighbour of Peterborough and Crowland. This [Sidenote: Siward dies, and Eadsige resumes the Primacy. 1049.] year too died Siward the Coadjutor-Archbishop, and Eadsige again resumed his functions for the short remainder [Sidenote: Eadnoth of Dorchester dies; Ulf succeeds. 1049.] of his life.[344] Eadnoth too, the good Bishop of Dorchester,[345] the builder of Stow in Lindesey, died this year, and his death offered a magnificent bait to Norman ambition and greediness. The great Bishoprick stretching from the Thames to the Humber, was conferred by the King on one of his Norman chaplains, who however bore the Scandinavian name of Ulf. As to the utter unfitness of this man for such an office there is an universal consent among our authorities. The King, even the holy Eadward, did evil in appointing him; the new Prelate did nought bishoplike; it were shame to tell more of his deeds.[346]

The year which followed was one of great note in ecclesiastical history. In England the first event recorded is [Sidenote: Witenagemót of London. Midlent, 1050.] the usual meeting of the Witan in London at Midlent. The proceedings of this Gemót, like those of many others about this time, give us a glimpse of that real, though very imperfect, parliamentary life which was then growing up in England, and which the Norman Conquest threw back for many generations. Then, as now, there were economists pressing for the reduction of the public expenditure, and what we should now call the Navy Estimates were chosen as being no doubt a popular subject for attack. The narrative of the naval events of the last year shows that, on special occasions, naval contingents were called for, according to the old law,[347] from various parts of the Kingdom, but that the King still kept a small naval force [Sidenote: Reduction of the Fleet.] in constant pay. This force had, under Cnut and Harold, consisted of sixteen ships;[348] it seems now to have consisted only of fourteen. The experience of the last year showed that England was still open to attack from the West; but the great fear, fear of invasion from the North, had now quite passed away. It seemed therefore to be a favourable moment for further reductions. By the authority of this Gemót nine ships were accordingly paid off, the crews receiving a year’s pay, and the standing force was cut down to six.[349] It was in this same assembly that Swegen [Sidenote: Swegen inlawed.] was _inlawed_,[350] that is, his outlawry was reversed, by the intercession of Bishop Ealdred. That Prelate, as we have seen, seems to have gone over to Flanders, and to have brought Swegen back with him.[351]

[Sidenote: Mission of Ealdred and Hermann to Rome.]

But Ealdred had soon to set forth on a longer journey. He and the Lotharingian Bishop Hermann were now sent to Rome on the King’s errand.[352] What that errand was we learn only from legendary writers and doubtful charters, but, as their accounts completely fit in with the authentic history, we need not scruple to [Sidenote: The King’s vow of pilgrimage to Rome.] accept their general outline.[353] The King had in his youth vowed a pilgrimage to Rome, and the non-fulfilment of this vow lay heavy on his conscience. It probably lay heavier still when he saw so many of his subjects of all ranks, led by the fashionable enthusiasm of the time, making both the pilgrimage to Rome and also the more distant pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[354] A broken vow was a crime; still Eadward had enough of political sense and right feeling left to see that his absence from his Kingdom at such a time as the present would be a criminal forsaking of his kingly duty. The Great Cnut might venture on such a journey; his eye could see and his hand could act from Rome or Norway or any other part of the world. But the personal presence of Eadward was the only check by which peace could be for a moment preserved between the true sons of the soil, and the strangers [Sidenote: Eadward sends the Bishops to obtain a dispensation. 1050.] who were eating into its vitals. The King laid his case before his Witan; the unanimous voice of the Assembly forbade him to forsake his post; the legend adds that the Witan farther counselled him to satisfy his conscience by obtaining a Papal dispensation from his vow. This was the King’s errand on which Ealdred and Hermann were sent to attend the great synod[355] held this year at Rome. They made good speed with their journey; starting at [Sidenote: The Synod of Rome.] Midlent, they reached the Holy City on Easter Eve.[356] In that synod they stood face to face with a man then known [Sidenote: LANFRANC.] only as a profound scholar and theologian, the bulwark of orthodoxy and the pattern of every monastic virtue, but who was, in years to come, to hold a higher place in the English hierarchy, and to leave behind him a far greater name in English history, than either of the English Prelates whose blessing he may now have humbly craved. In that synod of Rome the doctrines of Berengar of Tours were debated by the assembled Fathers, and the foremost champion of the faith to which Rome still cleaves was Lanfranc of Pavia. Suspected of complicity with the heretic, he produced the famous letter in which Berengar had maintained the Eucharist to be a mere figure of the Body of Christ.[357] How far Ealdred or Hermann took

## part in these theological debates we know not; but they are said to have

successfully accomplished their own errand. The King’s vow of pilgrimage was dispensed with, on condition of the rebuilding and endowment on a grander scale of that renowned West Minster whose name was to be inseparably bound together with that of the sainted King.[358] Before the year was out the unwearied Leo held [Sidenote: Synod of Vercelli.] another synod at Vercelli. Here the theological controversy was again raised, and Lanfranc again shone forth as the irresistible smiter of heresy. Berengar was finally condemned, notwithstanding his appeals to the elder teaching of John Scotus, and his protests that those who rejected John Scotus rejected Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and all the Fathers of the Church.[359] These disputes, renowned in the Church at large, are wholly passed over by our insular Chroniclers. To them the famous Synod of Vercelli seems to have been memorable only as showing the Roman Court in what was apparently a new relation towards the Prelacy of England. Before the assembled Fathers came [Sidenote: Confirmation of Ulf of Dorchester.] the newly appointed Bishop of Dorchester, Ulf the Norman, seeking, it would seem, for consecration or confirmation. His unfitness for his post was manifest; he was found incapable of going through the ordinary service of the Church. The Synod was on the point of deposing him, of breaking the staff which, according to the ceremonial of those times, he had already received from the King. But the influence which was already all-powerful at Rome saved him. He retained his Bishoprick; but only at the cost of a lavish expenditure of treasure, of which we may be sure that no portion found its way into the private [Sidenote: Possible pilgrimage of Macbeth.] coffers of Leo.[360] It was in this same year that Macbeth made that mysterious bestowal of alms or bribes at Rome from which some have inferred a personal pilgrimage on the part of the Scottish usurper.[361] It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that one who seems to us hardly more real than the creations of Grecian tragedy may have personally appeared at Rome or at Vercelli, that he may have shown his pious indignation at the heresies of the Canon of Tours, or have felt his soul moved within him at the incapacity of the Bishop of Dorchester. A personal meeting between Leo, Lanfranc, Ealdred, and Macbeth would form no unimpressive

## scene in the hands of those who may venture on liberties with the men of

far-gone times which to the historian are forbidden.

Ealdred and Hermann thus came back from Rome with the wished for dispensation from the King, and Ulf came back from Vercelli to hold the great see of Mid-England, and to rule it in his unbishoplike fashion for a little time. [Sidenote: Death of Archbishop Eadsige. October 9, 1050.] But before long a still greater ecclesiastical preferment became vacant. Eadsige, who had so lately resumed his archiepiscopal functions, died before the end of the year.[362] The day of complete triumph for the Norman monks and chaplains who surrounded Eadward now seemed to have come. A Frenchman might now sit on the throne of Augustine. Patriotic Englishmen were of course proportionably alarmed, and among them none more so than those who were most immediately concerned, the Chapter of the metropolitan church. The monks of Christ Church met, and made what is called a canonical election.[363] In the eye of English law such a process was little more than a petition to the King and his Witan for the appointment of the man of their choice. That choice fell on a member of their own body, their selection of whom showed that seclusion from the world had not made them incapable of a happy union of the dove [Sidenote: The monks of Christ Church elect Ælfric.] and the serpent. There was in their house a monk, Ælfric by name, who had been brought up in the monastery from his childhood, and who enjoyed the love of the whole society. Notwithstanding his monastic education, he was held to be specially skilled in the affairs of the world. And he had a further merit as likely as any of the others to weigh either with an English Chapter or with an English Witenagemót; he was a near kinsman of Earl Godwine.[364] The monks petitioned the Earl, the natural patron of a corporation within his government, to use his influence to obtain the King’s confirmation of their choice.[365] Godwine was doubtless nothing loth to avail himself of so honourable an opportunity to promote an Englishman and a kinsman. But his influence was crumbling away. Four years before he had been able to obtain the confirmation of Siward as Eadsige’s coadjutor; he was now unable to obtain the confirmation of Ælfric, or of any other man of native birth, [Sidenote: Ælfric rejected by the King, and Robert Bishop of London appointed to the see of Canterbury. Midlent, 1051.] as Eadsige’s successor. The saintly King paid no regard to the canonical election of the Convent, and in the Midlent Witenagemót of the next year, the Archbishoprick of Canterbury was bestowed on the King’s French favourite, Robert, Bishop of London.[366] The national party however prevailed so far as to secure an English successor [Sidenote: Spearhafoc appointed to London, and Rudolf to the Abbey of Abingdon.] to the see which Robert vacated. Spearhafoc, Abbot of Abingdon, a man famous for his skill in the goldsmith’s craft,[367] was named to the see of London by the King’s writ under his seal.[368] The Abbacy of Abingdon was given to a man whose description raises our curiosity; he was one Rudolf, described as a kinsman of King Eadward and as a Bishop in Norway.[369] For a native Northman to have been a kinsman of the son of Æthelred and Emma is hardly possible, unless the common ancestor was to be looked for so far back as the days before the settlement of Rolf. A Norman is hardly likely to have desired or obtained preferment in so unpromising a land; but it is highly probable that Cnut, who appointed several Englishmen to Bishopricks in Denmark, may have made use of a see in Norway either to reward or to remove some remote and unrecorded member of the English royal family. It is therefore very probable that Rudolf may have been an Englishman.[370] He was an aged man and weary of his office. The hand of Harold Hardrada pressed heavily on the Church. Pilgrim of the Holy Sepulchre as he was, he is charged with destroying ecclesiastical buildings, and even with sending Christian men to martyrdom.[371] Rudolf sought and found a place of more quiet, if of somewhat less honour, in the dominions of his kinsman. The monks of Abingdon received him, not very willingly, it would seem, but they were won over by the prospect that the old man would not live very long, and by the King’s promise that at the next vacancy free election should be allowed.[372] Presently the new Archbishop [Sidenote: Robert returns from Rome. July 27, 1051.] Robert came back from Rome with his pallium; he was enthroned in the metropolitan church, and soon hastened to the royal presence.[373] Spearhafoc, the Bishop-elect of London, came with the royal writ, and demanded [Sidenote: He refuses to consecrate Spearhafoc.] consecration of his Metropolitan. Robert refused, saying that the Pope had forbidden him to consecrate Spearhafoc.[374] Things had come to such a pass, that an Englishman, appointed to an English office by the King and his Witan, was to be kept out of its full possession by one foreigner acting at the alleged bidding of another. There were times when the Roman see showed itself a real refuge for the oppressed, and, as far as good intentions went, so it doubtless was in the days of good Pope Leo. But Englishmen now needed protection against no one except against the foreign favourites of their own King, and it was on behalf of those foreign favourites, and against Englishmen, that these stretches of Papal authority were now made. The unworthy Ulf was allowed, by the power of bribes, to retain his see—for he was a stranger. Spearhafoc, on what ground we know not—except so far as his English birth was doubtless a crime in the eyes of Robert—was refused the rite which alone could put him into full possession of his office. A second demand was again made by the Bishop-elect, and consecration was again refused [Sidenote: Spearhafoc occupies the Bishoprick without consecration.] by the Norman Archbishop.[375] Spearhafoc, rejected, unconsecrated, nevertheless went to Saint Paul’s, and took possession of the see which he held by the King’s full and regular grant.[376] No doubt he did not pretend to discharge any purely episcopal functions, but he kept possession of the see and its revenues, and probably exercised at least its temporal authority. This he did, the Chronicler significantly adds, all that summer and autumn.[377] Before the year was out, the crisis had come, and had brought with it the momentary triumph of the strangers.

One act more must be recorded before we come to the end of this portion of Eadward’s reign. In a meeting of the Witan, seemingly that in which Robert, Spearhafoc, [Sidenote: The remaining ships paid off and the _Heregyld_ remitted.] and Rudolf received their several appointments, the remaining five ships of the standing or mercenary naval force were paid off.[378] The war-contribution or _Heregyld_ was therefore no longer exacted. This tax had now been [Sidenote: 1012.] paid for thirty-eight years, ever since Thurkill and his fleet entered the service of Æthelred.[379] This impost had all along been felt to be a great burthen; we are told that it was paid before all other taxes, the other taxes themselves, it would seem, being looked upon as heavy.[380] The glimpse which is thus given us of the financial system of the time is just enough to make us wish for fuller knowledge. We must remember that in a rude state of society any kind of taxation is apt to be looked on as a grievance. It requires a very considerable political developement for a nation to feel that the power of the purse is the surest safeguard of freedom. But there must have been something specially hateful about this tax to account for the way in which it is spoken of by the contemporary chroniclers, and for the hold which, as the legends show,[381] it kept on the popular imagination. The holy King, we are told, in company with Earl Leofric, one day entered the treasury in which the money raised by the tax was collected; he there saw the Devil sitting and playing with the coin; warned by the sight, he at once [Sidenote: Distinction between Danegeld and _Heregyld_.] remitted the tax. In this story the tax is called Danegeld, and as many of the sailors in the English service were likely to be Danes, the _Heregyld_ seems to have been confounded with the Danegeld, and to have been popularly called by that name.[382] The Danegeld was in strictness a payment made to buy off the ravages of Danish invaders, a practice of which we have seen instances enough and to spare in the days of Æthelred. But the tax now taken off was simply a war-tax for the maintenance of a fleet, a fleet whose crews may have been to a great extent Danes, but Danes who were not the enemies of England, but engaged in her service. The two ideas however easily ran into one another; it might be difficult to say under which head we ought to place some of the payments made both under Cnut and under Harthacnut. But the _Heregyld_, in its more innocent shape, would, according to modern ideas, be an impost absolutely necessary for the defence of the country. If the tax were remitted, no naval force would be retained, except the contingents of the shires, which could not in any case be very readily forthcoming. But, besides the general dislike to taxation [Sidenote: Import of the remission.] of any kind, this particular tax was a painful and hateful badge of national disgrace. It was a memory of times when England could find no defence against strangers except by taking other strangers into her pay. Its remission was doubtless looked on as a declaration that England no longer needed the services of strangers, or of hired troops of any kind, but that she could trust to the ready patriotism and valour of her own sons. The Law required every Englishman to join the royal standard at the royal summons.[383] The effectual execution of that law was doubtless held to be a truer safeguard than the employment of men, whether natives or strangers, who served only for their pay. Such reasonings had their weak side even in those days, but they were eminently in the spirit of the time. The measure was undoubtedly a popular one, and we are hardly in a position to say that, under the circumstances of the time, it may not have been a wise one.

§ 4. _The Banishment of Earl Godwine._ 1051.

[Sidenote: The foreign influence at its height.]

The influence of the strangers had now reached its height. As yet it has appeared on the face of the narrative mainly in the direction given to ecclesiastical preferments. During the first nine years of Eadward’s reign, we find no signs of any open warfare between the national and the Normannizing parties. The course of events shows that Godwine’s power was being practically undermined, but he was still outwardly in the enjoyment of royal favour, and his vast possessions were still being added to by royal grants.[384] It is remarkable how seldom, at this stage of Eadward’s reign, the acts of the Witan bear the signatures of any foreigners except churchmen.[385] We meet also with slight indications showing that the King’s foreign kinsmen and the national leaders were not yet on [Sidenote: Its seemingly stealthy character.] terms of open enmity.[386] It was probably the policy of the strangers to confine their action in public matters to influencing the King’s mind through his ecclesiastical favourites, while the mass of them were gradually providing in other ways for their own firm establishment in the land. But the tale which I now have to tell clearly reveals the fact that the number of French landowners in England was already considerable, and that they had made themselves deeply hateful to the English people. Stealthily but surely, the foreign favourites of Eadward had eaten into the vitals of England, and they soon had the means of showing how bitter was the hatred which they bore towards the champions of English freedom. [Sidenote: Comparison between Danish and Norman influences.] England now, under a native King of her own choice, felt, far more keenly than she had ever felt under her Danish conqueror, how great the evil is when a King and those who immediately surround him are estranged in feeling from the mass of his people. The great Dane had gradually learned to feel and to reign as an Englishman, to trust himself to the love of his English subjects, and to surround the throne of the conqueror with the men whom his own axe and spear had overcome. Even during the troubled reigns of his two sons, the degeneracy was for the most part merely personal. Harthacnut indeed laid on heavy and unpopular taxes for the payment of his Danish fleet;[387] but it does not appear that, even under him, Englishmen as Englishmen were subjected to systematic oppression and insult on the part of strangers. And, after all, the Danish followers of Cnut and his sons were men of kindred blood and speech. They could hardly be looked on in any part of England as aliens in the strictest sense, while to the inhabitants of a large part of the Kingdom they appeared as actual countrymen. But now, as a foretaste of what was to come fifteen years later, men utterly strange in speech and feeling stood around the throne, engrossed the personal favour of the King, perverted the course of justice, shared among themselves the highest places in the Church, and were already beginning to stretch out their hands to English lands and lordships as well as to English Bishopricks. The Dane, once brought to the knowledge of a purer faith and a higher civilization, soon learned to identify himself with the land in which he had settled, and to live as an Englishman [Sidenote: Incapacity of the French to appreciate English institutions.] under the Law of England. But to the French favourites of Eadward the name, the speech, the laws of England were things on which their ignorant pride looked down with utter contempt. They had no sympathy with that great fabric of English liberty, which gave to every freeman his place in the commonwealth, and even to the slave held out the prospect of freedom. Gentlemen of the school of Richard the Good,[388] taught to despise all beneath them as beings of an inferior nature, could not understand the spirit of a land where the Churl had his rights before the Law, where he could still raise his applauding voice in the Assemblies of the nation, and where men already felt as keenly as we feel now that an Englishman’s house is his castle. Everything in short which had already made England free and glorious, everything which it is now our pride and happiness to have preserved down to our own times, was looked on by the foreign counsellors of Eadward as a mark of manifest inferiority and barbarism. [Sidenote: Diversity in speech;] The Dane spoke a tongue which hardly differed more widely from our own than the dialects of different parts of the Kingdom differed from one another. But the ancient mother-speech, once common to Dane and Frank and Angle and Saxon, the speech of which some faint traces may still have lingered at Laôn and at Bayeux, had now become only one of many objects of contempt in the eyes of men whose standards were drawn from the [Sidenote: in military tactics.] Romanized courts of Rouen and Paris. The Dane met the Englishman in battle, face to face and hand to hand, with the same tactics and the same weapons. Shield-wall to shield-wall, sword to sword or axe to axe, had men waged the long warfare which had ranged from the fight [Sidenote: 871–1016.] of Reading to the fight of Assandun. To the Frenchman the traditions of Teutonic warfare appeared contemptible.[389] His trust was placed, not in the stout heart and the strong arm of the warrior, but in the horse which is as useful in the flight as in the charge, and in the arrow which places the coward and the hero upon a level.[390] Men brought up in such feelings as these, full too no doubt of the insolent and biting wit of their nation, now stood round the throne of the King of the English. They were not as yet, to any great extent, temporal rulers of the land, but they had already begun to be owners of its soil; they were already the Fathers of the Church; they were the personal friends of the King; they were the channels of royal favour; their influence could obtain the highest ecclesiastical office, when it was refused alike to the demand of the Earl of the West-Saxons and to the prayer of the canonical electors. In the company of these men the King was at home; among his own people he was a [Sidenote: Evils of a denationalized Court, especially in early times.] stranger. The sight of a denationalized Court, a Court where the national tongue is despised and where the sounds of a foreign speech are alone thought worthy of royal lips, a Court in which the heart of the sovereign beats more warmly for foreign favourites or foreign kinsmen than for the children of the soil, is a sight which in any age is enough to stir up a nation’s blood. But far heavier is the wrong in an age when Kings govern as well as reign, when it is not the mere hangers-on of a Court, but the nation itself, which is made personally to feel that strangers fill the posts of honour and influence, on its own soil and at its own cost. Often indeed since the days of Eadward has the Court of England been the least English thing within the realm of England. But, for ages past, no sovereign, however foreign in blood or feeling, could have ventured to place a stranger, ignorant of the English tongue, on the patriarchal throne of Dunstan and [Sidenote: Revolt of England against the foreign influence.] Ælfheah. Against such a state of things as this the heart of England rose. And the soul of the patriotic movement, the leader of the patriotic struggle, was the man whom Norman calumny has ever since picked out as its special victim, but with whom every true English heart was prepared to live and die. The man who strove for England, the man who for a while suffered for England, but who soon returned in triumph to rescue England, was once more Godwine, Earl of the West-Saxons.

[Sidenote: Indignation at the appointment of Robert to Canterbury.]

The refusal of the King to confer the Archbishoprick of Canterbury on a kinsman of the great Earl regularly chosen by the Convent of the metropolitan church, its bestowal instead on an intriguing monk from Jumièges, had no doubt deeply embittered the feelings of Godwine and of all true Englishmen. All the sons of the Church, we are told, lamented the wrong;[391] and we may be sure that the feeling was in no way confined to those who are no doubt chiefly intended by that description. It now became the main object of the foreign Archbishop to bring about the ruin of the English Earl. Robert employed his [Sidenote: Robert’s cabals against Godwine. 1051.] influence with the King to set him still more strongly against his father-in-law, to fill his ears with calumnies against him, above all, to bring up again the old charge, of which Godwine had been so solemnly acquitted, which made him an accomplice in the death of Ælfred.[392] A dispute about the right to some lands which adjoined the estates both of the Earl and of the Primate further embittered the dissension between them.[393] Godwine’s influence was manifestly fast giving way, and an open struggle was becoming imminent. Just at this moment, an act of foreign insolence and brutality which surpassed anything which had hitherto happened brought the whole matter to a crisis.

[Sidenote: Marriages of Godgifu daughter of Æthelred with Drogo of Mantes and Eustace of Boulogne.]

We have seen that Eadward’s sister Godgifu—the Goda of Norman writers—the daughter of Æthelred and Emma, had been married to Drogo, Count of Mantes or of the French Vexin. Their son, Ralph the Timid, was now high in favour at the court of his uncle.[394] Drogo had accompanied Duke Robert on his pilgrimage, and, like him, had died on his journey.[395] His widow, who must now have been a good deal past her prime,[396] had nevertheless found a second French husband in Eustace, Count of Boulogne. This prince, whom English history sets before us only in the darkest colours, was fated by a strange destiny to be the father of one of the noblest heroes of Christendom, of Godfrey, Duke of Lotharingia and King of Jerusalem. We cannot however claim the great Crusader as one who had English blood in his veins through either parent. The second marriage of Godgifu was childless, and the renowned sons of Eustace, Godfrey and his brother Baldwin, were the children of his second [Sidenote: Visit of Eustace to Eadward. September, 1051.] wife Ida. The Count of Boulogne, now brother-in-law of the King of the English, presently came, like the rest of the world, to the English Court. The exact object of his coming is not recorded, but we are told that whatever he came for he got.[397] Some new favours were doubtless won for foreign followers, and some share of the wealth of England for himself. It was now September, and the King, as seems to have been his custom, was spending the autumn at Gloucester.[398] Thither then came Count Eustace, and, after his satisfactory interview [Sidenote: Return of Eustace.] with the King, he turned his face homewards. We have no account of his journey till he reached Canterbury;[399] there he halted, refreshed himself and his men, and rode on towards Dover. Perhaps, in a land so specially devoted to Godwine, he felt himself to be still more thoroughly in an enemy’s country than in other parts of England. At all events, when they were still a few miles from Dover, the Count and all his company took the precaution of putting on their coats of mail.[400] They entered [Sidenote: Outrages of Eustace and his party at Dover.] the town; accustomed to the unbridled licence of their own land, puffed up no doubt by the favourable reception which they had met with at the King’s Court, they deemed that the goods and lives of Englishmen were at their mercy. Who was the villain or the burgher who could dare to refuse ought to a sovereign prince, the friend and brother-in-law of the Emperor of Britain? Men born on English soil, accustomed to the protection [Sidenote: 1020–1051.] of English Law, men who for one and thirty years[401] had lived under the rule of Godwine, looked on matters in quite another light. The Frenchmen expected to find free quarters in the town of Dover, and they attempted to lodge themselves at their pleasure in the houses of the burghers. There was one Englishman especially—his name unluckily is not preserved—into whose house a Frenchman was bent on forcing himself against the [Sidenote: The burghers resist,] owner’s will. The master of the house resisted; the stranger drew his weapon and wounded him; the Englishman struck the intruder dead on the spot.[402] Count Eustace mounted his horse as if for battle;[403] his followers mounted theirs, the stout-hearted Englishman was slain within his own house. The Count’s party then rode through the town, cutting about them and slaying at pleasure. But the neighbours of the murdered man had now come together; the burghers resisted valiantly; a [Sidenote: and drive the French out of the town.] skirmish began; twenty Englishmen were slain, and nineteen Frenchmen, besides many who were wounded. Count Eustace and the remnant of his party made their way out of the town, and hastened back to King Eadward at Gloucester. [Sidenote: Eustace accuses the men of Dover to the King.] They there told the story after their own fashion, throwing of course all the blame upon the insolent burghers of Dover.[404] It is not hard to throw oneself into the position of the accusers. To chivalrous Frenchmen the act of the English burgher in defending his house against a forcible entry would seem something quite beyond their understandings. To their notions the appeal to right and law to which Englishmen were familiar, would seem, on the part of men of inferior rank, something almost out of the course of nature. We often see the same sort of feeling now-a-days in men whom a long course of military habits, a life spent in the alternation of blind obedience and arbitrary command, has made incapable of understanding those notions of right and justice which seem perfectly plain to men who are accustomed to acknowledge no master but the Law.[405] The crime of Eustace was a dark one; but we may be inclined to pass a heavier judgement still on the crime of the English King, who, on the mere accusation of the stranger, condemned his own subjects without a hearing. When Eustace had told his tale, the King became very wroth with the burghers of Dover,[406] and this time he thought that he had not only the will [Sidenote: Eadward commands Godwine to inflict military chastisement on the town.] but the power to hurt.[407] He sent for Godwine, as Earl of the district in which the offending town lay. The English champion was then in the midst of a domestic rejoicing. He had, like the King, been strengthening himself by a foreign alliance, and had just connected his house with that of a sovereign prince. Tostig, the third son of Godwine, had just married Judith, the daughter or near kinswoman of Baldwin of Flanders.[408] Such a marriage could hardly have been contracted without a political object. An alliance with a prince reigning in the debateable land between France and Germany, a land which, though its princes were rapidly becoming French, had by no means wholly lost its Teutonic character, was quite in harmony with the Lotharingian connexion so steadily maintained by Godwine and Harold. At the same time, an alliance with a prince who had been so lately in arms against England may not have tended to increase Godwine’s favour with the King. The Earl left the marriage-feast of his son, and hastened to the King at Gloucester. Eadward then told him what insults had been offered within his Earldom to a sovereign allied to himself by friendship and marriage. Let Godwine go, and subject the offending town to all the severity of military chastisement.[409] Godwine had once before been sent on the like [Sidenote: Comparison between the cases of Worcester under Harthacnut and Dover under Eadward.] errand in the days of Harthacnut.[410] He had then not dared to refuse, though he had done what he could to lighten the infliction of a harsh and unjust sentence. And, after all, the two cases were not alike. In the case of Worcester, Godwine was required to act as a military commander against a town which was not within his government, and whose citizens stood in no special relation to him. The citizens of Worcester too had been guilty of a real crime. Their crime was indeed one which might readily have been pardoned, and the punishment decreed was out of all proportion to the offence. Still the death of the two Housecarls fairly called for some atonement, though certainly not for an atonement of the kind commanded by Harthacnut. At that time too it was probably sound policy in Godwine to undertake the commission in which he was joined with the other great Earls of England, and merely to do his best to lighten its severity in act. But in the present case all the circumstances were different. Dover was a town in Godwine’s own Earldom; it would almost seem that it was a town connected with him by a special tie, a town whose burghers formed a part of his personal following.[411] At all events it was a town over which he exercised the powers of the highest civil magistracy, where, if it was his duty to punish the guilty, it was equally his duty to defend and shelter the innocent. Such a town he was now bidden, without the least legal proof of any offence, to visit with all the horrors of fire and sword. Godwine was not long [Sidenote: Godwine refuses to obey the King’s orders.] in choosing his course. Official duty and public policy, no less than abstract justice and humanity, dictated a distinct refusal. Now or never a stand was to be made against the strangers. Now that Englishmen had been insulted and murdered by the King’s foreign favourites, the time was indeed come to put an end to a system under which those favourites were beginning to deal with England as with a conquered country. The eloquent voice of [Sidenote: He demands a legal trial for the burghers.] the great Earl was raised, in the presence of the King, probably in the presence of Eustace and the other strangers, in the cause of truth and justice.[412] In England, he told them, there was a Law supreme over all, and courts in which justice could be denied to no man. Count Eustace had brought a charge against the men of Dover. They had, as he alleged, broken the King’s peace, and done personal wrong to himself and his companions. Let then the magistrates of the town be summoned before the King and his Witan, and there be heard in their own defence and in that of their fellow-burghers. If they could make a good excuse for their conduct, let them depart unhurt; if they could be proved to have sinned against the King or against the Count, let them pay for their fault with their purses or with their persons. He, as Earl of the West-Saxons, was the natural protector of the men of Dover; he would never agree to any sentence pronounced against them without a fair trial, nor would he consent to the infliction of any sort of illegal hardship upon those whom he was bound to defend. The Earl then went his way; he had done his own duty; he was accustomed to these momentary ebullitions of wrath on the part of his royal son-in-law, and he expected that the affair would soon be forgotten.[413]

But there were influences about Eadward which cut off all hope of any such peaceful settlement of the matter. Eustace probably still lingered about the King, to repeat his own story, to enlarge on the insolence of the men of Dover, and on the disobedience—he would call it the [Sidenote: Archbishop Robert excites the King against Godwine.] treason—of the West-Saxon Earl himself. And there was another voice ever at the royal ear, ever ready to poison the royal mind against the English people and their leader. The foreign monk who sat on the throne of so many English saints again seized the opportunity to revive the calumnies of past times. He once more impressed upon the King that the man who refused to obey his orders, the man who had protected, perhaps excited, rebellious burghers against his dearest friends, was also the man who had, years before, betrayed his brother to a death of torment.[414] The old and the new charges worked [Sidenote: The Witan summoned to Gloucester to hear charges against Godwine.] together on the King’s mind, and he summoned a Meeting of the Witan at Gloucester, to sit in judgement, no longer on the men of Dover, who seem by this time to have been forgotten, but on Godwine himself.[415] The Earl now saw that he must be prepared for all risks. And, just at this moment, another instance of the insolence and violence of the foreigners in another part of the Kingdom served [Sidenote: Building of Richard’s Castle in Herefordshire.] to stir up men’s minds to the highest pitch. Among the Frenchmen who flocked to the land of promise was one named Richard the son of Scrob, who had received a grant of lands in Herefordshire. He and his son Osbern had there built a castle on a spot which, by a singularly lasting tradition, preserves to this day the memory of himself and his building.[416] The fortress itself has vanished, but its site is still to be marked, and the name of Richard’s Castle, still borne by the parish in which it stood, is an abiding witness of the deep impression which its erection made on the minds of the men of those times. [Sidenote: Import of the building of castles.] The building of castles is something of which the English writers of this age frequently speak, and speak always with a special kind of horror.[417] Both the name and the thing were new. To fortify a town, to build a citadel to protect a town, were processes with which England had long been familiar.[418] To contribute to such necessary public works was one of the three immemorial obligations from which no Englishman could free himself.[419] But for a private landowner to raise a private fortress to be the terror of his neighbours was something to which Englishmen had hitherto been unaccustomed, and for such a structure the English language had hitherto contained no name. But now the tall, square, massive donjon of the Normans, a building whose grandest type is to be seen in the Conqueror’s own Tower of London and in the more enriched keep of Rochester, began, doubtless on a far humbler scale, to rear itself over the dwellings of Englishmen. Normandy had, during the minority of William, been covered with such buildings, and his wise policy had levelled many of them with the ground.[420] Such buildings, strange to English eyes, bore no English name, but retained their French designation of _castles_.[421] Such a castle at once became a centre of all kinds of oppression. Men were harboured in it, and deeds were done within its impregnable walls, such as could find no place in the open hall of the ancient English Thegn. So it was with the castle which was now raised within the government of the eldest son of Godwine. The Welshmen, as they are called—that is, not Britons, but Frenchmen, _Gal-Welsh_, not _Bret-Welsh_—built their castle, and “wrought all the harm and _besmear_”—an expressive word which has dropped out of the language—“to the King’s men thereabouts that they might.”[422] Here then was another wrong, a wrong perhaps hardly second to the wrong which had been done at Dover. Alike in Kent and in Herefordshire men had felt the sort of treatment which they were to expect if the King’s foreign favourites were to be any longer tolerated. The time was now come for Englishmen to make a stand.

[Sidenote: Godwine and his sons meet at Beverstone with the force of their Earldoms.]

The Earl of the West-Saxons was not a man to be wanting to his country at such a moment. He, with his sons Swegen and Harold, gathered together the force of their three Earldoms at Beverstone in Gloucestershire. This is a point on the Cotswolds, not far from the Abbey of Malmesbury, still marked by a castle of far later date, the remaining fragments of which form one of the most remarkable antiquities of the district. At this time it seems to have been a royal possession, and it may not unlikely have contained a royal house, which would probably be at the disposal of Swegen as Earl of the shire.[423] At Beverstone then assembled the men of Wessex, of East-Anglia, and of that part of Mercia which was under the jurisdiction of Swegen. They came, it would seem, ready either for debate or for battle, as might happen. We must here again remember what the ancient constitution of our National Assemblies really was. If all actually came who had a strict right to come, the Gemót was a ready-made army. On the other hand we have seen that an army, gathered together as an army, sometimes took on itself [Sidenote: The forces of Siward, Leofric, and Ralph assemble at Gloucester.] the functions of a Gemót.[424] Meanwhile, while Godwine assembled his men at Beverstone, the forces of the Earldoms of Siward, Leofric, and Ralph were assembling round the King at Gloucester. Each of the two gatherings might pass for the local Witenagemót of one half of England. At the head of the men of three Earldoms Godwine was still bolder than when he had stood alone in the royal presence. He had then only refused to punish the innocent; he now demanded the punishment of the guilty. His first steps however were conciliatory. He first demanded an audience for himself and his sons, as Earls of the three Earldoms; they were ready and anxious to take counsel with the King and his Witan on all matters touching the honour of the King and his people.[425] He even offered to renew his compurgation on the old charge [Sidenote: Godwine’s offers to the King refused through the influence of Frenchmen.] of the death of Ælfred.[426] But the Frenchmen swarmed around the King; they filled his ears with the usual charges against Godwine and his sons; they assured him that the only object of the Earls was to betray him.[427] Eadward therefore refused the audience, and declined to receive the compurgation.[428] Godwine then took a higher [Sidenote: Godwine demands the surrender of Eustace and the other criminals. September 8, 1051.] tone; messages were sent in his name and in the name of the men of the three Earldoms, demanding the surrender of Eustace and his men and of the Frenchmen at Richard’s Castle.[429] The demand was a bold one; Godwine asked for the surrender of the person of a foreign prince, the King’s own favourite and brother-in-law. But the demand, if bold, was perfectly justifiable. The two parties of Frenchmen had been guilty of outrageous crimes within the jurisdictions of Godwine and Swegen respectively. The King, instead of bringing them to justice, was sheltering them, and even listening to their charges against innocent men. Their lawful judges, the Earls of the two districts, were ready, at the head of the Witan of their Earldoms, to do that justice which the King had refused. The demand was seemingly backed by threats of an appeal to that last argument by which unrighteous rulers must be brought to reason. Godwine and his followers threatened war against Eadward, as the later Barons of England threatened war against John.[430] The King was frightened and perplexed. [Sidenote: The Northern Earls bring their full forces.] He sent to hasten the coming of Siward, Leofric, and Ralph, and bade them bring a force strong enough to keep Godwine and his party in check. Seemingly they had at first brought or sent only a small body of men; when they heard the full state of the case, they hastened to the King with the whole force of their Earldoms, and restored confidence to his timid mind.[431] This was the sort of occasion which was sure to awaken those provincial jealousies which in that age were often lulled to sleep, but which were never completely got rid of. The northern and southern parts of England were again arrayed against [Sidenote: 1035.] each other, just as they had been in the great Gemót of Oxford sixteen years before.[432] The French followers of Ralph and the French friends of Eadward were doubtless glad of any excuse to shed the blood or to seize the lands of Englishmen. Siward and his Danes were seemingly not displeased with a state of things in which jealousy of the West-Saxon Earl could be so honourably cloaked under the guise of loyalty to the West-Saxon King. They were therefore quite ready to play into the hands of the strangers. They [Sidenote: The King finally refuses to surrender the Frenchmen.] were still on their march, but seemingly close to the town, when Eadward gave his final answer to the messengers of Godwine; Eustace and the other accused persons should not be given up. The messengers had hardly left Gloucester, [Sidenote: The Northumbrians ready for battle.] when the Northern host entered the city, eager to be led to battle against the men of Wessex and East-Anglia.[433] Godwine and his followers saw by this time that there was little hope of bringing the King to reason by peaceful means. Every offer tending to reconciliation had been spurned; every demand of the Earls and their people had been refused. The punishment of the innocent had been commanded; the punishment of the guilty had been denied; the old charges, of which Godwine had been so [Sidenote: 1040.] solemnly acquitted eleven years before, were again raked up against him by the slanderous tongue of a foreign [Sidenote: March of the West-Saxons and East-Angles on Gloucester.] priest. Loath as the Earl and his followers were to fight against their Lord the King,[434] they saw no hope but in an appeal to arms, and the men of the three Earldoms made themselves ready for battle. From the heights of the Cotswolds on which they had been gathered, they marched down the hill-side which overlooks the fairest and most fertile of English valleys.[435] The broad Severn wound through the plain beneath them; beyond its sandy flood rose, range beyond range, the hills which guarded the land of the still unconquered Briton. Far away, like a glimpse of another world, opened the deep vale of the Welsh Axe,[436] the mountain land of Brecheiniog, where, in the furthest distance, the giant Beacons soar, vast and dim, the mightiest natural fortress of the southern Cymry. Even then some glimpses of days to come may have kindled the soul of Harold, as he looked forth on the land which was, before many years, to ring with his renown, and to see his name engraved as conqueror on the trophies of so many battle-fields. They passed by relics of unrecorded antiquity, by fortresses and tombs reared by the hands of men who had been forgotten before the days of Ceawlin, some perhaps even before the days of Cæsar. They passed by the vast hill-fort of Uleybury, where the Briton had bid defiance to the Roman invader. They passed by the huge mound, the Giants’-Chamber of the dead, covering the remains of men whose name and race had passed away, perhaps before even the Briton had fixed himself in the islands of the West.[437] Straight in their path rose the towers, in that day no doubt tall and slender, of the great minster of the city which was their goal, where their King sat a willing captive in the hands of the enemies of his people. And, still far beyond, rose other hills, the heights of Herefordshire and Shropshire, the blue range of Malvern and the far distant Titterstone, bringing the host as it were into the actual presence of the evil deeds with which the stranger was defiling that lovely region. Godwine had kept his watch on the heights of Beverstone, as Thrasyboulos had kept his on the heights of Phylê,[438] and he now came down, with the truest sons of England at his bidding, ready, as need might be, to strive for her freedom either in the debates of the Witan or in the actual [Sidenote: War hindered by the intervention of Leofric.] storm of battle. But there were now men in the King’s train at Gloucester who were not prepared to shed the blood of their countrymen in the cause of strangers. Eadward had now counsellors at his side who had no mind to push personal or provincial jealousy to the extent of treason to their common country. Earl Leofric had obeyed the command of the King, and had brought the force of Mercia to the royal muster at Gloucester. Some jealousies of Godwine may well have rankled in his breast, but love of his country was a stronger feeling still. He was not ready to sacrifice the champion of England to men who had trampled on every rule of English law and of natural right, men who seemed to deem it a crime if Englishmen refused to lie still and be butchered on their [Sidenote: He effects a compromise, and procures the adjournment of the Gemót.] hearth-stones. The good old Earl of the Mercians now, as ever,[439] stood forth as the representative of peace and compromise between extreme parties. The best men of England were arrayed in one host or the other. It were madness indeed for Englishmen to destroy one another, simply to hand over the land to its enemies without defence.[440] But, while two armed hosts stood ready for battle, there was no room for peaceful debate. Let both sides depart; let hostages be given on both sides, and let the Meeting of the Witan stand adjourned, to assemble again, after a few weeks, in another place. Meanwhile all enmities on either side should cease, and both sides should be held to be in full possession of the King’s peace and friendship.[441] The proposal of Leofric was accepted by both parties, and the Gemót was accordingly adjourned, to meet in London at Michaelmas.

[Sidenote: Gemót of London. September 29, 1051.]

The objects of Leofric in this momentary compromise were undoubtedly honourable and patriotic. But King Eadward and his foreign advisers seem to have been determined to make the most of the breathing-space thus given them for the damage of the national cause. The [Sidenote: Eadward appears at the head of an army.] King employed the time in collecting an army still more powerful than that which had surrounded him at Gloucester. He seems to have got together the whole force of Northumberland and Mercia, and to have summoned the immediate following of the King, the royal Housecarls, and perhaps the King’s immediate Thegns, even within Godwine’s own Earldom.[442] The King’s quarters were probably at his favourite palace of Westminster. Godwine came, accompanied by a large force of the men [Sidenote: The King’s demands of Godwine.] of his Earldom, to his own house in Southwark.[443] Several messages passed to and fro between him and the King. But it soon became clear that, though the King’s full peace and friendship had been assured to Godwine, there was no intention in the royal councils of showing him any favour, or even of treating him with common justice. The two parties had separated at Gloucester on equal terms. Each had been declared to be alike the King’s friends; each alike had given hostages to the other; the matters at issue between them were to be fairly discussed in the adjourned Gemót. Instead of this agreement being carried out, Godwine and his sons found themselves dealt [Sidenote: The outlawry of Swegen renewed. Injustice of its renewal.] with as criminals. The first act of the Assembly, seemingly before Godwine and his sons had appeared at all, was to renew the outlawry of Swegen.[444] No act could be more unjust. His old crimes could no longer be brought up against him with any fairness. The time when they might have been rightly urged was on the motion for the repeal of his former outlawry.[445] But, whether wisely or unwisely, that outlawry had been legally reversed; Swegen had been restored to his Earldom, a restoration which of course implied the absolute pardon of all his former offences. Since that time, we hear of no fresh crime on his part, unless it were a crime to have been a fellow-worker with his father, his brother, and the men of his Earldom, in resistance to the wrongs inflicted by the strangers. To condemn Swegen afresh for his old offences was a flagrant breach of all justice; to condemn him for his late conduct was a breach of justice equally flagrant in another way. Besides this, his condemnation on this last ground would carry with it an equal condemnation of Godwine and Harold. Swegen then was outlawed, and that, [Sidenote: Godwine and Harold summoned before the King.] as far as we can see, without a hearing; and Godwine and Harold were summoned to appear before the King, seemingly as criminals to receive judgement. Bishop Stigand, in whose diocese Godwine was then living, procured some delay;[446] but Archbishop Robert took advantage of that very delay, still further to poison the King’s mind against the Earl.[447] Godwine, after the treatment which his eldest son had just received, declined to appear, unless he received an assurance of the King’s favour, guaranteed by the placing of special hostages in his hands, as pledges for his personal safety during the interview. The King’s answer was apparently a demand that the Earls should allow, or perhaps compel, all the King’s Thegns who had joined them, to go over to the King’s side.[448] The demand was at once obeyed. By this time the tide was clearly turning against Godwine, and the force which he had brought with him to Southwark [Sidenote: Final summons of the Earls.] was getting smaller and smaller.[449] The King again summoned the Earls to appear, with twelve companions only. We can hardly believe that Stigand was compelled, however against his will, to announce as a serious message to Godwine that the King’s final resolution was that Godwine could hope for his peace only when he restored to him his brother Ælfred and his companions safe and sound.[450] It is inconceivable that such words can have formed part of a formal summons, but it is quite possible that they may have been uttered in mockery, either by [Sidenote: Their demand for a safe-conduct is refused.] the King or by his Norman Archbishop. But whatever was the form of the summons, Godwine and Harold refused to appear, unless they received hostages and a safe-conduct for their coming and going.[451] Without such security they could not appear in an Assembly which had sunk into a mere gathering of their enemies.[452] They had obeyed, and would obey, the King in all things consistent with their safety and their honour. But both their safety and their honour would be at stake, if they appeared before such a tribunal without any sort of safeguard, and without their usual retinue as Earls of two great Earldoms.[453] The demand was perfectly reasonable.[454] Godwine and his son could not be expected to appear, without safeguards of any kind, in such an assembly as that which now surrounded the King. The adjourned Gemót had been summoned for the free and fair discussion of all disputes between two

## parties, each of which was declared to be in the full enjoyment of the

King’s peace and friendship. It was now turned into a Court, in which one son of Godwine had been outlawed without a crime or a hearing, in which Godwine himself was summoned to receive judgement on charges on one of which he had been years before solemnly acquitted. The hostages and the safe-conduct were refused. The refusal was announced by Stigand to the Earl as he sat at his evening meal. The Bishop wept; the Earl sprang to his feet, overthrew the table,[455] sprang on his horse, and, with his sons, rode for his life all that night.[456] In the morning the King held his Witenagemót, [Sidenote: Godwine and his family outlawed.] and by a vote of the King and his whole army,[457] Godwine and his sons were declared outlaws, but five days were allowed them to get them out of the land.[458] By this [Sidenote: Godwine, Swegen, &c., take refuge in Flanders.] time Godwine, Swegen, Tostig, and Gyrth, together with Gytha and Judith, the newly-married wife of Tostig, had reached either Bosham or the South-Saxon Thorney.[459] There could be little doubt as to the course which they were to take. Flanders, Baldwines land, was the common refuge of English exiles, and Godwine and the Flemish Count are said to have been bound to one another by the tie of many mutual benefits.[460] It was at the court of Baldwin that Swegen had taken refuge in his exile, and the Count was the near kinsman, perhaps the father, of Tostig’s bride, whose wedding-festivities had been so cruelly interrupted by these sudden gatherings of Gemóts and armies.[461] For Bruges then they set sail in a ship laded with as much treasure as it would hold.[462] They reached the court of Flanders in safety; they were honourably received by the Count,[463] and passed the whole winter with him.[464]

Godwine then, with the greater part of his family,[465] had found shelter in the quarter where English exiles of that age commonly did find shelter. But two of his sons sought quite another refuge. To seek shelter in Flanders, a land forming the natural point of intercommunication between England, France, and Germany, was the obvious course for one whose first object, as we shall presently see, was to obtain his restoration by peaceful diplomacy. Such were the designs of Godwine, the veteran statesman, the man who never resorted to force till all other means [Sidenote: Harold determines on resistance.] had been tried in vain. But Harold, still young, and at all times more vehement in temper than his father, had not yet learned this lesson. His high spirit chafed under his wrongs, and he determined from the first on a forcible return to his country, even, if need be, by the help of a foreign force. This determination is the least honourable fact recorded in Harold’s life. It was indeed no [Sidenote: Estimate of his conduct.] more than was usual with banished men in his age. It is what we have already seen done by Osgod Clapa;[466] it is what we shall presently see done by Ælfgar the son of Leofric; it was in fact the natural resource of every man of those times who found himself outlawed by any sentence, just or unjust. If we judge Harold harshly in this matter, we are in fact doing him the highest honour. So to judge him is in fact instinctively to recognize that he has a right to be tried by a higher standard than the mass of his contemporaries. Judged by such a standard, his conduct must be distinctly condemned; but it should be noticed that, among the various charges, true and false, which were brought against Harold, we never find any reference to this, which, according to our ideas, seems [Sidenote: He determines to seek help from the Irish Danes.] the worst action of his life. In company with his young brother Leofwine,[467] he despised the peaceful shelter of Bruges, and preferred to betake himself to a land where, above all others, it would be easy to engage warlike adventurers in his cause. The eastern coast of Ireland, with the numerous towns peopled by Danish settlers, lay admirably suited for their purpose. Thither then [Sidenote: Harold and Leofwine go to Bristol; growing importance of that port.] the two brothers determined to make their way, with the fixed purpose of raising forces to effect their own return and to avenge their father’s wrongs.[468] For the port of their departure they chose Bristol, a town in Swegen’s Earldom, unknown to fame in the earlier days of our history, but which was now rising into great, though not very honourable, importance. The port on the Avon, the frontier stream of Wessex and Western Mercia, was the natural mart for a large portion of both those countries. Commanding, as it did, the whole navigation of the Channel to which it gives its name, Bristol was then, as now, the chief seat of communication between England and the South of Ireland. That is to say, it was in those days the chief seat of the Irish slave-trade.[469] In the haven of Bristol Earl Swegen had, for what cause we are not told, a ship made ready for himself.[470] The two brothers made the best of their way towards Bristol, in order to seize this ship for the purpose of their voyage to Ireland. Perhaps they had, wittingly or unwittingly, allowed their purpose of appealing to arms to [Sidenote: Ealdred sent to overtake them.] become known. This would be the only excuse for an act on the King’s part, which, in any other case, would be one of the most monstrous and unprovoked breaches of faith on record. It is not likely that the five days, which had been allowed the outlaws to leave the country, were yet passed. Harold and Leofwine would be sure to make better speed than that. Yet Bishop Ealdred, whose diocese of Worcester then took in the town of Bristol, was sent after them from London with a party to overtake them, if possible, before they got on ship-board. But the Bishop and his company were not zealous on an errand which had at least the appearance of shameless perfidy. They failed to overtake the fugitives; “they could not or they would not,” says the Chronicler.[471] Harold and [Sidenote: They escape, reach Ireland, and are well received by King Diarmid.] Leofwine reached Bristol in safety. They went on board Swegen’s ship; stress of weather kept them for a while at the mouth of the Avon, but a favourable wind presently carried them to Ireland.[472] They were there favourably received by Dermot or Diarmid Mac Mael-na-mbo, King of Dublin and Leinster.[473] He was a prince of native Irish descent, who had lately obtained possession of the Danish [Sidenote: 1050.] district round Dublin, and whose authority seems to have been recognized by the Danes as well as by the Irish.[474] In such a state of things it would not be difficult to find bold spirits ready for any adventure, and a King whose position must have been somewhat precarious would doubtless welcome any chance of getting rid of some of them. Diarmid gave Harold and Leofwine as kind a reception at Dublin as the rest of the family had found from Baldwin at Bruges, and they stayed at his court through the whole winter, plotting schemes of vengeance.

[Sidenote: The Lady Eadgyth sent to the Abbey of Wherwell.]

One member only of the family of Godwine still remained to be disposed of. What had been the position or the feelings of Eadgyth during the scenes which have been just described we have no means of knowing; but she too was doomed to have her share in the misfortunes of her father’s house. The English Lady, the daughter of Godwine, could not be allowed to share the honours of royalty, now that all her kinsfolk were driven from the land,[475] now that the reign of the Normans was about to set in. The language of one contemporary authority seems almost to imply an actual divorce, of which Archbishop Robert was of course the main instigator.[476] The lawfulness or possibility of divorce in such a case might form a curious subject of speculation for those who are learned in the Canon Law. Eadward consented, perhaps willingly, to the separation; he allowed the Lady to be deprived of all her goods, real and personal;[477] but he interfered at least to save her from personal ignominy. Eadgyth was sent, with no lack of respect or royal attendance,[478] to the royal monastery of Wherwell,[479] and was there entrusted to the safe keeping of the Abbess. This Abbess was a sister of the King,[480] no doubt one of the daughters of Æthelred by his first wife. One of the widows of the slain and banished Earls, the relict of the traitor Eadric or of the hero Ulfcytel,[481] had taken the veil in the holy house of Eadgar and Ælfthryth,[482] and she could there confer with her guest on the uncertainty of human happiness and the emptiness of human greatness.

[Sidenote: General character of the story; its difficulties.]

The whole of this history of the fall of Godwine is most remarkable; and it is singular that, though it is told in great detail in three distinct accounts, so much still remains which is far from intelligible. The first point which at once strikes us is the strength of Godwine in the Gemót of Gloucester and his weakness in the Gemót of London. Next year indeed we shall see the tide turn yet again; we shall behold Godwine return in triumph with the good will of all England. This is of course no difficulty; it would be no difficulty, even if popular feeling had been thoroughly against Godwine during the former year. Englishmen welcomed Godwine back again, because they had learned what it was to be without him. But the change of Godwine’s position during that eventful September of which we have just gone through the history is certainly perplexing. At Beverstone and at Gloucester he appears at the head of the whole force of Wessex, East-Anglia, and part of Mercia. All are zealous in his cause, ready, if need be, to fight in his quarrel against the King himself. He is clearly not without well-wishers even in the ranks of the Northern [Sidenote: Sudden collapse of the power of Godwine.] Earldoms. A compromise is brought about in which his honour is carefully guarded, and in which his party and the King’s are studiously put on equal terms. In the London Gemót, a few weeks later, all is changed. His followers gradually drop away from him; he does not venture to take his place in the Assembly which he had so often swayed at his pleasure; he is dealt with as an accused, almost as a convicted, criminal; he is subjected with impunity to every sort of unjust and irritating treatment; and he is at last driven to flee from the land, without a blow being struck, almost without a voice being raised, in his behalf. Such a falling away is difficult to understand; it is hard to see how Godwine could have given fresh offence to any one in the time between the conference at Gloucester and his appearance at Southwark. Norman flatterers and talebearers may have fanned the King’s prejudice against him into a still hotter flame; but there is at first sight nothing to account for the desertion [Sidenote: Position of the Northern Earls.] of his own followers. As for the Northern Earls and their followers, they had no ground of jealousy against Godwine in London which they had not equally at Gloucester; and at Gloucester they clearly were not disposed to push matters to extremities. Still it was clearly the number and strength of the following of Siward and Leofric in the London Gemót which decided the day against Godwine. The Earl of the West-Saxons was entrapped. He and his party came as to a peaceful assembly, and they found the King and his foreign followers bent on their destruction, and a powerful military force assembled to crush them. But why did even Siward lend himself to a scheme like this? Why, still more, did Leofric forsake the part, which he had so often and so worthily played, of mediator between extreme parties? Unless we are to suppose, which one would not willingly do, that Leofric was won by the bait of Harold’s Earldom for his son, we can only suppose that a mistaken feeling of loyalty hindered him from opposing a project on which he saw that the King was fully bent. It is in his position and that of Siward that the main difficulty lies. When Godwine found himself face to face with all the strength of Northern England, the rest of the story [Sidenote: Explanation of Godwine’s position and conduct.] becomes more intelligible. He had come expecting a fair discussion of all the questions at issue. But fair discussion was not to be had amid the clash of the axes of Siward’s Danes and of the lances of Ralph’s Frenchmen. Godwine had really no choice but to fight or to yield. Had he chosen to fight, the whole force of Wessex and East-Anglia would no doubt soon have been again at his command. But he shrank from a civil war; he saw that it was better policy to bide his time, to yield, even to flee, certain that a revulsion of national feeling would soon demand his recall. Such a course was doubtless wise and patriotic; but it was not one which would be at the time either acceptable or intelligible to the mass of his followers. If he meant to resist, he should doubtless have resisted at once; the hopes of an insurrection always lie in promptness and energy; every hour of delay only adds to the strength of the other side. We can thus understand how men began to fall off from a chief who, it might be said, dared not meet his sovereign either in arms or in council. Still, after all, there is something [Sidenote: His complete and sudden fall.] strange in the details of the story. There is something amazing in so sudden and so utter a fall, not only from the general exaltation of himself and his family, but from the proud and threatening position which he had so lately [Sidenote: Impression on his contemporaries.] held at Beverstone and Gloucester. It is not wonderful that Godwine’s fall from such an unparalleled height of greatness made a deep impression on the minds of the men of his own age. The Biographer of Eadward, who had before likened the children of Godwine to the rivers of Paradise,[483] now deems it a fitting occasion to call upon his Muse to set forth the sufferings of the innocent, and to compare the outlawed Earl to Susanna, Joseph, and other ancient victims of slander.[484] The plain English of the Chronicler who is less strongly committed to Godwine’s cause speaks more directly to the heart; “That would have seemed wonderful to ilk man that in England was, if any man ere that had said that so it should be. For that ere that he was so upheaven, so that he wielded the King and all England, and his sons were Earls and the King’s darlings, and his daughter to the King wedded and married.”[485] He fell from his high estate; but in his fall he doubtless foresaw that the day of his restoration was not far distant. Another Gemót of London was soon to repeal the unrighteous vote of its predecessor; the champion of England was to return for a moment to his old honours and his old power, and then to hand them on to a son even more worthy of them than himself.

[Sidenote: Complete temporary triumph of the Norman party. October 1051—September 1052.]

But for the moment the overthrow of the patriotic leaders was complete. The dominion of the strangers over the mind of the feeble King was fully assured. The Norman Conquest, in short, might now seem to have more than begun. Honours and offices were of course divided among the foreigners and among those Englishmen who had stood on the King’s side. Through the banishment of Godwine and his sons three great Earldoms were vacant. No one Earl of the West-Saxons seems to have been appointed. Probably, as in the early days of Cnut,[486] the Imperial Kingdom, or at least its greater portion, was again put [Sidenote: Partition of honours among the King’s friends.] under the immediate government of the Crown. The anomalous Earldom of Swegen was dismembered. The [Sidenote: Ralph;] King’s nephew Ralph seems to have been again invested with the government of its Mercian portions.[487] Of the two West-Saxon shires held by Swegen, Berkshire is not [Sidenote: Odda;] mentioned, but Somersetshire was joined with the other western parts of Wessex to form a new government under Odda, a kinsman of the King’s.[488] His Earldom took in the whole of the ancient _Wealhcyn_, but it is now Cornwall only which is distinguished as Welsh. The policy of Æthelstan[489] had been effectual, and no part of the land east of the Tamar is now recognized as a foreign land. Odda was a special favourite of the monks, and is spoken of as a man of good and clean life, who in the end became a monk himself.[490] The third Earldom, that of East-Anglia, [Sidenote: Ælfgar.] hitherto held by Harold, was bestowed on Ælfgar, the son of Leofric,[491] of whom we hear for the first time during these commotions. He had himself, it would seem, played a prominent part in them,[492] and one would wish to believe that his promotion was the reward of acts of his own, rather than of his father’s seeming desertion of the patriotic [Sidenote: Spearhafoc deposed,] cause. Among churchmen, Spearhafoc, who had throughout the summer and autumn held the see of London without consecration,[493] had now to give up his doubtful possession. [Sidenote: and William made Bishop of London. 1051.] The Bishoprick was then given to a Norman named William, a chaplain of the King’s.[494] A man might now go from the Straits of Dover to the Humber, over Kentish, East-Saxon, and Danish ground, without once, in the course of his journey, going out of the spiritual jurisdiction of Norman Prelates. It is due however to Bishop William to say that he bears a very different character in our history from either his Metropolitan Robert or his fellow-suffragan Ulf. Banished for a while, he was restored when the patriotic party was in the height of its power—a distinct witness in his favour, perhaps a witness against his English competitor.[495] William kept his Bishoprick for many years, and lived to welcome his namesake and native prince to the throne of England. But he had not to wait for so distant an opportunity of displaying his new honours [Sidenote: Visit of Duke William to England. 1051.] in the eyes of his natural sovereign. While Godwine dwelt as an exile at Bruges, while Harold was planning schemes of vengeance in the friendly court of Dublin, William the Bastard first set foot on the shores of England.[496]

We are thus at last brought face to face with the two great actors in our history. Harold has already appeared before us. We have seen him raised at an early age to the highest rank open to a subject; we have seen him, in the cause of his country, deprived of his honours and driven to take refuge in a foreign land. His great rival we have as yet heard of only at a distance; he now comes directly on the field. There can be no doubt that William’s visit to England forms a stage, and a most important one, among the immediate causes of the Norman Conquest. I pause then, at this point, to take up the thread of Norman history, and to give a sketch of the birth, the childhood, the early reign, of the man who, in the year of Godwine’s banishment, saw, for the first time, the land which, fifteen years later, he was to claim as his own.

[Illustration: NORMANDY AND THE NEIGHBOURING STATES.]

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