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.]