In the course of this year, seemingly at a Gemót held at Midsummer,

possibly that in which the expedition [Sidenote: State of the

succession. 1054.] against Macbeth was decreed,[1090] a most important

step was taken with regard to the succession to the Crown. It was a step

which proved altogether fruitless, but it is most important as showing

what men’s feelings and wishes were at the time. It proves incontestably

that now, two years after the return of Godwine, the idea of the

succession of William had quite passed away, and that the idea of the

succession of Harold had not yet occurred to men’s minds. The state of

the royal house was such as to cause the deepest anxiety. The English

people, though they cared little for any strict law of succession, still

reverenced the blood of their ancient princes, and had ever been wont,

save under the irresistible pressure of foreign conquest, to choose

their Kings only from among the descendants of former Kings. But now the

line of their former Kings seemed to be altogether dying out. Eadward

was without children or hopes of children. There was no man in the land

sprung from the male line of Æthelred and Eadgar. It is quite possible

that there may have been men descended from earlier Kings; but, if so,

they could only have been distant kinsmen, whose royal descent was well

nigh forgotten, and who were no longer allowed to count as Æthelings.

There was indeed a grandson of Æthelred dwelling in the Kingdom in the

person of Ralph of Hereford. [Sidenote: Position of Ralph.] Ralph would

very likely have been the successor to whom Eadward’s personal

inclinations would have led him. He shared with William of Normandy the

merit of being a stranger speaking the French tongue, and he had the

advantage over William of being really a descendant of English royalty.

And the tie which bound Ralph to Eadward was a very close one. Old

Teutonic feelings held the son of a sister to be hardly less near and

dear than a son of one’s own loins,[1091] and we have seen some

indications that this feeling was not wholly forgotten in England in the

eleventh century. The sister’s son of Brihtnoth and the sister’s son of

Siward[1092] are mentioned in a special way among the chosen companions

of their uncles, around whose banners they fought and died. Eadward, in

his heart of hearts, would naturally fall back upon Ralph, his own

nephew, the son of the daughter of Æthelred and Emma, as a candidate

whom the English people might perhaps be persuaded to accept, when the

cause of the Norman became hopeless after Godwine’s revolution.

[Sidenote: No preference given by female descent.] But however sacred

was the relation between a man and his sister’s son, it was not one

which by the Law of England conferred any right to the royal succession.

The preference attaching to kingly blood was confined to those who were

of kingly blood by direct male descent; it does not appear that the son

of a King’s daughter had any sort of claim in a royal election beyond

any other man in the realm. And, as for Ralph himself, his foreign

origin and his personal conduct were, either of them, quite enough to

make him thoroughly distasteful to the English people. Men had had quite

enough of him as Earl, and they certainly had no wish to have any

further experience of him as King. In the present lack of heirs, men’s

thoughts turned to a branch of the royal family whose very existence

[Sidenote: The sons of Eadmund Ironside.] was perhaps well nigh

forgotten. Seven and thirty years before, the infant sons of Eadmund

Ironside, Eadmund and [Sidenote: 1017.] Eadward, had found a shelter

from the fears of Cnut under the protection of the sainted Hungarian

King Stephen.[1093] [Sidenote: Eadward the Ætheling; his marriage and

children.] Eadmund died, seemingly while still young. Eadward was still

living. He had, seemingly through the influence of Stephen’s Queen

Gisela, sister of the Emperor Henry the Second, obtained in marriage a

lady of royal descent named Agatha, who seems most probably to have been

a niece of the Hungarian Queen and of the sainted Emperor.[1094] This

marriage would seem to show that, in those distant lands, Eadward was

acknowledged as a prince, perhaps looked to as one who might some day

reign in his native island. And the fact that the son of Eadward and

Agatha bore the renowned English name of Eadgar, shows that the Ætheling

himself cannot have wholly forgotten his native land. Yet, banished, as

he was, in his cradle, he could have retained hardly anything of the

feelings of an Englishman, and it is hardly possible that he could have

spoken the English tongue. Eadward must have been even less of an

Englishman than his royal namesake and uncle. Eadward the King had left

England when he was many years older than Eadward the Ætheling, and he

had lived in a land which had a much closer connexion with England.

Still Normandy was dangerous, and Hungary was not. Whatever the Ætheling

was, at least he was not a Frenchman; his connexions, though foreign,

were in every way honourable and in no way formidable. Hungary was too

distant a land to do England either good or harm, but the fame of the

youngest Christian Kingdom, and of its renowned and sainted King, was

doubtless great throughout Europe. And the connexion with the Imperial

House, the distant kindred of the Ætheling’s children with the

illustrious Cæsar, the friend and brother-in-law of King Eadward, was,

of all foreign ties, that which it most became Englishmen to strengthen.

In default therefore of any member of the royal house brought up and

dwelling in the land, it was determined to recall the banished Ætheling

with his wife and family.[1095] Besides his son Eadgar, he had two

daughters, who bore the foreign names of Margaret and Christina. We

shall hear of all [Sidenote: Eadgar.] three again. Eadgar lived to be in

an especial manner the sport of fortune; a King twice chosen, but never

crowned, the last male descendant of Cerdic dragged on a sluggish and

contented life as the friend and pensioner [Sidenote: Margaret.] of

Norman patrons. One of his sisters won a worthier fame. Margaret

obtained the honours alike of royalty and of saintship; she became one

of the brightest patterns of every virtue in her own time, and she

became the source through which the blood and the rights of the Imperial

House of Wessex have passed to the Angevin, the Scottish, and the German

sovereigns of England.[1096]

It is impossible to doubt that the resolution to invite the Ætheling was

regularly passed by the authority of the King and his Witan. No lighter

authority could have justified such a step, or could have carried any

weight with [Sidenote: The Ætheling invited to England: the invitation

equivalent to succession to the Crown.] foreign courts. Such an

invitation was equivalent to declaring the Ætheling to be successor to

the Crown, so far as English Law allowed any man to be successor before

the Crown was actually vacant. It is possible that, as in some other

cases, an election before the vacancy may have been attempted;[1097] but

it is perhaps more likely that all that was done was to guarantee to

Eadward that same strong preference which naturally belonged only to a

son of a reigning King. Such a preference, in favour of one who was the

last remaining member of the royal family, would in practice hardly

differ from an exclusive right. The resolution in short placed the

Ætheling in the same position as if his father and not his uncle had

been on the throne. His position would thus be the same as that of

Eadwig and Eadgar during the reign of Eadred.[1098] But, when we

consider what followed, it is important to remember that the preference

which undoubtedly belonged to Eadward would not belong to his son.

Eadward, though so long an exile, was an Englishman born, the son of a

crowned King and his Lady.[1099] The young Eadgar was a native of a

foreign land, and was not the son of [Sidenote: Import of the selection

of Eadward.] royal parents. This _quasi_ designation of Eadward to the

Crown involves, as I before said, two things. It implies that the King

had learned that the succession of William was a thing which he never

could bring about.[1100] It implies also that neither Harold himself nor

the English people had as yet formed any serious idea of the possible

succession of one not of royal descent. Indeed one can hardly doubt that

the resolution to send for the Ætheling, if it was not made at Harold’s

own motion, must at any rate have had his full approval. No proposal

could be more contrary to the wishes and interests of the Norman

courtiers, who must either have unsuccessfully opposed it or else have

found it their best wisdom to hold their peace. It was therefore,

seemingly at the Whitsun Gemót, resolved to send an embassy to obtain

the return of the Ætheling. And about the time that Earl Siward was

warring in Scotland, the English ambassadors set forth on their errand.

[Sidenote: Embassy to the Emperor Henry. July, 1054.]

A direct communication with the court of Hungary seems to have been an

achievement beyond the diplomatic powers of Englishmen in that age. The

immediate commission of the embassy was addressed to the Emperor Henry,

with a request that he would himself send a further [Sidenote: Ealdred

and Ælfwine ambassadors.] embassy into Hungary. At the head of the

English legation was the indefatigable Bishop Ealdred, and with him

seems to have been coupled Abbot Ælfwine of Ramsey.[1101] Both these

Prelates had already had some experience of foreign courts. Ealdred had

gone on the King’s errand to the Apostolic throne,[1102] and Ælfwine had

been one of the representatives of the English Church at the famous

Council of Rheims.[1103] The Bishop of Worcester clearly reckoned on a

long absence, and we get some details of the arrangements which he made

for the discharge of his ecclesiastical duties during his absence. The

Abbey of Winchcombe, which he had annexed to his Bishoprick the year

before, he now resigned,[1104] and the general government of the see of

Worcester he entrusted to a monk of Evesham named Æthelwig.[1105] The

church of that famous monastery, raised by the skill of its Abbot

Mannig,[1106] was now awaiting consecration. For that ceremony he

deputed his neighbour Bishop Leofwine of Lichfield.[1107] He then set

forth for the court of Augustus. The Emperor was then at Köln, on his

return from the consecration of his young son Henry as West-Frankish or

Roman King in the Great Charles’s minster at Aachen.[1108] The immediate

tie between Eadward and Henry had been broken by the death of Queen

Gunhild; the King who was now to be crowned was the child of Henry’s

second wife, the Empress Agnes of Poitiers.[1109] But the interchange of

gifts and honours between the Roman and the insular [Sidenote: Splendid

reception given to Ealdred.] Basileus was none the less cordial and

magnificent. English writers dwell with evident pleasure on the splendid

reception which the English Bishop met with both from the Emperor and

from Hermann, the Archbishop of the [Sidenote: His long stay at Köln.

1054–1055.] city where Ealdred had been presented to Henry.[1110] But

the immediate business of his embassy advanced but slowly. The time was

ill chosen for an Imperial intervention with the Hungarian court.

Andrew, the reigning King of Hungary, was about this time abetting the

rebellious Duke Conrad of Bavaria against the Emperor.[1111] We have no

details of the further course of the negotiation. Ealdred abode a whole

year at Köln, probably waiting for a favourable opportunity. His embassy

was in the end successful; for the Ætheling did in the end return to

England. But we have no further details, and Eadward did not return to

England till long after Ealdred had gone back, and till at least a year

after the death of the Emperor.

[Sidenote: Death of Osgod Clapa. 1054.]

The year of Ealdred’s mission was marked also by the sudden death of a

somewhat remarkable person, namely Osgod Clapa, whose movements by sea

had been watched with such care five years before.[1112] The Chronicler

remarks, seemingly with some little astonishment, that he died in

[Sidenote: Death of Earl Siward. 1055.] his bed.[1113] Early in the next

year death carried off a far more famous man, no other than the great

Earl of the Northumbrians.[1114] The victory of the last year, glorious

as it was, had been bought by the bitterest domestic losses, which may

not have been without their effect even on the iron spirit and frame of

the old Earl. His nephew and his elder son had fallen in the war with

Macbeth, and [Sidenote: His son WALTHEOF.] his only surviving son,

afterwards the famous Waltheof, was still a child.[1115] Siward’s first

wife Æthelflæd was dead, and he had in his old age married, and

survived, a widow named Godgifu.[1116] We might have fancied that

Waltheof was her son, but we know for certain that he was the son of the

daughter of the old Northumbrian Earls, and that he unhappily inherited

all the deadly feuds of his mother’s house.[1117] Siward died at York,

the capital of his Earldom. [Sidenote: Story of Siward’s death.] A tale,

characteristic at least, whether historically true or not, told how the

stern Danish warrior, when he felt death approaching, deemed it a

disgrace that he should die, not on the field of battle, but of disease,

“like a cow.” If he could not actually die amid the clash of arms, he

would at least die in warrior’s garb. He called for his armour, and,

harnessed as if again to march against Macbeth, the stout [Sidenote: His

foundation and burial at Galmanho.] Earl Siward breathed his last.[1118]

But this fierce spirit was not inconsistent with the piety of the time.

Saint Olaf, the martyred King of the Northmen, had by this time become a

favourite object of reverence, especially among men of Scandinavian

descent. In his honour Earl Siward had reared a church in a suburb of

his capital called Galmanho,[1119] a church which, after the Norman

Conquest, developed into that great Abbey of Saint Mary, whose ruins

form the most truly beautiful ornament of the Northern metropolis. In

his own church of Galmanho Siward the Strong, the true relic of old

Scandinavian times, was buried with all honour.

The death of Siward led to most important political consequences. The

direct authority of the House of Godwine was now, for the first time,

extended to the land beyond the Humber. This fact marks very forcibly

how fully the royal authority was now acknowledged throughout the whole

realm. The King and his Witan could now venture to appoint as the

successor of Siward an Earl who had absolutely no connexion with any of

the great families of Northumberland. Cnut, in the moment of victory,

had given the Northumbrians the Dane Eric as their Earl.[1120] But this

was the act of a conqueror, and such was the strength of the Danish

element in Northumberland that the appointment of a Dane from Denmark

probably seemed less irksome than the appointment of an Englishman from

any [Sidenote: TOSTIG appointed Earl of the Northumbrians. 1055.] other

part of the Kingdom. This last was the act, one wholly without a

parallel, on which Eadward now ventured. The vacant Earldom of

Northumberland, including also the detached shires of Northampton and

Huntingdon,[1121] was [Sidenote: Influences on behalf of Tostig.]

conferred on Tostig the son of Godwine. The novelty of the step is

perhaps marked by the elaborate description of the influences which were

brought to bear on the mind of Eadward to induce him to make the

appointment. We hear, not only of Tostig’s own merits, but of the

influence employed by his many friends, especially by his sister the

Lady Eadgyth and by his brother Earl Harold, whom Norman calumny has

represented as depriving Tostig of his hereditary rights.[1122] We may

suspect that we have here an account of influences which it was more

necessary to bring to bear on the minds of the Witan than on that of the

King.[1123] For there is no appointment of Eadward’s reign which is more

likely to have been the King’s personal act. Tostig, rather than Harold,

was Eadward’s personal [Sidenote: Eadward’s personal affection for

Tostig.] favourite. He was the Hêphaistiôn, the friend of Eadward, while

Harold was rather the Krateros, the friend of the King.[1124] He also

stood higher in the good will of their common sister the Lady Eadgyth.

Cut off in a great measure from his Norman favourites, the affections of

Eadward had settled themselves on the third son of Godwine. He would

therefore naturally desire to raise Tostig to the highest dignities in

his gift, or, if he felt hesitation in doing so, it could only be from

the wish to keep his favourite always about his own person. In fact we

shall find that Eadward could not bring himself to give up the society

of Tostig to the degree which the interests of his distant Earldom

called for. And this frequent absence of the Earl from his government

seems to have been among the causes of the misfortunes which afterwards

followed.[1125]

[Sidenote: Novelty of a West-Saxon Earl in Northumberland.]

This appointment of a West-Saxon to the great Northern Earldom was, as I

have already implied, a distinct novelty. Ever since Northumberland had

ceased to be ruled by Kings of her own, she had been ruled by Earls

chosen from among her own people. The ancient Kingdom had sometimes been

placed under one, sometimes under two, chiefs; but they had always been

native chiefs. The rule of the stranger Eric had been short, and he

seems to have allowed the line of the ancient princes to retain at least

a subordinate authority.[1126] Siward, a stranger by birth, was

connected with the ancient family by marriage.[1127] And both Eric and

Siward were Danes; Tostig came of a line which most probably sprang from

the most purely Saxon part of England. The experiment was a hazardous

one, yet it was one which was not only dictated by sound policy, but

which circumstances made almost unavoidable. The [Sidenote: Mode of

appointment to the great Earldoms.] great Earldoms, I may again repeat,

were neither strictly hereditary nor strictly elective. They were in the

gift of the King and his Witan, but there was always a strong tendency,

just as in the case of the Kingdom itself, to choose out of the family

of the deceased Earl, whenever [Sidenote: Impossibility of appointing a

native Earl on the death of Siward.] there was no obvious reason to do

otherwise. But on the death of Siward there was such an obvious reason

to do otherwise, just as there was in the case of the Kingdom when it

became vacant by the death of Eadward. The eldest son of Siward had

fallen in the Scottish war, and the one survivor of his house was still

a child.[1128] Oswulf, seemingly the only male representative of the

ancient Earls,[1129] was probably still a mere boy.[1130] There was

therefore no available candidate of the old princely line. And, when we

think of the state of the country, of the deadly feuds and jealousies

which prevailed even between the reigning Earls and other powerful

men,[1131] we shall see that the nomination of any private Northumbrian

would have been a still more hazardous experiment than the nomination of

a stranger. The Northumbrians themselves seem to have felt this, when,

ten years later, the choice of their Earl was thrown into their own

hands. They then chose, [Sidenote: Doubtful policy of the appointment of

Tostig.] not a Northumbrian, but a Mercian. But it may well be doubted

whether it was good policy to appoint a West-Saxon, and especially a

member of the House of Godwine. This was perhaps going too far in the

way of reminding the proud Danes of the North of their subjection to the

Southern King. It could not fail to suggest the idea of an intention to

monopolize all honours and all authority in a single family. And, as

events showed, the personal character of Tostig proved unfitted

successfully to grapple with the difficult task which was now thrown

upon him.

[Sidenote: Character of Tostig.]

In weighing the character of the third son of Godwine, we must be on our

guard against several distinct sources of error. We are at first tempted

to condemn without mercy one who became the antagonist of his nobler

brother, who waged open war with his country, and whose invasion of

England, by acting as a diversion in William’s favour, was one main

cause of the success of William’s expedition. We read the account of his

crimes as set forth by his Northumbrian enemies, and we think that no

punishment could be too heavy for the man who wrought them. On the other

hand, though Tostig, as an adversary of Harold, comes in for a certain

slight amount of Norman favour, there was also a temptation, which for

the most part was found irresistibly strong, to blacken both sons of the

[Sidenote: Legends of Harold and Tostig.] Traitor equally. The

opposition between Harold and Tostig during the last two years of their

joint lives has thus supplied the materials for a heap of legends of

revolting absurdity. The two brothers, who clearly acted together up to

those two last years, are described as being full of the most bitter

mutual rivalry and hatred, even from their childhood.[1132] The effect

of these two different pictures is that both admirers and depreciators

of Harold are alike led to look on the acts of Tostig in the most

unfavourable light. The crimes of his later years cannot be denied. He

died a traitor, in arms against his country, engaged in an act of

treason compared to which Harold’s ravages at Porlock, and even Ælfgar’s

alliance with Gruffydd, sink into insignificance. His Northumbrian

government too was evidently stained with great errors, seemingly with

great crimes. But it is remarkable that it is not till the last two

years of his life that we hear of anything which puts him in an

unfavourable light. And there is nothing in his few recorded earlier

actions which is at all inconsistent with the generally high character

[Sidenote: Witness of the Biographer of Eadward.] given of him by the

biographer of Eadward. That writer compares him with Harold in an

elaborate picture of the two which I have already made large use of in

describing Harold. And it is clear that, whether from his own actual

convictions or from a wish to please his patroness the Lady Eadgyth, it

is Tostig rather than Harold whose partizan he is to be reckoned, and it

is Tostig whose actions he is most anxious to put in a favourable light.

But the two are the two noblest of mortals; no land, no age, ever

brought forth two such men at the same time. He makes a comparison of

virtues between the two, but he hardly ventures to make the balance

decidedly weigh in [Sidenote: His description of Tostig.] favour of

either. In person Tostig was of smaller stature than his elder brother,

but in strength and daring he was his equal.[1133] But he seems to have

lacked all Harold’s winning and popular qualities. He is set before us

as a man of strong will, of stern and inflexible purpose, faithful to

his promise, grave, reserved, admitting few or none to share his

counsels, so that he often surprised men by the suddenness [Sidenote:

His stern and unyielding character.] of his actions.[1134] His zeal

against wrong-doers, the virtue of the ruler for which his father and

brother are so loudly extolled, amounted in him to a passion which

carried him beyond the bounds of justice and honour.[1135] The whole

picture describes him as a man of honest and upright intentions, but of

an unbending sternness which must have formed a marked contrast to the

frank and conciliatory disposition of his brother. Such a man, placed as

a ruler over a turbulent and refractory people, might, almost

unconsciously, degenerate into a cruel tyrant. [Sidenote: Disturbed

state of Northumberland.] Northumberland, we are told, was, at the time

when he undertook its government, in a state to which it is impossible

to believe that either Normandy or southern England afforded any

likeness. Siward’s strong arm had done something to bring its turbulent

inhabitants into order; yet thieves and murderers still had so

completely the upper hand that travellers had to go in parties of

[Sidenote: Tostig’s effort to restore order.] twenty and thirty, and

even then were hardly safe.[1136] Tostig set himself vigorously,

evidently too vigorously, to work to put an end to this state of things.

His severity was merciless and impartial; death and mutilation were

freely dispensed among all disturbers of public order. His efforts, we

are told, were effectual; it is said, in a proverbial form of speech,

that under his administration, any man could safely travel through the

whole land with all his goods.[1137] Even powerful Thegns were not

spared, and here comes the point in which Tostig most deeply erred.

Putting our various accounts together, we shall find that, when

offenders were too powerful to be reached by the arm of the law, Tostig

did not scruple to rid the land of them [Sidenote: Explanation of his

later crimes.] by treacherous assassination. We can well understand that

a man of Tostig’s disposition, bent on bringing his province into order

at any price, may have persuaded himself that the public good was

superior to all other considerations, and may have blinded himself to

the infamy of the means by which the public good was to be compassed.

Very similar conduct in public men of our own day has been condoned by

large bodies of men, and by some has even been warmly applauded. The

unswerving dictate of justice is that he who, in any age, sheds blood

without sentence of law, deserves the heaviest condemnation and the

heaviest punishment. Still such conduct does not necessarily imply any

original corruption of heart in the offender. Tostig richly deserved all

that afterwards fell upon him. Like most sinners, he went on from bad to

worse; but there is no reason to believe that he undertook the

government of Northumberland with any less sincere intention of doing

his duty there than Harold had when he undertook the government of

Wessex. Tostig in the end became a great criminal; but he clearly was

not a monster or a villain from the beginning of his career.

[Sidenote: His personal favour with Eadward.]

The strange thing is that a man of this disposition, whose virtues were

all of the sterner sort, should have become a personal favourite with a

feeble King like Eadward. One may perhaps explain it by the principle

which often makes men, both in love and in friendship, prefer those who

are most unlike themselves. A man like Eadward would cling to a man like

Tostig as his natural protector, and, after all, weak as Eadward was,

there were elements in his character to which the extreme severity of

Tostig would not be unacceptable or even unlike. The King who had

commanded Godwine to march against the untried citizens of Dover would

not be likely to condemn the harshness of Tostig’s rule in [Sidenote:

Tostig’s personal virtues.] Northumberland. And there were other points

in Tostig’s character which would naturally and rightly commend him to

the favour of the saintly King. Tostig, like William, practised some

virtues which Harold neglected. While Harold’s affections seem to have

dwelt wholly on an English mistress, Tostig set an example of strict

fidelity to his foreign wife.[1138] The husband of Judith would thus on

every ground be more acceptable to Eadward than the lover of Eadgyth.

Tostig too was of a bountiful disposition, and Judith, who was a devout

woman, directed a large share of his bounty to pious objects.[1139]

Through all these causes Tostig easily won the highest place in the

affection of his royal brother-in-law. With his sister the Lady he stood

only too well. There is too much reason to fear that Eadgyth did not

scruple to become something more than the accomplice of one of his worst

deeds.[1140]

Such was the man to whom, probably at about the age of thirty-two,[1141]

was entrusted the rule of the ancient realm beyond the Humber. The

general picture of his government I have already given; but for nine

years no domestic details are supplied. We shall find him, like his

brother, making the fashionable pilgrimage to Rome, and aiding his

brother in his wars with the Welsh. Notwithstanding Norman legends,

there is, at this stage of their history, not the slightest sign of any

dissension between them.

[Sidenote: Tostig becomes the sworn brother of Malcolm. 1055–1061.]

One fact however we learn quite incidentally which touches, not indeed

the internal administration of his Earldom, but the measures taken at

once for its external defence, and for the maintenance of the supremacy

of the Imperial Crown over the great Northern dependency of England. At

some time during the first six years of his government, Earl Tostig

became the sworn brother of Malcolm, the restored King of Scots.[1142]

This was a tie by which reconciled enemies often sought to bind one

another to special friendship. It was the tie by which Cnut had been

bound to Eadmund,[1143] and by which Tostig’s predecessor Ealdred had

been bound to the faithless Carl.[1144] But there is nothing to show

that the establishment of this tie between Tostig and Malcolm [Sidenote:

Probable reference of the engagement to the war with Macbeth.] had been

preceded by any hostilities between them. It is far more probable,

considering the date of Tostig’s appointment to his Earldom, that the

engagement took place early in Tostig’s government, and that it was made

with a view to the joint prosecution of hostilities against a common

enemy. When Tostig succeeded Siward, Malcolm was still struggling for

his crown against Macbeth, and we cannot doubt that Tostig continued to

support the man of King Eadward against the usurper.[1145] Then

doubtless it was that the King of Scots and the Earl of the

Northumbrians entered into this close mutual relation. But the tie of

sworn brotherhood was one which was seldom found strong enough to bind

the turbulent spirits of those times. It sat almost as lightly on the

conscience of Malcolm as it had sat on the conscience of Carl. The

engagement was observed as long as it happened to be convenient, and no

longer. While Tostig was the guardian of the English border, Malcolm’s

brotherhood with Tostig did not hinder him from violating the frontiers

of Tostig’s Earldom. When Tostig was an exile in arms against his

country, the tie was remembered, and it procured him a warm welcome at

the Scottish Court.

[Sidenote: Ælfgar banished. March 20, 1055.]

The appointment of Tostig to the Earldom must have been made in the

Gemót which was held in London in the Lent of this year.[1146] In the

same Assembly, Ælfgar, Earl of the East-Angles, was banished. The

accounts which we have of this transaction are not very intelligible.

The fullest narrative that we have, that of the Chronicler who is most

distinctly a partizan of Harold’s, tells us that he was charged with

treason towards the King and all his people, and that he publicly

confessed his guilt, though the confession escaped him unawares.[1147]

The other accounts are satisfied with saying that he was guiltless or

nearly guiltless.[1148] With such evidence as this, we are not in a

position to determine on the guilt or innocence of Ælfgar. We do not

even know what the treason was with which he was charged. But a charge

to which the accused party, even in a moment of confusion, pleaded

guilty, could hardly have been wholly frivolous on the part of the

accuser. This point is important; for, though we have no direct

statement who the accuser was, the probability is that a charge against

one who stood so high in the rival family could have been brought only

by Harold or by some one acting in his interest. At any rate, if Ælfgar

was not a traitor before his condemnation, he became one speedily after

it. In seeking a forcible restoration, he did but follow the least

justifiable act in the career of his rival. But, if Harold had set a bad

example, Ælfgar improved upon it. Harold had endeavoured to force his

way into the country at the head of mercenaries hired in a foreign land.

But he had not allied himself with the enemies of his country; he had

not carried on a war against England in the interest of an ever restless

foe of England. To this depth of infamy [Sidenote: Ælfgar hires ships in

Ireland,] Ælfgar did not scruple to sink. He went over, as Harold had

done, to Ireland, and gathered a force of eighteen ships, besides the

one in which he had made his own voyage. These ships were doubtless

manned by the Scandinavian settlers in that country.[1149] With this

fleet he sailed to some haven in Wales, probably of North Wales,

[Sidenote: and makes an alliance with Gruffydd.] where he met Gruffydd

and made an alliance with him.[1150] The Welsh Prince was now at the

height of his power. He had this very year overthrown and slain his

South-Welsh rival, Gruffydd the son of Rhydderch.[1151] He seems now to

have been master of the whole Cymrian territory, and, at the head of

such a power, he was more dangerous, and probably more hostile, to

England than ever. Nothing then could be more opportune for his purposes

than the appearance of a banished English Earl at the head of a powerful

force of Irish Danes. Ælfgar at once asked for Gruffydd’s help in a war

to be waged against King Eadward.[1152] The plan of a campaign was

speedily settled. Gruffydd summoned the whole force of the Cymry[1153]

for a great expedition against the Saxons. Ælfgar, with his Irish or

Danish following, was to meet the Welsh King at some point which is not

mentioned, and the combined host was to march on a devastating inroad

into Herefordshire. The plan was successfully carried out, and the

forces of Gruffydd and Ælfgar entered the southern part of the shire,

the district known as Archenfeld, and [Sidenote: Gruffydd and Ælfgar

ravage Herefordshire,] there harried the country. The border land which

they entered was one bound to special service against British enemies.

The Priests of the district had the duty of carrying the King’s messages

into Wales; its militia claimed the right, in any expedition against the

same enemy, to form the van in the march and the rear in the

retreat.[1154] To ravage this warlike district was no doubt a special

object with the Welsh King, one which would be carried out with special

delight. He did his work effectually. The effects of the harrying under

Gruffydd were still to be seen at the time of the Norman survey.[1155]

The work of destruction thus begun seems to have been carried on by

Gruffydd and his allies without opposition, till they came within two

miles of the city of Hereford.[1156] [Sidenote: and meet Earl Ralph near

Hereford. October 24, 1055.] There they were at last met by a large

force under Ralph, the Earl of the country, consisting partly of the

levies of the district, and partly of his own French and Norman

following. Richard the son of Scrob, it will be remembered, was among

the Normans who had been allowed to remain in England,[1157] and no

doubt the forces of Richard’s Castle swelled the army of Ralph. The

timid Earl[1158] thought himself called upon to be a military reformer.

The English, light-armed and heavy-armed alike, were [Sidenote: Ralph

requires the English to fight on horseback.] always accustomed to fight

on foot. The Housecarl, the professional soldier, with his coat of mail

and his battle-axe, and the churl who hastened to defend his field with

nothing but his javelin and his leathern jerkin, alike looked on the

horse only as a means to convey the warrior to and from the field of

battle. The introduction of cavalry into the English armies might

perhaps have been an improvement, but it was an improvement which could

not be carried into effect with a sudden levy within sight of the enemy.

But Ralph despised the English tactics, and would have his army arrayed

according to the best and newest continental models. A French prince

could not condescend to command a host who walked into action on their

own feet, according to the barbarous English fashion. The men of

Herefordshire were therefore required to meet the harassing attacks of

the nimble Welsh, and the more fearful onslaught of Ælfgar’s Danes,

while still [Sidenote: The battle is therefore lost.] mounted on their

horses. The natural consequences followed; before a spear was hurled,

the English took to flight.[1159] Nothing else could have been

reasonably looked for; however strong may have been the hearts of their

riders, horses which had not gone through the necessary training would

naturally turn tail at the unaccustomed sights and sounds of an army in

battle array.[1160] But in one account we find a statement which is far

stranger and more disgraceful. If Ralph required his men to practise an

unusual and foreign tactic, he and his immediate companions should at

least have shown them in their own persons an example of its skilful and

valiant carrying out. But we are told that Ralph, with his French and

Normans, were the first to fly, and that the English in their flight did

but follow the example of their leader.[1161] I suspect some

exaggeration here. Whatever may have been the case with the timid Earl

himself, mere cowardice was certainly not a common Norman, or even

French, failing. For a party of French knights to take to flight on the

field of battle without exchanging a single spear-thrust, is something

almost unheard of. It is far more likely that we have here a little

perversion arising from national dislike. It is far more likely that,

whatever Ralph himself may have done, the Normans in his company were

simply carried away by the inevitable, and therefore in no way

disgraceful, flight of the English. Anyhow, the battle, before it had

begun, was changed into a rout. The enemy pursued. The light-armed and

nimble Welsh were probably well able to overtake the clumsily mounted

English. Four or five hundred were killed, and many more wounded. On the

side of Ælfgar and Gruffydd we are told that not a man was lost.[1162]

[Sidenote: Ælfgar and Gruffydd sack and burn Hereford.]

The Welsh King and the English Earl entered Hereford the same day[1163]

without resistance. The chief object of their wrath seems to have been

the cathedral church of the [Sidenote: Story of Æthelberht of

East-Anglia. 792.] diocese, the minster of Saint Æthelberht. The holy

King of the East-Angles, betrothed to the daughter of the famous Offa,

had come to seek his bride at her father’s court. He was there murdered

by the intrigues of Cynethryth, the wife of the Mercian King.[1164] He

became the local saint of Hereford, and the minster of the city boasted

[Sidenote: Æthelstan, Bishop of Hereford. 1012–1056.] of his relics as

its choicest treasure. That church was now ruled by Æthelstan, an aged

Prelate, who had already sat for forty-three years.[1165] But, for the

last twelve years, blindness had caused him to retire from the active

government of his diocese, which was administered by a Welsh Bishop

named Tremerin.[1166] Æthelstan is spoken of as a man of eminent

holiness, and he had, doubtless in his more active days, rebuilt the

minster of Saint Æthelberht, and enriched it with many ornaments. The

invaders attacked the church with the fury of heathens; indeed among the

followers of Ælfgar there may still have been votaries of Thor and Odin.

Seven of the Canons attempted to defend the great door of the church,

but they were cut down without mercy.[1167] The church was burned, and

all its relics and ornaments were lost. Of the citizens many were slain,

and others were led into captivity.[1168] The whole town was sacked and

set fire to, and the Welsh account specially adds that Gruffydd

destroyed the fort or citadel.[1169] The history which follows seems to

imply that the town itself was not fortified, but merely protected by

this fortress. At its date or character we can only guess. Hereford is

not spoken of among the fortresses raised by Eadward the Elder and his

sister Æthelflæd. It is an obvious conjecture that the fortress

destroyed by Gruffydd was a Norman castle raised by Ralph. A chief who

was so anxious to make his people conform to Norman ways of fighting

would hardly linger behind his neighbour at Richard’s Castle, in at once

providing himself with a dwelling-place, and his capital with a defence,

according to the latest continental patterns. If so, we may easily form

a picture of the Hereford of those days. By the banks of the Wye rose

the minster, low and massive, but crowned by one or more of those tall

slender towers, in which the rude art of English masons strove to

reproduce the campaniles of Northern Italy. Around the church were

gathered the houses of the Bishop, the Canons, the citizens, the last at

least mainly of wood. Over all rose the square mass of the Norman

donjon, an ominous presage of the days which were soon to come. All,

church, castle, houses, fell before the wasting arms of Ælfgar and

Gruffydd. They went away rejoicing in their victory and in the rich

booty which [Sidenote: Deaths of Tremerin, 1055, and Æthelstan, February

10, 1056.] they carried. The blow seems to have broken the hearts of the

two Prelates whose flock suffered so terribly. Tremerin died before the

end of the year, and Æthelstan early in the year following.[1170]

King Eadward was now in his usual winter-quarters at Gloucester. Either

the time of the Christmas Gemót was hastened, or the King, in such an

emergency, acted on his own responsibility. The defence of the country

and the chastisement of the rebels could no longer be left in the hands

of his incapable nephew. The occasion called for the wisest head and the

strongest arm in the whole realm. [Sidenote: Harold sent against the

Welsh.] Though his own government had not been touched, the Earl of the

West-Saxons was bidden to gather a force from all England, and to attack

the Welsh in their own land. It is not unlikely that his brother was, as

in a later war with the same enemy, summoned from Northumberland to his

help.[1171] Late as was the season of the year, [Sidenote: Comparison of

his earlier and later Welsh campaigns.] Harold did not shrink from the

task.[1172] This seems to have been his first experience of Welsh

warfare, and we do not know whether he now adopted those special means

of adapting his operations to the peculiar nature of the country,

[Sidenote: 1063.] which he tried so successfully in his later and more

famous campaign. He then, as we shall see, caused his soldiers to adopt

the light arms and loose array of the Welsh, and so proved more than a

match for them at their own weapons. The story seems rather to imply

that he did not do so on this occasion, and that the later stroke of his

genius was the result of the lessons which he now learned. In neither

case did a Welsh enemy dare to meet Harold in a pitched battle, but

there is a marked difference between the two campaigns; in the earlier

one, the Welsh successfully escaped Harold’s pursuit, while, in the

later one, they were unable to do so. Harold gathered his army at

Gloucester; he passed the Welsh border, and pitched his camp beyond the

border district of Straddele.[1173] But the main point is that Gruffydd

and Ælfgar, who had marched so boldly to the conflict with Ralph,

altogether shrank from giving battle to Harold. They escaped into South

Wales. Harold, finding it vain to pursue such an enemy, desisted from

the attempt. He dismissed the greater part of his army, that is probably

the militia of the shires, merely bidding them keep themselves in

readiness to withstand the enemy in case of [Sidenote: Harold fortifies

Hereford.] any sudden inroad.[1174] With the rest of his troops, that is

probably with his own following, he proceeded to take measures for

securing the important post of Hereford against future attacks. The

castle had been levelled with the ground, the church was a ruin, the

houses of the townsmen were burned. Harold set himself to repair the

mischief, but his notions of defending a city were different from those

of the Frenchman Ralph. The first object of the English Earl was to

secure the town itself, not to provide a stronghold for its governor. It

does not appear that he rebuilt the castle, but he at once supplied the

city itself with the requisite defences. So important a border town was

no longer to be left open to the incursions of every enemy or rebel. As

a military measure, to meet a temporary emergency, he surrounded the

town with a ditch and a strong wall. This wall, in its first estate,

though strengthened by gates and bars, seems to have been itself merely

a dyke of earth and rough stones. But, before the reign of Eadward was

ended, Harold, then Earl of the shire, followed the example of Eadward

at Towcester and Æthelstan at Exeter, and surrounded the town with a

wall of masonry.[1175] The wooden houses of the citizens could soon be

rebuilt. Hereford was soon again peopled with burghers, both within and

without the wall, some of them the men of the King and others the men of

Earl Harold.[1176] The minster had been burned, but we must remember how

laxly that word is often taken. All its woodwork, all its fittings and

ornaments, were of course destroyed, the walls would be blackened and

damaged, but it was capable of at least temporary repair, as Bishop

Æthelstan was buried in it next year.[1177] Under the care of Earl

Harold, Hereford was again a city.

[Sidenote: Peace of Billingsley. 1055.]

Meanwhile Ælfgar and Gruffydd sued for peace. Messages went to and fro,

and at last a conference was held between them and Harold at Billingsley

in Shropshire, a little west of the Severn. Harold was never disposed to

press hardly on an enemy, and he may possibly have felt that he was

himself in some sort the cause of all that had happened, if he had

promoted any ill-considered charges [Sidenote: General mildness of

English political warfare.] against his rival. In fact, rude and

ferocious as those times were in many ways, the struggles of English

political life were then carried on with much greater mildness than they

were in many later generations. Blood was often lightly shed, but it was

hardly ever shed by way of judicial sentence. A victorious party never

sent the vanquished leaders either to a scaffold or to a dungeon.

Banishment was the invariable sentence, and banishment in those days

commonly supplied the means of return. Thus when Gruffydd and Ælfgar

sought for peace, it was easily granted to them; Ælfgar was even

restored to the Earldom which he had forfeited. It was probably thought

that he was less dangerous as Earl of the East-Angles, than as a

banished man who could at any time cause an invasion of the country from

Wales or Ireland. His fleet sailed to Chester, and there awaited the pay

which he had promised the crews.[1178] Whether the payment was defrayed

out of the spoils of [Sidenote: Ælfgar restored to his Earldom.

Christmas, 1055–1056.] Herefordshire we are not told. Ælfgar now came to

the King, and was formally restored to his dignity.[1179] This was done

in the Christmas Gemót, in which we may suppose that the terms of the

peace of Billingsley were formally confirmed.

[Sidenote: Invasion of England by Gruffydd and Magnus. 1056.]

Peace with Gruffydd was easily decreed in words, but it was not so

easily carried out in act. The restless Briton eagerly caught at any

opportunity of carrying his ravages beyond the Saxon border. The Welsh

Annals here fill up a gap in our own, and make the story more

intelligible. With the help of a Scandinavian chief whom it is not easy

to identify, but who is described as Magnus the son of Harold,[1180]

Gruffydd make a new incursion into Herefordshire. We may well believe

that the restoration and fortification of Hereford was felt as a thorn

in his side. This time the defence of the city and shire was not left in

the hands of any Earl, fearful or daring, but fell to one of the

[Sidenote: Death of Bishop Æthelstan. February 10, 1056.] warlike

Prelates in whom that age was so fertile. Bishop Æthelstan, as I have

already said, died early in the year at Bosbury, an episcopal lordship

lying under the western slope of the Malvern Hills.[1181] His burial in

Saint Æthelberht’s minster must have been the first great public

ceremony in the restored city. In the choice of a successor, Eadward, or

rather Harold, was actuated at least as much [Sidenote: Leofgar, Bishop

of Hereford. March 27, 1056.] by military as by ecclesiastical

considerations. The see of the venerable and pious Æthelstan was filled

by a Prelate of whom, during a very short career, we hear only in the

character of a warrior. This was Leofgar, a chaplain of the Earl’s,

whose warlike doings seem to have been commemorated in popular ballads.

He laid aside his chrism and his rood, his ghostly weapons, and took to

his spear and his sword and went forth to the war against Gruffydd the

Welsh King.[1182] But the warfare of this valiant churchman [Sidenote:

His death in battle. June 16, 1056.] was unfortunate. He had not been

three months a Bishop before he was killed, and with him his priests, as

also Ælfnoth the Sheriff[1183] and many other good men. The Chronicler

goes on to complain bitterly of the heavy grievances attending on a

Welsh war. It is clear that the way had not yet been found out how

really to quell the active sons of the mountains, when their spirits

were thoroughly aroused by an able and enterprising prince like

Gruffydd. The complaint does not dwell on losses in actual fight, which

were probably comparatively [Sidenote: Character of the war with

Gruffydd.] small. The Welsh would seldom venture on an actual battle

with the English, even when commanded by captains very inferior to

Harold. They would not run such a risk, except when they were either

supported by Scandinavian allies, or else when they were able to take

the Saxons at some disadvantage. What the Chronicler paints is the

wearing, cheerless, bootless kind of warfare which is carried on with a

restless enemy who can never be brought to a regular battle. It is not

ill success in fighting that he speaks of, but the wretchedness of

endless marching and encamping, and the loss of men and horses,

evidently by weariness rather than by the sword.[1184] The wisest heads

in the nation agreed that a stop must, at any cost, be put [Sidenote:

Ealdred holds the see of Hereford with that of Worcester.] to this state

of things. On the death of Leofgar, the see of Hereford was committed to

Bishop Ealdred, whose energy seems to have shrunk from no amount of

burthens, ecclesiastical, military, or civil.[1185] By the counsel of

this Prelate, and of the Earls Leofric and Harold, the Welsh [Sidenote:

Gruffydd reconciled to Eadward. 1056.] King was reconciled to his

English overlord.[1186] This expression may be only a decorous way of

attributing to the King personally a measure which was really the act of

the three able statesmen who are represented as intervening between him

and his dangerous vassal. But Eadward did sometimes exert a will of his

own, and when he did so, his will was often in favour of more violent

courses than seemed wise or just in the eyes of his counsellors. It is

quite possible then that Eadward was, as he well might be, strongly

incensed against Gruffydd, and that it needed all the arguments of

Leofric and Harold, and of Ealdred so renowned as a peacemaker,[1187] to

persuade the King to come to any terms with one so stained with treason

and sacrilege. And undoubtedly, at this distance of time, there does

seem somewhat of national humiliation in the notion of making peace with

Gruffydd, after so many invasions and so many breaches of faith, on any

terms but those of his complete [Sidenote: His oath of homage.]

submission. We must take the names of Harold, Leofric, and Ealdred as a

guaranty that such a course was necessary. Gruffydd did indeed so far

humble himself as to swear to be for the future a faithful under-King to

Eadward.[1188] It would also seem that the rebellious vassal was

[Sidenote: He loses his lands in Cheshire.] mulcted of a small portion

of his territories. Eadward had, at some earlier time, granted to

Gruffydd certain lands, seemingly that portion of the present shire of

Chester which lies west of the Dee. These lands were now forfeited, and

restored to the see of Lichfield and other English possessors from whom

they had been originally taken.[1189] We know not whether the grant was

an original act of Eadward, or whether it was a convenient legal

confirmation of some irregular seizure made by the Welsh King. Gruffydd

was perhaps bought off in this way after some of his former incursions,

most likely at [Sidenote: 1046.] the moment of his temporary cooperation

with Swegen.[1190] If so, the restoration of the alienated lands was now

required as a condition of peace. This homage of Gruffydd, and this

surrender of lands, remind us of the homage [Sidenote: 1277.] and

surrender made, under the like circumstances, by the last successor of

Gruffydd to a greater Edward.[1191] As for the Welsh King’s oath, it was

kept after the usual fashion, that is, till another favourable

opportunity occurred for breaking it.

[Sidenote: Cooperation of Harold, Leofric, and Ealdred.]

One other point may be noted in connexion with this last transaction.

That is the way in which Harold, Leofric, and Ealdred are described as

acting together. If this implies no further cooperation, it at least

implies that these three took the same side in a debate in the

Witenagemót. Yet Leofric was the father of Harold’s rival Ælfgar, and

the last time that the names of Harold and Ealdred were coupled was when

Ealdred was sent to [Sidenote: 1051.] follow after Harold on his journey

to Bristol. But now all these old grudges seem to have been forgotten.

In fact not one of the three men was likely to prolong a grudge

needlessly. Harold’s policy was always a policy of conciliation; if—what

we can by no means affirm—his conduct with regard to the outlawry of

Ælfgar was at all of another character, it was the last example in his

history. Ealdred was emphatically the peacemaker. He had no doubt long

ago made his own peace with Harold, and he had probably used his

influence to reconcile him with any with whom reconciliation was still

needful. Leofric had often been opposed to Godwine, and must have looked

with uncomfortable feelings on his wonderful rise. But he had never been

a bitter or violent enemy; we have always found him playing the part of

a mediator between extreme parties. There is no trace of any personal

quarrel between him and Harold. He may have thought himself wronged in

the outlawry of his son; but he could not fail to condemn Ælfgar’s later

conduct and to approve that of Harold. He must have admired Harold’s

energetic carriage in the Welsh campaign and in the restoration of

Hereford. And Leofric doubtless felt, whether Ælfgar felt or not, some

gratitude to Harold for his conciliatory behaviour at Billingsley, and

for the restoration of Ælfgar to his Earldom. All that we know of the

good old Earl of the Mercians leads us to look on him as a man who was

quite capable of sacrificing the interests and passions of himself or

his family to the general welfare of his country.

§ 3. _From Harold’s first Campaign against Gruffydd to the Deaths of

Leofric and Ralph._ 1055–1057.

[Sidenote: Hermann, Bishop of Ramsbury, seeks to obtain the Abbey of

Malmesbury. 1055.]

A few detached ecclesiastical events must be mentioned as happening in

the course of these two years of war with Gruffydd. The see of Wiltshire

or Ramsbury[1192] was, it will be remembered, now held by Hermann, one

of the Lotharingian Prelates who were favoured by Godwine and Harold as

a sort of middle term between Englishmen and Frenchmen.[1193] This

preferment was not, at least in Hermann’s eyes, a very desirable one.

The church of Ramsbury, unlike other cathedral churches, seems not to

have been furnished with any company of either monks or canons,[1194]

and the Bishop therefore found himself somewhat solitary. The revenues

also of the see were small, an evil which seems to have pressed more

heavily on a stranger than it would have done on a native. Other Bishops

of Ramsbury, Hermann said, had been natives of the country, and the

poverty of their ecclesiastical income had been eked out by the bounty

of English friends and kinsfolk. He, a stranger, had no means of support

to look to except the insufficient revenues of his Bishoprick.[1195] He

had, it appears, been long looking forward to annexing, after the manner

of the time, a second Bishoprick to his own. As Leofric had united

Crediton and Saint German’s, Hermann hoped to unite Ramsbury and

Sherborne, whenever a vacancy should occur in the latter see. Hermann,

as the mission with which he had been entrusted shows,[1196] stood high

in royal favour, and the Lady Eadgyth had long before promised to use

her influence on his behalf, whenever the wished for opportunity should

occur.[1197] But another means of increasing the episcopal wealth of

Ramsbury now presented itself. The Abbot of Malmesbury was dead. Though

the monasteries had not yet reached their full measure of exemption from

episcopal control, we may be sure that the Bishops had already begun to

look with jealousy on those heads of great monastic houses who had

gradually grown up into rival Prelates within their own dioceses.

Hermann at Ramsbury felt towards the Abbey of Malmesbury, as in after

days his countryman Savaric at Wells felt towards the Abbey of

Glastonbury.[1198] Here was a good opportunity at once for raising his

Bishoprick to a proper standard of temporal income and for getting rid

of a rival who was doubtless a thorn in his side. He would forsake

Ramsbury, with its poor income and lack of clerks, and fix his episcopal

throne in the rich and famous minster which boasted of the burying-place

of Æthelstan.[1199] He laid his scheme before the King, who approved of

it; he went away from the royal presence already in expectation Bishop

of Malmesbury. But two parties interested in the matter had not been

consulted, the monks of Malmesbury and the Earl of the West-Saxons. The

monks were certain to feel [Sidenote: Relation of Bishops and Monks.]

the utmost repugnance to any such union. They might reasonably fear that

the Lotharingian Prelate might seek to reconstruct the foundation of his

newly made cathedral church according to the canonical pattern of his

own country. The rule of Chrodegang, which, to the Canons of Wells and

Exeter,[1200] seemed to be an insufferable approach to monastic

austerity, would seem to the monks of Malmesbury to be a no less

insufferable approach to secular laxity. Or, even if the Bishop allowed

the church to retain its ancient monastic constitution, the monks would

have no desire for any such close connexion with the Bishoprick. They

doubtless, as the monks of Glastonbury did afterwards, greatly preferred

a separate Abbot of their own. The monks of Malmesbury therefore betook

themselves to the common helper of the oppressed, and laid their

grievances at the feet of Earl Harold.[1201] As the natural protector of

all men, monks and otherwise, within his Earldom, Harold pleaded their

cause before the King. Within three days after the original concession

to Hermann,[1202] before any formal step had been taken to put him in

possession of the Abbey,[1203] the grant was revoked, and the church of

Malmesbury was allowed to retain its ancient constitution.[1204]

[Sidenote: Manifest action of the Witan.]

The speed with which this business was dispatched shows that it must

have been transacted at a meeting of the Witan held at no great distance

from Malmesbury. Such a change as the transfer of a Bishop’s see from

one church to another could certainly not have been made or contemplated

without the consent of the Witan. And for the monks to hear the news, to

debate, to obtain Harold’s help, and for Harold to plead for them,

within three days, shows that the whole took place while the Witan were

actually in session. Of the places where Gemóts were usually held the

nearest to Malmesbury is Gloucester, the usual scene of the Christmas

Assembly. The monks, or enough of them to act in the name of the house,

may perhaps themselves have been present there, and may have determined

on their course without going home to Malmesbury. But the distance

between Malmesbury and Gloucester is not too great to have allowed the

business, in a moment of such emergency, to have been discussed within

the three days, both in the Gemót at Gloucester and in the chapter-house

at Malmesbury. One can hardly [Sidenote: Christmas, 1055.] doubt that

this affair took place in the Christmas Gemót in which the Peace of

Billingsley was confirmed and Ælfgar reinstated in his Earldom.

[Sidenote: Harold’s action in the matter.]

The part played by Harold in this matter should also be noticed. Harold

was no special lover of monks; the chief objects of his own more

discerning bounty were the secular clergy. But he was no enemy to the

monastic orders; he had, as we have seen in more than one case, approved

and suggested the favours shown to them by others; he had even, once at

least, appeared as a monastic benefactor himself.[1205] And, at any

rate, monks or no monks, the brethren of Malmesbury were a society of

Englishmen, who were threatened with the violation of an ancient right

through what clearly was a piece of somewhat hasty legislation. To step

in on their behalf was an act in no way unworthy of the great Earl, and

it was quite in harmony with his usual moderate and conciliatory policy.

[Sidenote: Hermann becomes a monk at Saint Omer.]

The remainder of the story is curious. Hermann, displeased at being thus

balked when he thought himself so near success, gave up, or at least

forsook, his Bishoprick, crossed the sea, and assumed the monastic habit

in the Abbey of Saint Bertin at Saint Omer.[1206] But the fire so

suddenly kindled soon burned out; Hermann chafed under the fetters of

monastic discipline, and wished to be again in the world.[1207] After

three years, his earlier scheme once more presented itself to his mind,

when the see of Sherborne became vacant by the death of Bishop Ælfwold.

He returned to England, he pleaded his cause with the King, and found

[Sidenote: Hermann returns and unites Ramsbury and Sherborne. 1058.] no

opposition from the Earl.[1208] No appointment to Ramsbury had been made

during Hermann’s absence; the administration of the diocese was

entrusted to the indefatigable Bishop Ealdred, who thus had the care of

three dioceses, Worcester, Hereford, and Ramsbury.[1209] Perhaps Hermann

was looked on as still being Bishop, and the promise of the Lady with

regard to the union of the sees of Ramsbury and Sherborne was held to be

still binding. At all events, on Hermann’s return, Ealdred gave up

Ramsbury, and Hermann became Bishop of the united Sees. He held

[Sidenote: Died 1078.] them for twenty years longer; he survived the

Conquest twelve years,[1210] and he lived to merge the old diocesan

names of Ramsbuiy and Sherborne in one drawn from an altogether new seat

of episcopal authority, the waterless hill of the elder Salisbury.[1211]

[Sidenote: Death of Earl Odda. August 31, 1056.]

The year of Bishop Leofgar’s unlucky attempt to win fame as a warrior

was marked by the death of Earl Odda, the King’s kinsman. He had been

set over the western parts of Godwine’s Earldom during the year of his

banishment,[1212] and since his return he had probably held, under the

superiority of Leofric, the Earldom of the whole or part of the old land

of the Hwiccas.[1213] His unpatriotic conduct in those times seems, even

in the eyes of our most patriotic chroniclers, to have been fully atoned

for by his personal virtues and by the favour which he showed to

monasteries. He is accordingly sent out of the world with a splendid

panegyric.[1214] Before his death he was admitted a monk by his diocesan

Ealdred,[1215] who might thus, by bringing so goodly a sheep into the

monastic fold, atone for having himself forsaken the cloister for the

cares of government and warfare. He died at Deerhurst, under the shadow

of the minster of his own building, but his own burial-place was at

Pershore,[1216] another of the many Abbeys of a land which, next to the

eastern fens, was the richest [Sidenote: Æthelric, Bishop of Durham

1042–1056, resigns his see.] district of England in monasteries of early

date. In the course of the same year, Æthelric, Bishop of Durham, the

successor of the simoniacal Eadred,[1217] resigned his see and became

again a monk at Peterborough, in which [Sidenote: [Dies Oct. 15, 1072.]]

monastery he had spent his youth.[1218] He was, through the influence of

Tostig,[1219] succeeded in his Bishoprick by his brother alike in the

flesh and in monastic profession, [Sidenote: Æthelwine succeeds.

1056–1071.] Æthelwine, another monk of the Golden Borough.[1220] Both

brothers survived the Norman Conquest, and we shall see each of them,

alike on the throne of Durham and in the cloister of Peterborough,

become victims of the watchful jealousy of the Norman Conqueror.

[Sidenote: Eadward Ætheling arrives from Hungary. 1057.]

The next year is conspicuously a year of deaths, and a year of deaths

which affected the state of England far more sensibly than the deaths of

Earl Odda and Bishop Æthelric. The first recorded event of the year is

the arrival of the Ætheling Eadward from Hungary.[1221] The mission of

Ealdred had not failed through the death of [Sidenote: [Death of the

Emperor Henry. 1056.]] the great prince to whom he was sent,[1222] and,

three years after the reception of the English Bishop at Köln, the

English Ætheling, if English we may call him, set foot on the shores

from which he had been sent into banishment as a helpless babe.[1223] He

now, at the age of forty-one, came for the first time to his native

country, and he came in a character as nearly approaching to that of

heir presumptive to the English Crown as the laws of our [Sidenote:

Prospects of his succession to the Crown.] elective monarchy allowed. He

came with his foreign wife and his children of foreign birth. And it can

hardly fail but that he was himself, in speech and habits, as foreign as

the Norman favourites of Eadward, more foreign than the men of kindred

tongue whom Godwine and Harold were glad to encourage in opposition to

them.[1224] The succession of such a prince, even less of an Englishman

than the reigning King, promised but little good to the Kingdom. Still

the succession of the Ætheling would have had one great advantage. It

was hardly possible that the claims of William could be successfully

pressed against him. A supposed promise of King Eadward in William’s

favour could hardly be maintained in the teeth of a bequest and an

election in favour of an Englishman of royal birth and mature years,

against whom William could have no personal complaint whatever.

Incomparably inferior as Eadward doubtless was to Harold in every

personal qualification, his succession could never have given William

the opportunities which were afterwards given him by the accession of

Harold. Eadward could not have been held up as an usurper, a perjurer, a

man faithless to his lord, nor, had he been the opponent, could the

superstitions of the time have been appealed to to avenge the fancied

insult offered to the relics of the Norman saints. We can thus fully

understand why an English poet, clearly writing by the light of later

experience, laments the death of the Ætheling as the cause of all the

woes which came upon this poor nation.[1225] Even at the time, when

men’s eyes were not yet so fully opened, we may be sure that England

rejoiced in his coming, and bitterly lamented his speedy removal. The

son of the hero Ironside, the last adult male of the royal line, must,

whatever were his personal qualities, have attracted to himself an

interest which was not purely sentimental.

[Sidenote: Death of the Ætheling Eadward. 1057.]

The Ætheling then came to England; but he never saw his namesake the

King. He died almost immediately afterwards in London,[1226] and was

buried with his grandfather Æthelred in Saint Paul’s minster. Why he was

shut out from the royal presence was unknown then as well as now.[1227]

[Sidenote: His exclusion from the royal presence,] The fact that his

exclusion was commented on at the time might seem to forbid, and yet

perhaps it does not wholly forbid, the simplest explanation of all, that

he was ill at the time of his landing, and that the illness which caused

his death also hindered his presentation to his uncle. If the exclusion

had a political object, to what party ought [Sidenote: not likely to be

due to Harold,] we to attribute it? A distinguished modern writer

attributes it, though not very confidently, to the partizans of

Harold.[1228] But it is not at all clear that Harold as yet aspired to

the throne; it is far more probable that it was the death of the last

adult Ætheling which first suggested to Harold and his friends the

possibility of the succession of a King not of the royal house. Because

Harold did in the end succeed Eadward, we must beware of supposing that

his succession had been looked forward to during the whole reign of

Eadward. There must have been some moment when the daring thought—for a

daring thought it was—of aspiring to a royal crown first presented

itself to the mind of Harold or of those to whom Harold hearkened. And

no moment seems so clearly marked out for that purpose by all the

circumstances of the case as the moment of the death of the Ætheling. If

Harold had wished to thwart a design of King Eadward’s in favour of his

nephew, he would hardly have waited for his landing in England to

practise his devices. He would rather have laboured to hinder Ealdred’s

mission in the first instance, or to render it abortive, in some way or

other, during the long period over which the negotiation [Sidenote: but

rather to the Norman courtiers,] was spread. If the exclusion of the

Ætheling from his uncle’s presence was really owing to the machinations

of any political party, there is another party on which the charge may

fall with far greater probability. There was another possible successor

who had far more to fear from the good will of the King towards the

Ætheling than Harold had. Whether Harold had begun to aspire to the

Crown or not, there can be little doubt that William had, and William

was still by no means without influence at the English Court. There were

still Normans about Eadward, Bishop William of London, Robert the son of

Wymarc, Hugolin the Treasurer, and others whom Godwine or Harold had,

perhaps unwisely, exempted from the general proscription. To exclude—by

some underhand means, if at all—a prince of the blood from the presence

of his uncle and sovereign, sounds much more like the act of a party of

this kind, than the act of a man whom both office and character made the

first man in the realm. The thing, if done at all, was clearly some

wretched court intrigue, the fitting work of a foreign faction. The Earl

of the West-Saxons, had his interests been concerned in the matter,

would have set about hindering [Sidenote: but, more probably than

either, the result of illness.] the Ætheling’s succession in quite

another way. But after all, it is far more likely that the fact that the

two Eadwards never met was not owing either to the partizans of Harold

or to the partizans of William, but that it was simply the natural

result of the illness of which the Ætheling presently died.

[Sidenote: Surmise of Sir F. Palgrave that Harold caused the death of

the Ætheling.]

Another, and a far worse, insinuation against the great Earl hardly

needs to be refuted. Among all the calumnies with which, for eight

hundred years, the name of Harold has been loaded, there is one whose

suggestion has been reserved for our own times. Norman enemies have

distorted every action of his life; they have misrepresented every

circumstance of his position; they have charged him with crimes which he

never committed; they have looked at all his acts through such a mist of

prejudice that the victory of Stamfordbridge is changed under their

hands into a wicked fratricide.[1229] But no writer of his own time, or

of any time before our own, has ever ventured to insinuate that Earl

Harold had a hand in the death of the Ætheling Eadward. That

uncharitable surmise was reserved for an illustrious writer of our own

time, in whom depreciation of the whole House of Godwine had become a

sort of passion.[1230] It is enough to say that, has there been the

faintest ground for such an accusation, had the idea ever entered into

the mind of any man of Harold’s own age,[1231] some Norman slanderer or

other would have been delighted to seize upon it.[1232] Nothing is more

easy than to charge any man with having secretly made away with another

man by whose death he profits, and the charge is one which, as it is

easy to bring, is sometimes very hard to disprove. For that very reason,

it is a charge on which the historian always looks with great suspicion,

even when it is known to have been brought at the time and to have been

currently believed at the time. The general infamy of Eadric is fully

established, but we need not believe in every one of the secret murders

which rumour charged him with having committed or instigated. Still less

need we believe the tales which charge the Great William with having

more than once stooped to the trade of a secret poisoner.[1233] When we

think how easy the charge is to bring, and how recklessly it has been

brought at all times, the mere fact that no such charge was ever brought

against Harold does in truth redound greatly to his honour. Calumny

itself instinctively shrank from laying such a crime to the charge of

such a man. William was, as I believe, as guiltless of any such baseness

as Harold himself. But the charge did not seem wholly inconsistent with

the crafty and tortuous policy of the Norman Duke. The West-Saxon Earl,

ambitious no doubt and impetuous, but ever frank, generous, and

conciliatory, was at once felt to be incapable of such a deed.

[Sidenote: Heaca, Bishop of Selsey, dies.]

Three other deaths followed among the great men of the land, two of

which were of no small political importance. [Sidenote: Æthelric

succeeds. 1057.] It was not of any special moment, as far as we know,

when Heaca, Bishop of Selsey or of the South-Saxons, died, and was

succeeded by Æthelric, a monk of Christ Church.[1234] It [Sidenote:

Death of Earl Leofric. August 31, 1057.] was quite another matter when

the great Earl of the Mercians, so long the honoured mediator between

opposing races and opposing interests, died in a good old age in his own

house at Bromley in Staffordshire.[1235] Of all the churches and

monasteries which had been enriched and adorned by the bounty of Leofric

and Godgifu, none was dearer to them than the great minster of Coventry,

the city with which their names are inseparably connected in one of

those silly legends which have helped to displace our early

history.[1236] There Leofric was buried in the church which he and his

wife had raised from the foundations,[1237] and had enriched with gifts

which made it wealthier and more magnificent than all the minsters of

England.[1238] Godgifu survived her husband many years; she saw her son

and grandsons rise and fall; she saw her granddaughter share first a

vassal and then an Imperial Crown, and then vanish out of sight as a

homeless widow. At last she herself died, still in the possession of

some part at least of her vast estates, a subject of the Norman

invader.[1239]

[Sidenote: Death of Earl Ralph. December 21, 1057.]

A few months after the death of Leofric came the death of the stranger

who had seemingly held a subordinate Earldom under his authority. Ralph,

Earl of the Magesætas, the French nephew of King Eadward, died near the

end of the year, and was buried in the distant minster of

Peterborough,[1240] to which he had been a benefactor.[1241] [Sidenote:

His possible pretensions to the Crown.] I have already started the

question whether the thoughts of Eadward had ever turned towards him as

a possible successor.[1242] After the death of the Ætheling, the hopes

of Ralph and his brother Walter, if they had any, might again revive.

But if so, death soon cut short any such schemes. Walter, the reigning

prince of a foreign state, would have no chance. If any such prince were

to be chosen, it would be better at once to take the renowned Duke of

the Normans than the insignificant Count of Mantes. But Ralph, whether

he was ever actually thought of or not, was clearly a possible

candidate; his death therefore, following so soon after the death of the

Ætheling, removed another obstacle from the path of Harold.

[Sidenote: Redistribution of Earldoms. Christmas, 1057–1058?]

The deaths of the two Earls involved a redistribution of the chief

governments of England, which would naturally be carried out in the

following Christmas Gemót. The Earldom of the Mercians, such parts of it

at least as had been under the immediate authority of Leofric, was

conferred [Sidenote: Ælfgar Earl of the Mercians.] on his son

Ælfgar.[1243] It shows how vast must have been the hereditary influence

of his house, when such a trust could not be refused to a man who had so

lately trampled under foot every principle of loyalty and patriotism.

But care was taken to make him as little dangerous as possible. Ælfgar

may have hoped that, on the death of Ralph, the Earldom of the Magesætas

would again be merged in Mercia, and that, excepting the shires attached

to Northumberland, he might rule over the whole realm of Offa and

Æthelflæd. But policy altogether forbade that the Herefordshire border

should be again placed in the hands of one who had so lately acted as

the [Sidenote: Marriage of Gruffydd and Ealdgyth.] ally of Gruffydd. We

know not whether the Welsh King had already entered into a still closer

relation with the English Earl by his marriage with Ælfgar’s beautiful

daughter Ealdgyth. The date of that marriage is not recorded; it may

have already taken place, or it may have happened on the next occasion,

one distant only by a few months, when we shall find the names of

Gruffydd and Ælfgar coupled together. But if the Welsh King was already

the son-in-law of the Mercian Earl, there was a still further reason for

placing some special safeguard on that border of the realm. In short,

the government of Herefordshire was so important that it could not be

safely placed in any hands but those of the foremost man in England.

There is distinct evidence to show that, within two or three years after

the death of [Sidenote: Herefordshire added to Harold’s Earldom.]

Leofric, the Earldom of Herefordshire was in the hands of Harold.[1244]

We can therefore hardly doubt that, on the resettlement which must have

followed the deaths of Leofric and Ralph, the Earldom of the Magesætas

was attached to the Earldom of the West-Saxons, and that Harold now

became the immediate ruler of the district of which he had been the

deliverer, and of the city of which he might [Sidenote: Harold the son

of Ralph.] claim to be the second founder. Earl Ralph had left a son, a

namesake, probably a godson, of the great Earl, and Harold the son of

Ralph appears in Domesday as a landowner both before and after the

Conquest. His name still survives within his father’s Earldom, where it

cleaves to an existing parish and to a castle which has wholly vanished.

But Earldoms were not hereditary, and the son of Ralph was so young

that, eight years later, he was still under wardship.[1245] On this

ground, if on no other, Harold, the great-nephew of Eadward, the

great-grandson of Æthelred, was so far from appearing as a competitor

for the Crown of his ancestors that he was not even thought of as a

possible successor for his father’s Earldom. His name is altogether

unknown to history, and but for his place in Domesday and in local

tradition, his very existence might have been forgotten. His renowned

namesake was now entrusted [Sidenote: Question as to Gloucestershire.]

with the great border government. But it is by no means clear whether

Harold held Herefordshire as a detached possession, as Northamptonshire

and Huntingdonshire were held by Siward and Tostig, or whether it was

connected with his West-Saxon Earldom by the possession of

Gloucestershire. If so, the rule of the Earl of the West-Saxons must now

have been extended over nearly all that was West-Saxon land in the days

of Ceawlin.[1246]

While the power of Harold was thus increased, the time seemed to have

come for raising the younger sons of Godwine to a share in the honours

of his house. The [Sidenote: Gyrth Earl of the East-Angles,

[1057–1058],] East-Anglian Earldom, vacated by the translation of Ælfgar

to Mercia, was now conferred on Gyrth. But the boundaries of the

government were changed. Essex was detached from East-Anglia. The new

Earl probably received only the two strictly East-Anglian shires, with

the [Sidenote: and of Oxfordshire.] addition of Cambridgeshire, to which

was afterwards added the detached shire of Oxford.[1247] The policy of

attaching [Sidenote: Policy of these detached shires.] these detached

shires to distant Earldoms is not very clear. It could not be the same

policy which afterwards led the Conqueror to scatter the fiefs of his

great vassals over distant portions of the Kingdom. There was certainly

no intention of weakening any of the Earls whose governments were thus

divided. The object was far more probably to bring the influence of the

House of Godwine to bear upon all parts of the country. Some old

connexion had attached Northamptonshire to Northumberland at an earlier

time, and the example thus given was seized on as a means for planting

the authority of the rising house in every convenient quarter.

Oxfordshire, it will be remembered, had formed part of the Earldom of

Swegen; it was now placed in the hands of Gyrth. For it was highly

important that the great frontier town of Mercia and Wessex, the seat of

so many important national meetings, should be in thoroughly trustworthy

hands. Ælfgar’s loyalty was most doubtful; it was impossible altogether

to oust him from command, but it was expedient to confine his powers of

mischief within the smallest possible compass, and to hem him in,

whenever it could be, by men who could be relied on. Unfortunately at

Chester, the most dangerous point of all, the family interest of the

House of Leofric was too strong to allow of that important shire being

put into any hands but those of Ælfgar. We shall presently see the

result.

[Sidenote: Leofwine Earl of Kent, Essex, &c.]

Leofwine also was apparently provided for at the same time.[1248] His

government, like that of Swegen at an earlier time, was carved out of

several ancient Kingdoms and Earldoms, but it lay much more compactly on

the map than the anomalous province which took in Oxford, Taunton, and

Hereford. It consisted in fact of south-eastern England—of Kent, Essex,

Hertford, Surrey, probably Buckinghamshire—that is of the shires round

the [Sidenote: London exempt.] mouth of the Thames. London, as was

natural, remained exempt from any jurisdiction but that of its Bishop

and the chief officers of the city. The whole East of England was thus

placed under the rule of the two younger sons of Godwine. But the

evidence of the writs seems to show that Harold retained a general

superintendence over their governments, whether simply as their elder

brother or in any more exalted character.

[Sidenote: The House of Godwine at its greatest point of greatness.

1058–1065.]

The House of Godwine had thus reached the greatest height of power and

dignity which a subject house could reach. Whatever was the origin of

the family, they had won for themselves a position such as no English

family ever won before or after. Four brothers, sons of a father who,

whether Earl or churl by birth, had risen to greatness by his own valour

and counsel, divided by far the greater part of England among them. The

whole Kingdom, save a few shires in the centre, was in their hands. And

three at least out of the four showed that they well deserved their

greatness. To the eldest among the four there evidently belonged a more

marked preeminence still. Two of his brothers, those most recently

appointed to Earldoms, were clearly little more than Harold’s

lieutenants. And a prospect of still higher greatness now lay open to

him [Sidenote: State of the royal line.] and his house. The royal line

was dying out. No adult male descendant of Æthelred remained; no adult

descendant of any kind remained within the Kingdom. The only survivors

of the true kingly stock were the son and daughters of the Ætheling,

children born in a foreign land. If any hopes of royalty had ever

flitted before the eyes of Ralph, such hopes could not extend to his son

the young Harold or to his brother the Count of Mantes. [Sidenote:

Harold’s prospect of the Crown.] The time was clearly coming when

Englishmen might choose for themselves a King from among their brethren,

unfettered by any traditional reverence for the blood of Ælfred, Cerdic,

and Woden. And when that day should come, on whom should the choice of

England fall save on the worthiest man of the worthiest house within the

realm? We cannot doubt that, from the year when the three deaths of

Eadward, Leofric, and Ralph seemed to sweep away all hindrances from his

path, Harold looked forward to a day when he and his might rise to a

rank yet loftier than that of Earl. It was no longer wholly beyond hope

that he might himself ascend the Imperial throne of Britain, and that

the Earldoms of England might be held by his brothers as Æthelings of

the House of Godwine. The event proves that such were the hopes of

Harold, that such, we may add, were the hopes of England. Such hopes

may, even at an earlier time, have flashed across the mind of Harold

himself or across the minds of zealous friends of his house or zealous

admirers of his exploits. But this was the first moment when such hopes

could have assumed anything like form and substance; it was the first

moment when the chances seemed distinctly to be rather for than against

their fulfilment. That Harold from this time doubtless aspired to the

Crown, that he directed all his conduct by a hope of securing the Crown,

cannot be doubted. And the unanimity with which he was raised to the

throne when the great day came seems to show that men’s minds had long

been prepared to look to him as their future sovereign. We cannot doubt

that, after the death of the Ætheling Eadward, Wessex and East-Anglia at

least were ready to transfer the English Crown from the line of Æthelred

to the line of Godwine.

[Sidenote: Questions as to Harold’s position.]

Two questions still remain. Did Harold, in thus looking forward to the

Crown, know, as he came to know at last, how formidable a rival was

making ready for him beyond the sea? And was the succession of Harold

merely a probability, a moral certainty it may be, to which men learned

to look forward as a matter of course, or were the hopes of the great

Earl confirmed by any act of the Witan or any promise of the King? Both

questions are hard to answer. Both are inseparably mixed up with the

most difficult questions in our whole history, the alleged promise made

to William by Eadward and the alleged oath made to him by Harold. I have

already expressed my belief that Eadward’s alleged promise to the Norman

Duke, which formed the main ground of William’s pretensions to the

English Crown, though exaggerated and perverted in the Norman accounts,

was not a mere Norman invention. I believe that some promise really was

made, and that the time when it was made was when William visited

Eadward during the banishment of Godwine.[1249] Of the nature and form

of that promise it is difficult to say anything. We may indeed

unhesitatingly dismiss the notion that a settlement was made in

William’s favour by a decree [Sidenote: Effects of Eadward’s promise to

William.] of the Witan. Still any promise of any kind could hardly have

been kept so complete a secret but that it must have got blazed abroad,

and have reached the ears of the Earl and his countrymen. The Norman

party, during their short moment of complete triumph, would have no

motive to keep the matter a secret. They would deem themselves to have

reached the great accomplishment of all that they had been scheming for,

when there seemed a prospect of the English Crown passing, without slash

or blow, to the brow of the Norman. The fact of the promise would

doubtless be known, and by statesmen it would be remembered. But it does

not follow that it would make any deep impression on the mass of the

nation. Men would hear of the promise in a vague sort of way, and would

at the time be divided between wonder and indignation. But the idea of

the succession of the Norman would be looked on as something which had

passed away with other Norman ideas, when the English Earls came back to

claim their own. Even after Harold’s election as King, the prospect of

the Norman invasion is spoken of in a way which seems to show that, to

the mass of Englishmen, the claim of William was even then something new

and surprising.[1250] [Sidenote: Policy of the patriotic party;] But by

a statesman like Harold, if the matter was once known, it would never be

forgotten. It would hardly be a thing to talk much of openly; but to

counteract any possible schemes of William must have been the main

object of Harold’s policy from the day when he was first called to the

head of affairs. We can understand how Eadward was led to deem his

promise null, and to send for [Sidenote: candidature first of Eadward

the Ætheling,] the Ætheling as his destined successor. This was, under

the circumstances, a great triumph of the national policy. A competitor,

accepted by the voice of the nation, was placed in William’s path, a

competitor whom William himself would hardly dare to attack. The death

of the Ætheling made matters more difficult. There was now no such

unexceptionable rival to oppose to the Norman. [Sidenote: then of

Harold.] Harold indeed, before his oath, was a far more formidable rival

to William than Harold after his oath. He had not yet given his enemy

that fatal advantage which the wily Duke knew so well how to employ. But

Harold’s succession would have all the disadvantages of a novelty. If he

could not yet be branded as a perjurer, yet he might be, in a way that

the Ætheling never could be, branded as an usurper. Either of the

Eadwards, in short, with Harold for his guide and counsellor, would be

really stronger than Harold himself as King. But the risk had now to be

run. The nation at large had most likely but vague notions as to the

danger. But Harold, Stigand, and all the leaders of the nation must have

known that any step that they took would bring on their country the

enmity of a most active and dangerous foe. Harold’s main object during

his whole administration clearly was to strengthen England at home and

abroad, to make her powerful and united when the inevitable day should

come.

[Sidenote: Question as to any formal act in Harold’s favour.]

It is a more difficult question whether Harold’s succession was at all

guaranteed, at this or at any time before Eadward’s death, by any formal

act either of the King or of the Witan. We know that Eadward did

exercise in Harold’s favour whatever influence or authority an English

King had in the nomination of his successor. That nomination appears to

have been finally and formally made on Eadward’s death-bed.[1251] But

such a death-bed nomination is in no way inconsistent with a promise to

the same effect at an earlier time. Any one indeed to whom such a

promise had been made would undoubtedly seek to have it confirmed with

all the solemnity which attaches to the last act of a dying man. And

there are several circumstances, none perhaps of any great weight

singly, but having together a sort of cumulative force, which seem to

[Sidenote: Quasi-royal position of Harold.] point to Harold from this

time as being something more than an ordinary Earl, however powerful and

popular, as being in some sort a sharer in the powers and honours of

royalty.[1252] We find his name coupled in public documents with that of

the King in a way which certainly is not usual with the name of any

subject. We find vassal princes plighting their faith to the King and to

the Earl, as if they were senior and junior colleagues in a common

office. We find Harold appearing in the eyes of foreigners under the

lofty guise of a Duke of the English. That sounding title cannot have

been really borne by him at home, but it seems to show that, even among

strangers, he was felt to hold the position of a prince rather than that

of the most exalted private noble. Lastly, in our best Latin chronicler

we find him distinctly called by a title which is nowhere else, to my

knowledge, conferred on a subject, but which is the familiar designation

of vassal princes.[1253] All these touches, coming from such different

quarters, seem naturally to suggest the view that Earl Harold was,

seemingly from the death of the Ætheling, publicly recognized as holding

a _quasi_-royal position, as being, in fact, the designated successor to

the Crown.

[Sidenote: Difficulties in the supposition of any formal vote.]

On the other hand, there are difficulties about the belief that this

position was conferred on Harold by any formal vote of the Witan. It is

plain that a perfectly free choice of the King during the actual vacancy

was a right which the English people, or their leaders, prized very

dearly. All attempts to limit the choice of the electors beforehand had

always signally failed.[1254] Since the abortive scheme of Æthelwulf,

nothing at all answering to a King of the Romans had been seen in

England.[1255] And if there were some reasons which, under present

circumstances, might make such an unusual course specially desirable,

there were other reasons which told against it with nearly equal force.

With the royal house on the verge of extinction, with such a competitor

as William carefully watching the course of events, it was most

desirable to settle the succession with as much certainty as the laws of

an elective monarchy allowed. It was most desirable that the successor

to the throne should be the man most fitted for the highest of offices,

the wisest head and the stoutest arm in the land. It was, in a word, the

wish of every clear-sighted patriot that the successor of Eadward should

be no other than Earl Harold. But, on the other hand, the choice of Earl

Harold, or of any other man not of kingly blood, was something strange

and unprecedented, something which might well shock the feelings and

prejudices of men. The choice of a new King would in fact be the choice

of a new dynasty; it would be to wipe out a sentiment as old as the days

when the first West-Saxon set foot on British ground; it would be to

transfer the Crown of Wessex, of England, of Britain, from the house of

Cerdic, of Ecgberht, and of Æthelstan to the house of Godwine the son of

Wulfnoth. Men might not as yet be so ready for so momentous a change as

they certainly were nine years [Sidenote: Possible claims of young

Eadgar.] later. And an irrevocable decision in favour of Harold might

well be looked on as a wrong done to a third possible competitor. The

royal house, though on the verge of extinction, was not yet extinct. The

Ætheling had left a son, the young Eadgar. The son was undoubtedly not

entitled to the same constitutional preference as his father. But in

some respects he was a more promising candidate than his father. Like

the renowned Bastard himself, he was little, but he would grow.[1256] If

a vacancy happened at once, his claims could hardly be pressed. But the

King might live many years, and Eadgar might succeed his great-uncle in

all the vigour of early manhood. He was not indeed, like his father, an

Englishman born, the son of an English King by an English mother. But

then he might be, as his father had not been, brought up with the

feelings of an Englishman, of a destined ruler of England. Nine years

before the death of Eadward, men might well deem that it was not

expedient, by any premature declaration in favour of the great Earl, to

cut off the chances of a succession in many ways so desirable as that of

the young Ætheling. If King Eadward lived long enough to make Eadgar’s

succession possible and expedient, that succession might, like that of

his father, form a better check to the ambition of William than the

succession of Harold.

[Sidenote: Probably no formal act, but a general understanding in favour

of Harold.]

On the whole then it is perhaps safer not to suppose any formal act of

the Witan on behalf of Harold. The circumstances of the case may be

explained by supposing that Eadward promised Harold his recommendation

in case of his own death during Eadgar’s childhood. It would be a sort

of understood thing that, in case of such an event, the Earl of the

West-Saxons would be a candidate for the Crown with every chance of

success. As Harold’s renown increased, as the chances of Eadward’s life

grew weaker, as Eadgar’s incapacity became more and more manifest, men

would look with more and more certainty to the great Earl as their

future King.[1257] Without any formal decree, he would, by common

consent, step into the position, or more than the position, of a born

Ætheling, and he would find himself insensibly sharing the powers, and

even the titles, of royalty. And we cannot doubt that the great rival

beyond sea was carefully watching every step of this process. If we

realize that Harold—the Duke of the English—was virtually, if not

formally, the designated successor to the Crown, we can still better

understand the eagerness of William to obtain by any means the Earl’s

recognition of his claims. It was not merely to bind the most powerful

man in the land to his cause; it was to obtain what was virtually an

abdication from one who was virtually the destined heir.

[Sidenote: Harold now chief ruler of England. 1057–1066.]

The famous oath of Harold is so uncertain as to its date and all its

circumstances that it might be treated without impropriety at almost any

stage of my narrative. But, as it is so uncertain, as it is recorded by

no contemporary English writer, I prefer to put off its consideration

till it is convenient to take up again the thread of Norman affairs, to

examine fully into William’s claims, and to describe his preparations to

assert those claims. Meanwhile we have to see how Harold ruled over

England, now that he was without an equal competitor within the land.

Save the shires ruled by the turbulent Ælfgar, the government of all

England was now divided between himself and his brothers; and there was

now nothing but the life of the reigning King between him and the

English Crown.