CHAPTER X.

THE REIGN OF EADWARD FROM THE DEATH OF THE ÆTHELING TO THE DEATH OF THE

KING.[1258]

1057–1066.

§ 1. _The Ecclesiastical Administration of Earl Harold._ 1058–1062.

[Sidenote: Dominant position of Harold.]

We thus see Harold at the greatest height of real power which he ever

attained while still a subject. He was Earl of the West-Saxons and

principal counsellor of the King, and he was, in all probability,

already looked on as the practical heir presumptive to the Crown. Three

other great Earldoms were in the hands of his three brothers. The

greatness of the House of Godwine seemed now to be fully established.

Save for a single moment, and that probably during Harold’s absence from

England, the authority of Harold and his family remained untouched till

quite the [Sidenote: Predominance of ecclesiastical affairs.] end of

Eadward’s reign. The first few years of this period form a time of

unusual quiet, a time in which, as is usual in times of quiet, our

attention is almost wholly [Sidenote: Harold in relation to the Church.]

occupied with ecclesiastical affairs. The great Earl now appears as

something like an ecclesiastical reformer, as a founder, a pilgrim, the

fast friend of one holy Bishop, a rightful or wrongful disputant against

another Prelate of less renown. But we have evidence that care for the

Church did not occupy the whole of the attention of Earl Harold. The

Earldom of Wessex and the Kingdom of England had still to be watched

over; and the candidate for a Crown which was likely to be disputed by

the Duke of the Normans kept a diligent eye on all that was going on in

the lands beyond the sea.

[Sidenote: Harold’s pilgrimage to Rome. 1058?]

Harold, like Cnut and like a crowd of other persons great and small,

fell in with the popular devotion of the day with regard to pilgrimages.

The Earl of the West-Saxons went to pray at the tombs of the Apostles,

and, though the date of his pilgrimage is not absolutely certain, there

are strong reasons for believing that it happened in the year following

the deaths of the Ætheling and the Earls Leofric and Ralph.[1259] But

Harold, like Cnut, did not, even while engaged in this holy work, wholly

forget his own interests or the interests of his friends and his

[Sidenote: He studies the politics of the French Princes.] country. He

had, we are told, long been watching the condition, the policy, and the

military force of the princes of France, among whom we cannot doubt that

the Duke of the Normans came in for the largest share of his attention.

He therefore took the opportunity of his pilgrimage to go through

France, and by personal examination to make himself thoroughly master of

the politics of the land.[1260] His name was well known in the country;

he was doubtless received everywhere with honour; he did not go on till

he had gained such a thorough insight into all that he needed to know

that no deception could for the future be practised upon him. This

description is vague and dark, no doubt purposely vague and dark; but it

doubtless veils a good deal. One longs to know whether Harold was at

this time personally received at the Court of Rouen, and what was the

general result of his inquiries into the policy of his great rival. And

the question at once forces itself upon the mind, Was this the time of

Harold’s famous oath or homage to William? Did anything happen on this

journey which formed the germ out of which grew the great accusation

brought against him by his rival? I reserve the full discussion of all

these questions for another occasion; but on the whole it seems more

likely that the event, whatever it was, on which the charge of perjury

against Harold was founded, took place at some time nearer to the death

of Eadward.

[Sidenote: Harold at Rome.]

When Harold had finished his political inquiries in France, he continued

his religious journey to Rome. If I am right in the date which I assign

to his pilgrimage, he found the Holy See in the possession of a Pontiff

whom the Church has since agreed to brand as an usurper. Early in

[Sidenote: Stephen the Ninth Pope. 1057–1058.] this year died Pope

Stephen the Ninth, otherwise Frederick of Lotharingia, Abbot of Monte

Casino, after a reign of [Sidenote: Benedict the Tenth Pope. 1058–1059.]

only one year.[1261] On his death, Mincius, Bishop of Velletri and

Cardinal, was placed in an irregular manner on the pontifical throne by

the influence of the Counts of Tusculum.[1262] He took the name of

Benedict the Tenth. The Cardinals seem not to have acknowledged him;

Hildebrand—the first time that great name occurs in our history—obtained

the consent of the Empress Agnes to a [Sidenote: Nicolas the Second

Pope. 1059–1061.] new and more canonical election. In the next April

Benedict was driven out, and the new Pope, Gerard of Burgundy, Bishop of

Florence, was enthroned by the name of Nicolas the Second.[1263] But,

for the space of a year, Benedict had actual possession of the Papal

throne, and was seemingly generally recognized in Rome. A Roman, of the

house of the famous Consul Crescentius, he was probably more acceptable

than a more regularly appointed Pontiff from Lotharingia or Burgundy.

Benedict was in all probability the Pope whom Earl Harold found in

[Sidenote: Benedict grants the pallium to Stigand, 1058; probably

through the influence of Harold.] possession at the time of his

pilgrimage. It is certain that Benedict sent to Archbishop Stigand the

long delayed ornament of the pallium, the cherished badge of the

archiepiscopal dignity.[1264] One can hardly avoid the surmise that

Harold pleaded for his friend, and that the concession to the English

Primate was the result of the personal presence of the first of living

Englishmen. Stigand was not personally present at Rome; the pallium was

sent to him, and most likely Earl Harold himself was its bearer. In this

act Harold no doubt thought, and naturally thought, that he was healing

a breach, and doing a great service to his Church and country. The evils

arising from the doubtful position of Stigand were manifest. That a man

should be, in the eye of the Law, Archbishop of Canterbury, and yet that

his purely spiritual ministrations should be very generally declined,

was an anomaly to which it was desirable to put a stop as soon as might

be. Harold would naturally deem that he had done all that could be

needed by procuring the solemn recognition of Stigand from the Pope whom

he found in actual possession of the Holy See. That Pope Benedict was

himself an usurper, that his ministrations were as irregular as those of

Stigand himself, that he could not confer a commission which he did not

himself possess, was a canonical subtlety which was not likely to occur

to the mind of the English Earl. He could not foresee that an

ecclesiastical revolution would so soon hurl Benedict from his throne,

and that he and all who clave to [Sidenote: Effects of Benedict’s

recognition.] him would be branded as schismatics. In fact the

recognition of Stigand by Benedict did harm instead of good. After

Benedict’s fall, it became a further charge against Stigand that he had

received the pallium from the usurper. For the moment indeed the

Archbishop seemed [Sidenote: Bishops consecrated by Stigand.] to have

regained his proper position. Two Bishopricks fell vacant in the course

of the year, Selsey by the death of Heaca, and Rochester, it is not

quite clear how.[1265] The newly appointed Bishops, Æthelric of Selsey

and Siward of Rochester, received consecration from a Primate who was

now at last held to be in canonical possession.[1266] The fact is most

significant that these were the first and last Bishops whom Stigand

consecrated during the reign of Eadward.

[Sidenote: Return of Harold.]

Harold returned to England, having by some means, the exact nature of

which is lost in the rhetoric of his panegyrist, escaped the dangers

which seem to have specially beset pilgrims on their journey

homeward.[1267] If I am right in my conjecture as to the date of his

pilgrimage, an event had taken place in his absence which showed the

weakness of the government when his strong hand was not nigh [Sidenote:

Second outlawry and return of Ælfgar. 1058.] to guide it. We are told by

a single Chronicler that this year Earl Ælfgar was again outlawed, but

that he soon recovered his Earldom by the help of Gruffydd and of a

Norwegian fleet which came unexpectedly to his help.[1268] We hear not a

word as to the causes or circumstances. [Sidenote: Difficulties as to

the story.] One is inclined to guess that the story may be merely an

accidental repetition, under a wrong year, of Ælfgar’s former outlawry

three years before.[1269] It is certainly not likely that Harold would

have tamely submitted to so outrageous a breach both of the royal

authority and of the national dignity. But to suppose that these events

happened during the time of his absence from the country is an

explanation of this difficulty quite as easy as to suppose the story to

be a mere misconception. One thing at least should be noted. A feud with

the House of Leofric, which, in the case of Harold, is a mere matter of

surmise, is, in the case of Tostig, distinctly asserted by a

contemporary writer.[1270] It is quite possible that Tostig may, in his

brother’s absence, have acted a part towards the rival house which his

brother’s conciliatory policy would not have approved of. He may also

have found himself, in his brother’s absence, unable to quell the storm

which he had raised. But all speculations of this kind must be quite

uncertain. The statement stands before us; we may put our own value on

its authority, and we may make our own explanation of the facts, but we

cannot get beyond conjecture.

The pilgrimage of Earl Harold may perhaps have suggested to the active

Bishop Ealdred a longer pilgrimage still. That diligent Prelate was at

this time busy about [Sidenote: Ecclesiastical history of Gloucester.]

many matters. Gloucester, the frontier city on the Severn, the usual

mid-winter seat of the national Councils, had just received a special

ornament from his munificence. [Sidenote: Abbey of Nuns, 681–767.] The

city had been in early times the seat of an Abbey of nuns, which came to

an end during the confusions which fell on the Mercian Kingdom towards

the end of the eighth [Sidenote: Secular College, 767?-1022.]

century.[1271] The house then became a College of secular priests,[1272]

which lasted till the days of Cnut. In the same spirit in which Cnut

himself substituted monks for [Sidenote: Benedictine Abbey, 1022–1539.]

secular canons in the Church of Saint Eadmund at Bury,[1273] Wulfstan,

Archbishop of York and Bishop of Worcester, [Sidenote: Cathedral Church,

1541–1868.] made the same change in the Church of Saint Peter at

Gloucester.[1274] The rule of Saint Benedict was now rigidly [Sidenote:

Abbot Eadric. 1022–1058.] carried out, and one Eadric became the first

Abbot. His government lasted for more than thirty-six years, but his

local reputation is not good, as he is charged with wasting [Sidenote:

Ealdred rebuilds and consecrates the church, and appoints Wulfstan

Abbot. 1058.] the property of the monastery.[1275] Meanwhile the bounty

of Ealdred rebuilt the church of Saint Peter from its foundations, and

it now stood ready for consecration. Abbot Eadric most opportunely died

at this time, so that Ealdred was able at once to furnish his new

minster with a new chief ruler. He consecrated the church, and bestowed

the abbatial benediction on Wulfstan, a monk of his own church of

Worcester, on whom, by the King’s licence, he conferred the vacant

office.[1276] It was just at this time that [Sidenote: Ealdred restores

the see of Ramsbury to Hermann and makes the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.]

Bishop Hermann came back from Saint Omer. Ealdred, charged with the care

of three dioceses, restored Ramsbury, the poorest and least

distinguished, to its former owner.[1277] Worcester was no doubt

entrusted to the care of Æthelwig;[1278] of any arrangements for the

benefit of Hereford we hear nothing. Ealdred then undertook a journey

which no English Bishop had ever before undertaken,[1279] which indeed

we have not heard of as undertaken by any eminent Englishman of that

generation, except by the repentant Swegen. Duke Robert of Normandy and

Count Fulk of Anjou had visited the tomb of Christ, but Cnut and Harold

had not gone further than the threshold of the Apostles. But Ealdred now

undertook the longer journey; he passed through Hungary,[1280] a country

which the negotiations for the return of the Ætheling had doubtless

opened to English imaginations, and at last reached the holy goal of his

pilgrimage. He went, we are told, with such worship as none ever went

before him; his devotion was edifying and his gifts were splendid. A

chalice of gold, of five marks weight, and of wondrous workmanship, was

the offering of the renowned English Prelate at the most sacred spot on

earth.[1281]

[Sidenote: Barrenness of events in the year 1059.]

The next year is one singularly barren of English events. The Chronicles

literally record nothing of greater importance than the fact that the

steeple of Peterborough minster was hallowed.[1282] The zeal and bounty

of Abbot Leofric[1283] was busily at work. And from other sources all

that is to be learned is the appointment of a new Abbot of Evesham. That

appointment however was in some [Sidenote: Resignation of Abbot Mannig

of Evesham. 1059. [His death. Jan. 5, 1066.]] respects a remarkable one.

Abbot Mannig, the architect, painter, and general proficient in the

arts, had been smitten by paralysis, and had resigned his office. He

lived however in honour for seven years longer, and died, so it was

said, on the same day and hour as King Eadward.[1284] His successor was

Æthelwig, the monk who acted for Ealdred when absent from his diocese,

and who was now Provost of the monastery of Evesham.[1285] As in the

case of Wulfstan at Gloucester, we hear nothing distinctly of any

capitular election. The retiring Abbot seems to nominate his successor.

Pleading his illness as an excuse for not coming personally, he sends

certain monks and laymen to [Sidenote: Æthelwig Abbot. April 23, 1059.]

the King, recommending Æthelwig for the Abbacy. The King approves, and,

by his order, Ealdred gives the abbatial benediction to Æthelwig at

Gloucester in the Easter Gemót holden in that city.[1286] Of the new

Prelate we shall hear again more than once.

[Sidenote: Deposition of Pope Benedict; its effect on the position of

Stigand. 1059.]

This year however was by no means an unimportant one in English history.

It was now that, as all our Chronicles so carefully note, the intruding

Benedict was deposed, and Nicolas succeeded to the Papacy. The

recognition of Stigand lasted no longer than the temporary recognition

of Benedict. When the Pontiff from whom he had received his pallium sank

to the position of an Antipope and schismatic, the English Primate sank

again to the anomalous position in which he had been before. His

ministrations were again avoided, even in the quarter which one would

have least expected to find affected by such scruples. Earl Harold

himself, when he needed the performance of a great ecclesiastical

ceremony, now shrank from having it performed by the hands of the

Primate who, in all political matters, was his friend and fellow-worker.

[Sidenote: Harold’s minster at Waltham consecrated. May 3, 1060.]

For we have now reached the date of an event which closely binds

together the ecclesiastical and the secular history of the time. It was

in the year following the expulsion of Benedict that Earl Harold brought

to perfection the minster which he had doubtless for some time been

engaged in rearing on his East-Saxon lordship of Waltham. Whether any

portion of the fabric still existing is the work of its great founder is

a matter of antiquarian controversy on which I will not here enlarge.

But whether the existing nave, or any part of it, be Harold’s work or

not, the historic interest of that memorable spot remains in either case

the same. As we go on we shall see Waltham win for itself an abiding

fame as the last resting-place of its great founder; at present we have

to look to the foundation itself as a most remarkable witness to that

[Sidenote: Nature and importance of the foundation] founder’s wisdom as

well as his bounty.[1287] The importance of the foundation of Waltham in

forming an estimate, both of Harold’s personal character and of the

ecclesiastical [Sidenote: generally misunderstood.] position of England

at the time, has been altogether slurred over through inattention to the

real character of the foundation. Every writer of English history, as

far as I know, has wholly misrepresented its nature. It is constantly

spoken of as an Abbey, and its inhabitants as monks.[1288] Waltham and

its founder thus get mixed up with the vulgar crowd of monastic

foundations, the creations in many cases of a real and enlightened

piety, but in many cases also of mere superstition or mere fashion. The

great ecclesiastical foundation of Earl Harold was something [Sidenote:

Change of foundation by Henry the Second. 1177.] widely different.

Harold did not found an Abbey; Waltham did not become a religious house

till Henry the Second, liberal of another man’s purse, destroyed

Harold’s foundation by way of doing honour to the new Martyr of

Canterbury. Harold founded a Dean and secular Canons; these King Henry

drove out, and put in an Abbot and Austin Canons in their place.[1289]

Harold’s foundation, in short, was an enlargement of the original small

foundation of Tofig the Proud.[1290] Tofig had built a church for the

reception of the miraculous crucifix which had been found at

Lutegarsbury, and had made an endowment for two priests only. The Holy

Rood of Waltham became an object of popular worship and pilgrimage, and

probably the small settlement originally founded by Tofig in the middle

of the forest was already growing into a considerable town. [Sidenote:

Æthelstan son of Tofig and his son Esegar.] The estate of Tofig at

Waltham had been lost by his son Æthelstan,[1291] and was confiscated to

the Crown. I have already suggested that Æthelstan, the son of a Danish

father, may not improbably have been one of the party which opposed the

election of Eadward, and most of whose members suffered more or less on

that account.[1292] But the royal disfavour which fell on Æthelstan did

not extend to his son Esegar, who held the office of Staller from a very

early period [Sidenote: Acquisition of Waltham by Harold.] of Eadward’s

reign till the Norman invasion.[1293] But the lordship of Waltham was

granted by the King to his brother-in-law Earl Harold,[1294] with whom

it evidently became a [Sidenote: He rebuilds the Church.] favourite

dwelling-place. The Earl now rebuilt the small church of Tofig on a

larger and more splendid scale, no doubt calling to his aid all the

resources which were supplied by the great contemporary developement of

architecture in Normandy.[1295] One who so diligently noted all that was

going on in contemporary Gaul would doubtless keep his eye on such

matters also. When the church was built, he enriched it with precious

gifts and relics of all [Sidenote: He founds the College.] sorts, some

of which he had himself brought personally from Rome on his

pilgrimage.[1296] Lastly, he increased the number of clergy attached to

the church from two to a much larger number, a Dean and twelve Canons,

besides several inferior officers.[1297] He richly endowed them with

lands, and contemplated larger endowments still.

[Sidenote: Nature of his foundation.]

This is something very different from the foundation of a monastery.

Harold finds a church on his estate the seat of a popular worship; he

rebuilds the fabric and increases the number of its ministers. The order

of his proceedings is very clearly traced out in the royal charter by

which the foundation was confirmed two years later. The founder of a

monastery first got together his monks, and gave them some temporary

habitation; the church and the other buildings then grew up gradually.

The church of a monastery exists for the sake of the monks, but in a

secular foundation the canons or other clergy may be said to exist for

the sake of the church. So at Waltham, Harold first rebuilt the church;

he then secured to it the elder endowment of Tofig; he had it

consecrated, and enriched it with relics and other gifts; he, last of

all, after the consecration, set about his plan for increasing the

number of clergy attached to it.[1298] Tofig’s two priests of course

were still there to discharge the duties of the place in the meanwhile.

And the clergy whom Harold placed in his newly founded minster were not

monks, but secular priests, each man living on his own prebend, and some

of [Sidenote: Harold’s zeal for education.] them, it would seem,

married. Education also occupied a prominent place in the magnificent

and enlightened scheme of the great Earl.[1299] The Chancellor or

Lecturer—for the word Schoolmaster conveys too humble an idea—filled a

[Sidenote: Adelard of Lüttich.] dignified place in the College, and the

office was bestowed by the founder on a distinguished man from a foreign

land. We have seen throughout that, stout English patriot as Harold was,

he was never hindered by any narrow insular prejudice from seeking merit

wherever he could find it. Harold had seen something of the world; he

had visited both France and Italy; but it was not however from any land

of altogether foreign speech that he sought for coadjutors in his great

work. As in the case of so many appointments of Bishops, so now, in

appointing an important officer in his own College, Harold, when he

looked beyond our own island, looked in the first place to the lands of

kindred Teutonic speech.[1300] As Ælfred had brought over Grimbald and

John the Old-Saxon, so now Harold brought over Adelard of Lüttich to be

the head of the educational department of his foundation, and to be his

general adviser in the whole work.[1301] Adelard had been already

employed under the Emperor Henry the Third, one of the truest and most

enlightened of ecclesiastical reformers, in bringing several of the

churches of his dominions into better discipline. He now came over to

England, became a Canon and Lecturer at Waltham, and, using his genuine

Teutonic liberty, handed on his office to his son.[1302]

[Sidenote: Harold a friend of the secular clergy.]

The truth is, as we have already seen several indications, that Harold,

so far from being an ordinary founder of a monastery, was a deliberate

and enlightened patron of the secular clergy. He is described in the

foundation charter [Sidenote: Long continuance of the struggle between

regulars and seculars.] of his College as their special and active

friend.[1303] The old struggle which had been going on from the days of

Dunstan was going on still, and it went on long after. Harold, like the

elder Eadward in his foundation at Winchester, like Æthelstan in his

foundation at Milton, preferred the seculars, the more practically

useful class, the class less removed from ordinary human and national

feelings. In his eyes even a married priest was not a monster of vice.

To make such a choice in the monastic reign of Eadward, when the King on

his throne was well nigh himself a monk, was worthy of Harold’s lofty

and independent spirit; it was another proof of his steady and

clear-sighted patriotism. In truth, of the two great foundations of this

reign, Earl Harold’s College at Waltham stands in distinct opposition,

almost in distinct rivalry, to King Eadward’s Abbey at Westminster. And

it is not unlikely that Harold’s preference for the secular clergy may

have had some share in bringing upon him the obloquy which he undergoes

at the hands of so many ecclesiastical writers. It was not only the

perjurer, the usurper, but the man whose hand was closed against the

monk and open to the married priest, who won the hatred of Norman and

monastic writers. With the coming of the Normans the monks finally

triumphed. Monasticism, in one form or another, was triumphant for some

ages. Harold’s own foundation was perverted from his original design;

his secular priests were expelled to make room for those whom the

fashion of the age looked on as holier than they. At last the tide

turned; men of piety and munificence learned that the monks had got

enough, and from the fourteenth century onwards, the bounty of founders

took the same direction which it had taken under Æthelstan and Harold.

Colleges, educational and otherwise, in the Universities and out of

them, now again arose alongside of the monastic institutions which had

now thoroughly [Sidenote: Witness of Waltham to Harold’s character.]

fallen from their first love. In short, the foundation of Waltham,

instead of being simply slurred over as a monastic foundation of the

ordinary kind, well deserves to be dwelt upon, both as marking an æra in

our ecclesiastical history, and also as bearing the most speaking

witness to the real character of its illustrious founder. The care and

thoughtfulness, as well as the munificence, displayed in every detail of

the institution, the zeal for the advancement of learning as well as for

mere ecclesiastical splendour, the liberal patronage of even foreign

merit, all unite to throw a deep interest round Earl Harold’s minster,

and they would of themselves be enough to win him a high place among the

worthies of England. No wonder then that this noble foundation became in

a peculiar manner identified with its founder; no wonder that it was to

Waltham that he went for prayer and meditation in the great crisis of

his life, that it was at Waltham that his body found its last

resting-place, that at Waltham his memory still lived, fresh and

cherished, while elsewhere calumny had fixed itself upon his glorious

name. No wonder too that the local relic became a centre of national

reverence; that the object of Harold’s devotion became the badge and

rallying-point of English national life; that the “Holy Rood”—the Holy

Rood of Waltham—became the battle-cry of England, the shout which urged

her sons to victory at Stamfordbridge, and which still rose to heaven,

as long as an English arm had life, in that last battle where England

and her King were overthrown.

[Sidenote: The church consecrated May 3, 1060,]

At what time the foundation of Waltham was begun is not recorded, but

the church was finished and consecrated in the year 1060, the ceremony

being performed on the appropriate day of the Invention of the

Cross.[1304] The minster was hallowed in the presence of King Eadward

and the Lady Eadgyth, and of most of the chief men of the land, clerical

and lay.[1305] But the chief actor in that day’s rite was neither the

Bishop of the diocese nor the [Sidenote: by Cynesige, Archbishop of

York.] Metropolitan of the province. As Wulfstan had been brought from

York to consecrate Cnut’s minster on Assandun,[1306] so this time also a

Northern Primate came to consecrate Harold’s minster at Waltham. The

position of Stigand, bettered for the moment through the pallium sent by

Benedict, had fallen with the position of the Pontiff who had recognized

him. In orthodox eyes he was again an usurper and a schismatic.[1307]

Either this feeling had extended itself to the mind of Harold himself,

or else he found it prudent to yield to the prejudices of others.

Stigand was not called upon to officiate. It is not likely that William,

the Bishop of the diocese, was excluded on account of his Norman birth,

as we find no traces of any such jealousy of him at other times. The

occasion was doubtless looked on as one of such dignity as to call for

the ministrations of a Prelate of the highest rank. The new minster of

Waltham, with its pillars fresh from the mason’s hand, and its altars

blazing with the gorgeous gifts of its founder, was hallowed in all due

form by Cynesige, Archbishop of York.

[Sidenote: The Confirmation Charter. 1062.]

The church was thus completed and consecrated; but it seemingly took

Harold two years longer fully to arrange the details of his foundation,

and to settle the exact extent of the lands which were to form its

endowment. At the end of that time the royal charter which has been

already quoted confirmed all the gifts and arrangements of the founder.

[Sidenote: Death of Archbishop Cynesige. Dec. 22, 1060.]

The Prelate who had played the most important part in the great ceremony

at Waltham did not long survive that event. Shortly before the close of

the year Archbishop Cynesige died at York, and was buried at

Peterborough.[1308] Communication between distant places must have been

easier in those times than we are at first sight inclined to think, for

it appears that the news of the event which took place at York was known

and acted upon at Gloucester only three days afterwards. We read that

his successor was appointed on Christmas-Day.[1309] Now the appointment

would regularly be made in the Witenagemót, and the Witenagemót would,

according to the custom of this reign, be holding its Christmas sitting

at Gloucester. Such speed would have been impossible if the Witan had

not been actually in session when the vacancy occurred. The absence of

Cynesige is of course explained by his mortal illness. But his successor

was on the spot, and he was no doubt on the alert to take care of

[Sidenote: Ealdred succeeds him. Dec. 25, 1060.] his own interests.

Ealdred, the Bishop of the diocese in which the Assembly was held, was

raised to the metropolitan see which had been so often held in

conjunction with that of Worcester. Indeed, Ealdred himself, who had not

scrupled to hold three Bishopricks at once, for a while followed the

vicious example of his predecessors and retained the two sees in

plurality. His successor in the see of Worcester was not appointed till

two years later. But the church of Hereford, which Ealdred had

administered for the last two years, now received a pastor of its own.

That [Sidenote: Walter, Bishop of Hereford. 1060–1079.] Bishoprick was

given to Walter, a Lotharingian by birth, and a Chaplain of the Lady

Eadgyth.[1310] Either in this year or very early in the next[1311] died

Duduc, the Saxon Bishop of Somersetshire, who had sat at Wells ever

since the days of Cnut. His see was given to another Lotharingian, Gisa,

a [Sidenote: Gisa Bishop of Wells 1060–1088.] Chaplain of the

King.[1312] These appointments, taken in connexion with Harold’s own

appointment of Adelard in his College at Waltham, must be carefully

noticed. The influence of Harold, and with it the close connexion

between England and Northern Germany, is now at its height.

From one however of the Prelates now appointed the great Earl hardly met

with the gratitude which he deserved. The story is one of the best

illustrations of the [Sidenote: Dispute between Harold and Gisa.

1061–1066.] way in which stories grow.[1313] Duduc, the late Bishop of

Wells, had received from King Cnut certain estates as his private

property, among which, strangely enough, we find reckoned the Abbey of

Gloucester. Duduc, with King Eadward’s assent, is said to have made over

these estates to his own church, besides various moveable treasures

which he bequeathed on his death-bed. But on the death of Duduc, Earl

Harold took possession of all. The new Bishop, looking on this as an

injury done to his see, rebuked the Earl both privately and openly, and

even meditated a sentence of excommunication against him. He never

however ventured on this final step, and Harold, on his election to the

Crown, promised both to restore the lands in question and to give others

as well. The fulfilment of this promise was hindered by Harold’s death,

which of course the Bishop represents [Sidenote: Gisa’s own story of the

case.] as a divine judgement. This is Gisa’s story, and we do not

possess Harold’s defence. But it is to be remarked that there is nothing

in Gisa’s version which at all touches any ancient possessions of the

see of Wells. He speaks only of some private estates which Duduc gave,

or wished to give, to his church. Gisa does not even charge Harold with

seizing anything which had belonged to the see before Duduc’s time; he

simply hinders Duduc’s gifts and bequests from taking effect. Gisa says

nothing of any appeal to the King, but simply of an appeal made by

himself to the private conscience of Harold. The natural inference is

that Harold, as Earl of the country, asserted a legal claim to the lands

and other property, that he disputed Duduc’s right to dispose of them,

and maintained that they fell to the King, or to the Earl as his

representative. As Duduc was a foreigner, dying doubtless without heirs,

it is highly probable that such would really be the law of the case. At

all events, as we have no statement from the defendant and a very

moderate one from the plaintiff, it is only fair to stop and think

whether it is not possible that there may have been something to say on

the side of the Earl as well as [Sidenote: Exaggerations of later

writers.] on that of the Bishop. In any case, the simple statement of

Gisa differs widely from the exaggerations of later writers. In their

stories we hear how Harold, instead of simply hindering a new

acquisition by the Church of Wells, plundered it of its old established

possessions. While Earl, he drives the Canons away and reduces them to

beggary. As King, he seizes all the estates of the see and drives the

Bishop into banishment. All this, I need not say, is utterly

inconsistent with Gisa’s own narrative and with our other corroborative

evidence. The story is an instructive one. By the colouring given to it

by Gisa himself, and by the exaggerations which it received in later

times, we may learn to look with a good deal of suspicion on all stories

of the kind. The principle is that the Church is in all cases to gain

and never to lose; a regular and legal opposition to ecclesiastical

claims is looked on as no less criminal than one which is altogether

fraudulent or violent.

[Sidenote: Later career of Walter and Gisa.]

Both our Lotharingian Bishops survived the Conquest; Gisa survived the

Conqueror himself. There is nothing to convict either of them of treason

to England; but Gisa at least does not seem very warm in his patriotism

for his adopted country. He is quite ready to forgive William for the

Conquest of England in consideration of the help which he gave him in

his reformation of the Church of Wells.[1314] Walter, on the other hand,

is represented, in some accounts, as taking a prominent part in

resistance to the Conqueror.[1315] The tale rests on no good authority,

but it could hardly have been told of one whose conduct was known to

have been of a directly opposite kind. On the other hand, as both Walter

and Gisa kept their sees till death, they must at least have shown a

discreet amount of submission to the new state of things. Walter came,

so we are told, to a sad and shameful end,[1316] but one in which

questions of Norman, English, and Lotharingian nationality [Sidenote:

Gisa’s changes at Wells.] were in no way concerned. Gisa lived in

honour, and died in the odour of sanctity, and he fills a prominent

place in the history of the Church of Wells. He found his church, small,

poor, served only by four or five Canons, who lived in houses in the

town, and who, we are told, doubtless by a figure of speech, had

sometimes to beg their bread.[1317] Gisa obtained various gifts from

King Eadward and the Lady Eadgyth, and afterwards from William,[1318]

and he was also enabled to buy several valuable possessions for his

church.[1319] But he is most memorable for his attempt to introduce at

Wells, as Leofric had done at Exeter,[1320] the rule [Sidenote: 1059.]

of his countryman Chrodegang. Two synods held at Rome a few years

earlier, one of them the second Lateran Council, had made various

ordinances with the object of enforcing this rule, or one of the same

character, on all cathedral and collegiate clergy. In obedience to their

orders, Gisa began to reform his Church according to the Lotharingian

pattern.[1321] The number of the Canons of Wells was increased, their

revenues were increased also, but they were obliged to forsake their

separate houses, and to use the common refectory and dormitory which

Gisa built for them.[1322] This change was still more short-lived at

Wells than it was at Exeter. Whatever Gisa did was undone by his

immediate successor.

[Sidenote: Comparison between the foundations of Harold and Gisa.]

It is to be noticed that the innovations of Leofric at Exeter and of

Gisa at Wells were conceived in quite another spirit from Harold’s

foundation at Waltham. The changes made by the Lotharingian Bishops—for

Leofric, though English by birth, was Lotharingian in feeling—were

changes in a monastic direction. Leofric and Gisa did not indeed expel

their secular Canons and substitute monks; neither did they, like

Wulfstan at Gloucester, require their Canons to take monastic vows or

subject them to the fulness of monastic discipline. A Canon of Wells or

Exeter could doubtless, unlike a monk, resign his office, and thereby

free himself from the special obligations which it involved. But, while

he retained his office, he was obliged to live in what, as compared with

the free life of the English secular priest, must have seemed a monastic

fashion. One may suspect that the rule of Chrodegang was but the small

end of the wedge, and that, if the system had taken root and flourished,

the next step would have been to impose monastic vows and full monastic

discipline upon the capitular clergy. All this was utterly alien to the

feelings of Englishmen. Our countrymen were, only too often, ready to

found monasteries and to become monks. But they required that the

process should be open and above-board. The monk should be a monk and

the secular should be a secular. The secular had no mind to be entrapped

into becoming a sort of half monk, while still nominally retaining the

secular character. Earl Harold better understood his countrymen. When he

determined on founding, not a monastery but a secular college, he

determined that it should be really secular. The Canons of Waltham

therefore lived like Englishmen, each man in his own house on his own

prebend, while the Canons of Wells and Exeter had to submit for a while

to the foreign discipline of the common refectory and the common dormer.

[Sidenote: Walter and Gisa consecrated at Rome. April 15, 1061.]

The Lotharingian Prelates seem to have been among the great

disseminators of that feeling about the uncanonical appointment of

Stigand, which, as we have seen, had perhaps touched the mind even of

Harold himself.[1323] It is therefore not wonderful that the scruple had

touched the mind of Eadward, and that it was by his authority that the

two new Bishops went to Rome to receive consecration at the hands of the

lawful Pope Nicolas.[1324] They refused to receive the rite from a

Primate whose pallium had been received from an usurper, and, as Ealdred

had as yet received no pallium at all, there was no other Metropolitan

in the land to fall back upon. The scruple however was not universal.

Another great ecclesiastical preferment fell vacant during the absence

of Walter and [Sidenote: Death of Abbot Wulfric. April 18, 1061.] Gisa.

Wulfric, Abbot of Saint Augustine’s at Canterbury, one of the Prelates

who had appeared as the representatives of England at the Synod of

Rheims,[1325] and who had been a splendid benefactor to his own

monastery,[1326] died during the Easter festival.[1327] The news was

brought to the King, seemingly while the Witan were, as usual, in

session at [Sidenote: Æthelsige receives the abbatial benediction from

Stigand. May 26, 1061.] Winchester. The royal choice fell on Æthelsige,

a monk of the New Minster. He, we are told, followed Archbishop Stigand,

and was by him hallowed as Abbot on the day of the patron of his house.

The ceremony was performed at Windsor, a royal seat of which this is one

of our earliest notices.[1328] It would perhaps have been a strong

measure for Æthelsige altogether to refuse the ministrations of one who

was doubly his diocesan, alike as a monk of New Minster and as Abbot of

Saint Augustine’s. Moreover, the benediction of an Abbot was not a

matter of the same spiritual importance as the consecration of a Bishop.

It was an edifying ceremony, but it was not a sacramental rite. Still,

when we remember that Earl Harold himself had chosen another Prelate for

his ceremony at Waltham, it shows some independence on the part of

Æthelsige thus openly to communicate with the schismatical Primate. His

conduct at all events did not lose him the royal favour. At some date

between this time and the death of Eadward, Abbot Ælfwine of Ramsey, he

who had been ambassador to the Pope and the Cæsar,[1329] resigned his

office, and Abbot Æthelsige, without resigning his office at Canterbury,

was entrusted with the administration of the great Huntingdonshire

monastery.[1330]

[Sidenote: Journey to Rome of Ealdred, Tostig, and Gyrth. 1061.]

It is not quite clear whether Gisa and Walter made their journey to Rome

in company with some still more exalted personages who went on the same

road in the course of the same year. The new Metropolitan of the North

went to Rome after his pallium,[1331] and with him the Earl of the

Northumbrians went as a pilgrim, accompanied by his wife, by his younger

brother Gyrth, Earl of the East-Angles, by several noble Thegns from

Northumberland, and by Burchard, son of Earl Ælfgar, a companion, it

would seem, of Ealdred rather than of Tostig.[1332] Harold, on his

pilgrimage, had chosen the route through Gaul, in order to ascertain the

strength of the enemy. Tostig, probably starting from the court of his

fatherin-law at Bruges, chose to make his journey wholly through those

kindred lands with which England was now so closely connected. The

Archbishop and the two Earls passed through Saxony and along the upper

course of the Rhine, so that, till they reached the Alps, the whole of

their course lay over Teutonic soil.[1333] They seem to have found Gisa

and Walter already at Rome;[1334] but the three Prelates, besides the

personal business which each had with the Pope, are said to have been

charged in common with one errand from the King. This was to obtain the

Papal confirmation for the privileges of his restored monastery

[Sidenote: Papal confirmation of the privileges of Westminster.] at

Westminster.[1335] A synod of some kind was sitting, in which the Earl

of the Northumbrians was received by Pope Nicolas with marked

honours.[1336] The illustrious visitors obtained the Pope’s confirmation

for the privileges of the rising minster of Saint Peter, and they

returned laden with letters from Nicolas to that effect.[1337] Walter

and Gisa obtained without difficulty the consecration which they

sought;[1338] but Ealdred was at first not only refused [Sidenote:

Ealdred refused the pallium, and deprived of his see.] the pallium which

he asked for, but was deprived, so far as a Pope could deprive an

English Prelate, of all his preferments.[1339] The ground for this

severity was, according to one account, the charge of simony; according

to another, it would seem to have been an objection to an uncanonical

translation or to the holding of two Bishopricks at once.[1340] At any

rate, Ealdred retired in confusion. The whole party now prepared to

return to England, but not in one body. Judith and the greater part of

the company were sent first, and they reached England without any

special adventure. But the Earl, and seemingly all the three Bishops,

stayed behind to prosecute the cause of Ealdred.[1341] At last, thinking

the matter hopeless, they [Sidenote: Tostig and the Bishops robbed on

their way home.] also set out to return home. On their way they were

attacked by robbers, seemingly the robber nobles of the country.[1342]

The brigands seem to have been specially anxious to seize the person of

the Earl of the Northumbrians. A noble youth named Gospatric[1343] said

that he was the Earl, and was carried off accordingly. But, after a

while, the robbers, admiring his courage and appearance, not only set

him free without ransom, but restored to him all that they had taken

from him.[1344] The rest returned to the presence of the Pope, with

nothing but the clothes on their backs.[1345] Tostig now seems to have

mingled threats and entreaties. One account describes the Pope as

touched with the desolate condition of the whole party, and as therefore

yielding the more readily to Tostig’s petition in favour of

Ealdred.[1346] Another version [Sidenote: The Pope yields to the threats

of Tostig, and Ealdred receives the pallium.] makes the Earl take a

higher tone. If the Pope and his authority were so little cared for in

his own neighbourhood, who could be expected to care for his

excommunications in distant countries? He was fierce enough towards

suppliants, but he seemed able to do nothing against his own rebels. Let

him at once cause the property to be restored, which had most likely

been seized with his own connivance. If Englishmen underwent such

treatment almost under the walls of Rome, the King of the English would

certainly withdraw all tribute and payment of every kind from the Roman

See. He, Earl Tostig, would take care that the King and his people

should know the truth in all its fulness.[1347] This account carries

more of the stamp of truth with it than the other more courtly version.

At any rate, whether the voice of Tostig was the voice of entreaty or

the voice of threatening, to his voice the Pope at last yielded. Ealdred

was restored to his Archbishoprick and invested with the pallium, on the

single condition of his resigning the see of Worcester.[1348] The losses

which the Earl and the Bishops had undergone at the hands of the robbers

were made good to them out of the Papal treasury,[1349] and they set

forth again on their journey homeward. They must have come back through

France, as Burchard died on the way at Rheims. He was there buried in

the churchyard of the Abbey of Saint Remigius, a house which his father

Ælfgar enriched for his sake.[1350] Ealdred, Tostig, and the rest came

back, honoured and rejoicing, to England.

[Sidenote: Ill effects of the practice of pilgrimage.]

But in this, as in so many other cases, we see the evil effects which

followed on this passion for pilgrimages, at least among Kings and Earls

and other rulers of men. It was with a true wisdom that the Witan of

England had [Sidenote: Malcolm invades Northumberland during the absence

of Tostig. 1061.] hindered the proposed pilgrimage of Eadward.[1351]

None but the great Cnut could leave his realm with impunity and could

keep distant nations in subjection by the mere terror of his name. We

have seen what evils were undoubtedly brought upon Normandy by the

pilgrimage of Robert; we have seen what lesser evils were probably

brought upon England by the pilgrimage of Harold. So now the absence of

her Earl, even on so pious a work, brought no good to Northumberland. No

doubt the times must have seemed specially secure both at home and

abroad, when two of the great Earls of England could venture to leave

the Kingdom at the same time, and when Northumberland could be deprived

of the care at once of her temporal and of her spiritual chief. Her only

dangerous neighbour was bound to Tostig by the closest of artificial

ties. But so tempting an opportunity for a raid overcame any scruples

which either gratitude or the tie of sworn brotherhood might have

suggested to the mind of Malcolm. The King of Scots entered

Northumberland; he cruelly ravaged the country, and did not even show

reverence to Saint Cuthberht by sparing his holy isle of

Lindisfarn.[1352] We have no further details. Neither do we hear whether

Tostig took any sort of vengeance for this seemingly quite unprovoked

injury. We hear nothing more of Scottish affairs during the remaining

years of the reign of Eadward.

It always marks a season of comparative quiet when our attention is

chiefly occupied by ecclesiastical affairs. During four whole years

Malcolm’s raid into Northumberland is the only political or military

event which [Sidenote: 1062.] we have to record. We now enter on the

last year of [Sidenote: Vacancy of the See of Worcester.] this time of

quiet. In the year following the pilgrimage of Tostig, Ealdred having at

last resigned the see of Worcester, a successor had to be chosen.

England was at that moment blessed or cursed with visitors of a kind

who, to say the least, did not in those days often reach her [Sidenote:

Papal Legates in England. Lent, 1062.] shores, namely Legates from the

Roman See. Pope Nicolas died soon after the visit of Ealdred and Tostig,

and was succeeded by Alexander the Second, a name afterwards to become

only too well known in English history. By commission from this Pontiff,

Ermenfrid, Bishop of Sitten, and a nameless colleague, came to England

early in the year. It is clear that their errand was in some way

connected with the appointment to the see of Worcester, besides any

other matters with which they may have been charged for the

enlightenment of the King’s private conscience or for the forwarding of

his foundation at Westminster.[1353] Possibly their personal presence

was thought necessary in order to ensure the surrender by Ealdred of a

Bishoprick to which he clave with special affection.[1354] At any rate

it was Ealdred who received the Legates, who conducted them on their

journey through a great part of England, and who at last quartered them

at Worcester, under the care of Wulfstan, the holy Prior of that

church.[1355] There they were to remain through Lent, waiting for the

Easter Gemót, in which the King and his Witan were to decide on all the

matters which had brought Ealdred doubtful between Æthelwig and

Wulfstan. [Sidenote: Ealdred doubtful between Æthelwig and Wulfstan.]

them to England.[1356] With regard to the succession to this see of

Worcester, Ealdred was for a while doubtful between two candidates. One

was Æthelwig, now Abbot of Evesham, who had so long acted as his deputy

in the administration of the Hwiccian diocese.[1357] This Prelate is

described

as a man of noble birth and of consummate prudence in all matters human,

some add in matters divine also.[1358] One paossession of a see which he

had so long administered, and wrt at least of his character was not

belied by his actions. We shall find that he lived in high favour

equally under Eadward, Harold, and William, and died in full possession

of his Abbey eleven years after the Conquest.[1359] He was not

unnaturally anxious to succeed to the full possession of a see which he

had so long administered, and with whose affairs he must have been

thoroughly conversant.[1360] Ealdred himself doubted for a while whether

the see would be more safely entrusted to the worldly wisdom of Æthelwig

or to the simple piety of Wulfstan the Prior.[1361] [Sidenote: WULFSTAN

[Prior and] Bishop of Worcester. Sept. 8, 1062–Jan. 18, 1095. Born about

1012. His life and character.] Wulfstan, the friend of Harold, was a man

now of about fifty years of age.[1362] He was the son of

Æthelstan,[1363] a Thegn of Warwickshire, and his wife Wulfgifu, and he

must have been born among the horrors of the later years of Æthelred.

Brought up, not as a monk, but as a secular student, in the Abbey of

Peterborough, he made great proficiency in the learning of the time

under a master whose name Ervenius seems to imply a foreign

origin.[1364] His parents, as they grew old, took monastic vows by

mutual consent, but Wulfstan for some while lived as a layman,

distinguished for his success in bodily exercises as well as for his

virtuous and pious demeanour. His chastity especially was preserved

unsullied under unusually severe trials.[1365] At last, when he still

could not have been above twenty-six years old,[1366] he received

ordination as a Presbyter at the [Sidenote: 1033–1038.] hands of

Brihtheah, Bishop of Worcester. This was somewhat against his own will,

as he shrank from the responsibilities of the priesthood. The friendly

Prelate vainly pressed on him a good secular living in the neighbourhood

of the city.[1367] But the determination of Wulfstan was fixed, and

Brihtheah had soon to admit him as a monk of the cathedral monastery,

where, after a while, he was promoted by Ealdred to the rank of

Prior.[1368] Here he distinguished himself by every monastic perfection;

he was eminent as a preacher, and it is still more interesting to read

of his habit of going through the country to baptize the children of the

poor, to whom—so our monastic informants tell us—the greedy secular

clergy refused the first sacrament except on payment of a fee.[1369] The

virtues of Wulfstan attracted the notice of many of the great men of the

realm. The famous Godgifu, the wife of Leofric, was his devoted

admirer.[1370] But the same virtues gained him a still nobler and more

powerful votary; he became, as we have seen, the special friend of Earl

Harold.[1371] Ealdred now hesitated between Wulfstan and Æthelwig as his

successor at Worcester. The King, we are told, was determined that the

see should be filled by a canonical election, which however of course

did not exclude the right of the Witan to confirm or to reject the

choice of the ecclesiastical electors. The Papal Legates soon discerned

the virtues of Wulfstan, and became eager on his behalf. They spent

their Lent in efforts to secure his election, especially in exhortations

to the clergy and people of Worcester, an expression which may perhaps

show that something of the ancient popular character of [Sidenote:

Wulfstan elected Bishop.] episcopal elections still lingered on.[1372]

But whoever were the electors, Wulfstan was elected, and the choice of

the local body came before the Witan of the realm for confirmation. The

Legates appeared before the Gemót; the diplomacy of the time doubtless

required that their business with the King should not be decided without

the national approval. The succession to the see of Worcester came on

among the other business of the Assembly, and the Legates themselves

took on [Sidenote: His election approved by the Witan, Easter, 1062.]

them to speak on behalf of the holy Prior.[1373] Not a voice was raised

in opposition; every speaker bore his testimony to the incomparable

merits of Wulfstan. Both Archbishops, Stigand and Ealdred, spoke in his

favour; so did Ælfgar, the Earl of the province, and Wulfstan’s personal

friend Earl Harold.[1374] The approval of the Gemót was unanimous. The

only difficulty was to be found in the unwillingness of Wulfstan himself

to take upon him the cares and responsibilities of the episcopal office.

As soon as the vote was given, messengers were sent to ride at full

speed to Worcester, and to bring the Prior in person before the

Assembly. Wulfstan obeyed the summons, but, amid general shouts of

dissent, he pleaded his unfitness for the vacant office.[1375] He

declared, even with an oath, that he had rather lose his head than

become a Bishop.[1376] His scruples were at last shaken by the Legates

and the Archbishops, who pleaded the duty of obedience to the Holy See,

and finally by the exhortations and reproofs of a holy anchorite named

Wulfsige, who had been for forty years removed from the society of

men.[1377] But the process of persuasion in the mind of Wulfstan was

evidently a long one. The formalities of his ecclesiastical confirmation

and of the final rite of consecration were not completed till the month

of September. One is half disappointed to read that he refused the

ministrations of Stigand, and sought for consecration at the hands of

Ealdred. The distinct Roman influence, embodied in the persons of Roman

Legates, doubtless taught Wulfstan that Stigand was a schismatic.

Ermenfrid and his colleague seem even to have been the bearers of a

distinct Papal [Sidenote: Wulfstan makes canonical profession to

Stigand, but is consecrated by Ealdred.] decree of suspension against

the Archbishop. Wulfstan however drew a distinction, which the facts of

the case amply bore out. Stigand, whether canonically appointed or not,

was, in law and in fact, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Bishop-elect

therefore did not scruple to make his profession of canonical obedience

to him.[1378] He did not scruple thus far to recognize the legal primacy

of an Archbishop appointed by the King and Witan of England. It was only

the sacramental rite of consecration which he sought at the hands of a

Primate whose canonical position [Sidenote: Wulfstan is consecrated by

Ealdred. Sept. 8, 1062.] was open to no cavil. For this he went to the

newly appointed Metropolitan of Northumberland, and was consecrated by

him at York. Ealdred had however to declare, perhaps before the

assembled Witan,[1379] that he claimed no authority, ecclesiastical or

temporal, over the Bishop of Worcester, either on the ground of his

having been consecrated by him or on that of his having formerly been a

monk under his obedience.[1380] Scandal however added that Ealdred

contrived to attach a large portion of the estates of the see of

Worcester to his own Archbishoprick.[1381]

[Sidenote: The King’s Charter to Waltham. Easter? 1062.]

The other ecclesiastical event of this purely ecclesiastical year has

been mentioned already. Earl Harold’s minster at Waltham had been

consecrated two years earlier. By this time he had settled the details

of his foundation and of its endowments. His gifts and regulations were

now confirmed in due form by a royal charter.[1382] As the signature of

Wulfstan is not attached to the document, we may suppose that the

charter was granted in the same Easter [Sidenote: Ælfwig, Abbot of New

Minster. 1063.] Gemót in which Wulfstan’s election was approved. And one

more ecclesiastical appointment must, at some slight sacrifice of

chronological order, be recorded in this section. In the following year

it seems that Harold procured the appointment of a near kinsman,

seemingly a brother of his renowned father, to the office of Abbot of

the New Minster at Winchester, the great house raised by Eadward the

Unconquered in memory of his father Ælfred. It seems strange that a

brother of Godwine, if he desired preferment at all, should have had to

wait for it so long. But such seems to have been the case, and the name

of the new Prelate, Abbot Ælfwig, the uncle of King Harold, will be met

with again in the very crisis of our history.[1383]

§ 2. _The Welsh War and its Consequences._ 1062–1065.

[Sidenote: Renewed ravages of Gruffydd. 1062.]

But the year of this last appointment, or rather the last days of the

year of the consecration of Wulfstan, carries us at once among scenes of

a widely different kind from ecclesiastical ceremonies at Rome, York,

Waltham, or Winchester. The peace of the land is again threatened, and

the great Earl of the West-Saxons again stands forth as the one champion

in whose hands England could trust her destinies. In the course of the

year of Wulfstan’s consecration the ravages of Gruffydd of Wales seem to

have begun again with increased fury. He entered the diocese of the new

Prelate, and seems to have carried his arms even beyond the

Severn,[1384] renewing his earlier exploit of Rhyd-y-Groes. [Sidenote:

Witenagemót of Gloucester. Christmas, 1062–1063.] The damage which he

had done to the English territory, and the insults which he had thus

offered to his lord King Eadward, formed the main subject of discussion

at the Christmas Gemót, which was held as usual at Gloucester.[1385] It

is to be noticed that we now hear [Sidenote: Death of Ælfgar of Mercia;

his son Eadwine succeeds. 1062?] nothing of Gruffydd’s old ally and

father-in-law, Earl Ælfgar. His last recorded acts are the peaceful ones

of recommending Wulfstan for the Bishoprick of Worcester and of signing

the Waltham charter. Two years later we find his son Eadwine in

possession of his Earldom. It is therefore not improbable that he died

about this time, and the appointment of Eadwine is not unlikely to have

taken place in this very Christmas Gemót. But it is certain that Ælfgar,

if living, was not deemed trustworthy enough to be commissioned to act

against his old ally; nor was his young successor, if he were dead,

deemed fit to grapple with so dangerous an enemy, one against whom it

was now determined to strike a decisive blow. The ravages of Gruffydd

had probably again fallen heavy upon Herefordshire, and Herefordshire

was now under the government of Harold. But it was doubtless not as Earl

of this or that Earldom, but as the first man of the Kingdom, as

something like an elected Ætheling, that Harold now undertook to rid

England once for all of this ever recurring [Sidenote: Harold’s march to

Rhuddlan. Christmas, 1062–1063.] plague. Notwithstanding, perhaps

because of, the time of the year, it was determined to strike a sudden

blow, in the hope of seizing or putting to death the turbulent

under-King. Harold set forth with a small force, all mounted, therefore

probably all of them Housecarls,[1386] and hastened with all possible

speed to Rhuddlan on the [Sidenote: 1283.] north-east frontier of Wales.

The spot is famous in our history as the seat of a Parliament of the

great Edward, and its military position is important, as standing at no

great distance from the sea, and commanding the vale of Clwyd, the

southern Strathclyde. There Gruffydd had a palace, the rude precursor no

doubt of the stately castle whose remains now form the chief attraction

of Rhuddlan. The Welsh King heard of the approach of the English; he had

just time to reach the shore and to escape by sea. Earl Harold was close

in pursuit, and the escape of Gruffydd was a narrow one; but he did

escape, and the main object of this sudden expedition was thwarted.

Harold’s force was not strong enough to endure a long winter campaign in

so wild a country; so he contented himself with burning the palace and

the ships which were in the haven. The same day on which this

destruction was done, he set out on his return march to

Gloucester.[1387]

[Sidenote: Harold’s great campaign of 1063.]

Harold’s attempt at a sudden blow had thus, through an unavoidable

accident, been unsuccessful. It was therefore determined to open a

campaign on a great scale, which should crush the power of Gruffydd for

ever. It was in this campaign that the world first fully learned how

great a captain England possessed in her future King. Never was a

campaign more ably planned or more vigorously [Sidenote: Its permanent

effect on men’s minds.] executed. The deep impression which it made on

men’s minds is shown by the way in which it is spoken of by writers who

lived a hundred years later, when men had long been taught to look on

Harold and his house as [Sidenote: Testimony of John of Salisbury and

Giraldus Cambrensis.] a brood of traitors and perjurers. John of

Salisbury, writing under the Angevin Henry, chooses this campaign of

Harold’s as the most speaking example of the all-important difference

between a good general and a bad one. The name of Harold could of course

not be uttered without some of the usual disparaging epithets, but he

allows that the faithless usurper was a model of every princely and

soldier-like excellence.[1388] He compares the days of Harold with his

own, and wishes that England had captains like him to drive back the

marauders who, in his own time, harried her borders with impunity.[1389]

Another writer of the same age, the famous Giraldus, attributes to this

campaign of Harold the security which England enjoyed on the side of the

Welsh during the reigns of the three Norman Kings.[1390] These two

writers, evidently speaking quite independently of each other, give us

several details of the campaign. These are fully confirmed by the

witness of Eadward’s Biographer, and all their accounts fit without

difficulty into the more general narrative given by the Chroniclers.

[Sidenote: Harold and Tostig invade Wales. May 26, 1063.]

The campaign opened in the last days of May. Its general plan was a

combined attack on the Welsh territory from both sides. Harold sailed

with a fleet from Bristol, the haven from which he had set sail on so

different an errand twelve years before; Tostig set forth with a mounted

land force from Northumberland.[1391] The brothers met, probably at some

point of central Wales, and began a systematic ravaging of the country.

The military genius of Harold was now conspicuously shown in the way in

which he adapted himself to the kind of warfare which he had to wage.

Nothing could be better suited than the ancient English tactics for a

pitched battle with an equal enemy. But here there was no hope or fear

of pitched battles, and the enemy to be dealt with was one whose warfare

was of a very different kind. The English Housecarls, with their heavy

coats of mail and huge battle-axes, were eminently unfitted to pursue a

light-armed and active foe through the hills and valleys of Wales. Ralph

the Timid had brought himself and his army to discomfiture by compelling

his Englishmen suddenly to adopt the tactics of France;[1392] the

valiant [Sidenote: Harold adopts the Welsh tactics.] Earl of the

West-Saxons proved his true generalship by teaching his army to accustom

themselves to the tactics and the fare[1393] of Welshmen. The irregular

English troops, the _fyrd_, the levies of the shires, did not differ

very widely from the Welsh mode of fighting. But it is not likely that

Harold would enter on such a campaign as this without the help of at

least a strong body of tried and regular soldiers. We must therefore

conclude that Harold actually required his Housecarls to follow the

tactics suitable to the country. They gave up the close array of the

shield-wall; they laid aside their axes and coats of mail; clothed in

leathern jerkins, they retained their swords, but they were to trust

mainly to the nimble and skilful use of the [Sidenote: Harold ravages

and subdues all Wales.] javelin for attack and of the shield for

defence.[1394] Thus attired, the English, under their great leader,

proved more than a match for the Welsh at their own weapons. Unhappily

we have no geographical details of the campaign, but we have a vivid

picture of its general nature, and we can see that it must have extended

over a large portion of the country. There were no pitched battles; but

the English, in their new array, everywhere contended with success

against the enemy. Every defensible spot of ground was stoutly contested

by the Britons; but even the most inaccessible mountain fastnesses

proved no safeguard against the energy of Harold.[1395] He won skirmish

after skirmish, and each scene of conflict was marked, we are told, by a

trophy of stone, bearing the proud legend, “Here Harold

conquered.”[1396] Such a warfare was necessarily merciless. The object

was to reduce the Welsh to complete submission, to disable them from

ever again renewing their old ravages. Harold was fighting too with an

enemy who knew not what mercy was, who gave no quarter, who, if they

ever took a prisoner, instead of putting him to ransom, cut off his

head.[1397] We are not therefore surprised to hear that every male who

resisted was put to the sword.[1398] One of our informants is even

driven to the rhetoric of the East to express the greatness of the

slaughter.[1399] Such [Sidenote: The Welsh submit.] terrible execution

soon[1400] broke the spirit of the Welsh. They submitted and gave

hostages, they bound themselves to tribute, and pronounced sentence of

deposition and outlawry upon Gruffydd.[1401] The King who had reigned

over all the Welsh kin,[1402] the warrior who had been hitherto

[Sidenote: Gruffydd murdered by his own people. Aug. 5, 1063.]

invincible, the head and shield and defender of Britons,[1403] was now

thoroughly hated by his own people. The war and its results were laid

upon him as a crime,[1404] though we cannot doubt that, in the days of

success, the Welsh people had been as eager as their King to carry spoil

and slaughter along the Saxon border. But now outlawry was not a doom

hard enough for the fallen prince; death alone was the fitting

punishment for his crimes. In the month of August in this year, Gruffydd

the son of Llywelyn, the last victorious hero of the old Cymrian stock,

the last British chief whose name was really terrible in Saxon ears, was

put to death by men of his own race, and his head was sent to the

conqueror.[1405]

[Sidenote: The Welsh kingdom granted to Bleddyn and Rhiwallon.]

In this crime Harold had no share. He had been merciless as long as

resistance lasted, but as soon as the foe submitted, he displayed the

same politic and generous lenity which he always displayed towards both

foreign and domestic enemies. The head of Gruffydd and the beak of his

ship[1406] were brought as trophies to King Eadward. His kingdom was

granted to his two brothers or kinsmen, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon,[1407] who

received the land as under-Kings of the English Emperor. They swore

oaths and gave hostages to King Eadward, and to Earl Harold, seemingly

as his destined successor.[1408] They engaged also to pay the tribute

which had been accustomed in past times, but which, we may be sure, had

been very irregularly paid in the days of Gruffydd.[1409]

[Sidenote: Legislation about Wales.]

Two pieces of legislation are said to have followed the conquest of

Wales. Harold is said to have ordained that any Welshman found in arms

on the English side of Offa’s Dyke should lose his right hand.[1410] If

this was anything more than a temporary military regulation, Harold’s

ordaining it can only mean that it was he who proposed the enactment to

the Witan. The other decree is attributed to the special indulgence of

Eadward himself. The slaughter of the male population of Wales had been

so great that there was no chance of the widows and daughters of the

slain finding husbands among their own people. Lest the whole race

should die out, the King allowed them to marry Englishmen, which we must

infer had hitherto been unlawful.[1411] Stories like these must be taken

at what they are worth. Though coming from the same source, they do not

bear about them the same stamp of truth as the military details of the

campaign.

[Sidenote: Harold marries Ealdgyth. 1064?]

If any law was now passed authorizing the marriage of Englishmen and

Welshwomen, the greatest of living Englishmen was not slow to take

advantage of it, so far as it could be considered as extending to an

Englishwoman who had become Welsh by adoption. We have now reached a

year which stands bare of events in the Chronicles. It may have been the

year of Harold’s fatal visit to Normandy; it can hardly fail to have

been the year of his marriage. There is nothing to imply that the great

Earl had ever been married before. Putting together such indications as

we have, it seems that Harold’s connexion with his East-Anglian mistress

Eadgyth Swanneshals, if it still existed, now came to an end.[1412] The

bride of Harold was in some sense the prize of his own sword and spear.

The fallen Gruffydd had once, like eastern Kings, taken the wife of a

conquered enemy to be his wife.[1413] Her successor, now in her present

widowhood, met, willingly or unwillingly, with the like fate. The fair

Ealdgyth, the daughter of Ælfgar, the sister of Eadwine, the widow of

Gruffydd, became the wife of the rival of her father, the conqueror of

her husband. Harold’s enemies are of course scandalized at a marriage

between Harold and the widow of a man of whom they choose to call him

the murderer.[1414] But it is hard to see any objection to the union,

except the possible wrong done to the forsaken Eadgyth. Of the

circumstances we know nothing. Ealdgyth may, like an earlier namesake in

a somewhat similar case,[1415] have inspired her conqueror with

[Sidenote: The marriage probably a political one.] a sudden passion. But

it is far more likely that Harold’s marriage was a sacrifice of love to

policy, and that his main object was to win to his side the interest of

the great Mercian house which had stood so long in rivalry against

himself and his father. Harold in short, with a Crown in prospect, acted

after the manner of crowned heads. Eadgyth was perhaps forsaken,

Ealdgyth was almost certainly married, in order to secure Mercian votes

in the Gemót which should finally dispose of the Kingdom. Harold

doubtless flattered himself that by this marriage he had extended his

influence over the whole Kingdom. He himself ruled in Wessex; one

brother ruled in Northumberland, another in East-Anglia, another in the

South-Eastern shires. And now the one remaining Earldom was in the hands

of the brother of his wife. But, as events turned out, Harold would have

done better to cleave to his earlier and humbler love, whose love for

him survived desertion and death. He gained little by seeking political

support in an union with the widow of a foe and the sister of a traitor.

Of Ealdgyth personally we know hardly anything;[1416] but we know what

her brothers were, and, when the day of trial came, she seems to have

sided with her brothers rather than with her husband.

Wales was thus, to all appearance, thoroughly conquered. North Wales,

the original Kingdom of Gruffydd, seems to have remained fairly quiet;

but elements of disturbance still lingered in the South. King Eadward

was growing old, but he still retained his love of hunting, and a new

field seemed to be opened for the royal sport in the wild lands which

had been lately brought into fuller [Sidenote: Harold builds a

hunting-seat at Portskewet. August 1, 1065.] subjection to the royal

authority. In the low lands of Gwent, near one of the usual places of

crossing the mouth of the Severn from England into Wales, the Earl chose

out a place called Porth-iscoed or Portskewet as well suited for his

sovereign’s diversions.[1417] One of the great Gemóts of each year was

now so regularly held at Gloucester that a place at no very great

distance from that city might seem well convenient for the purpose. But

besides this, it was an obvious policy thus to take _seizin_, as it

were, of the conquered lands, and to show to their inhabitants that the

English Emperor was to be for the future a really present master. At

Portskewet then Earl Harold began to build a house, and he had gathered

together a large number of workmen and an abundant store of provisions

and other good things. We see how thoroughly subdued the whole country

was held to be, even this corner which did not belong to the immediate

realm of the conquered Gruffydd, and which is not likely to have been

the actual seat of warfare. It shows also the half-kingly position of

Harold that he is described as acting in this way in a district not

belonging to his own Earldom, but included in the dominions of a vassal

prince. We do not read that Eadward ordered the building of the house;

it seems rather like a voluntary act of Harold’s own, rising out of his

personal consideration for his royal brother-in-law’s pleasure. Nor do

we hear anything of discontent on the part of the newly appointed

princes of the country. But there was one to whom a Saxon settlement on

the soil of Gwent was far more irksome than it [Sidenote: Caradoc son of

Gruffydd of South Wales kills the workmen. August 24, 1065.] could be to

any prince of Powys or Gwynedd. A disinherited and dispossessed

chieftain still looked on the land as his own, and probably deemed

Harold and Bleddyn to be equally intruders. This was Caradoc ap

Gruffydd, the son of that Gruffydd of South Wales who had been slain,

and his Kingdom seized, by the more famous Gruffydd whose career had so

lately come to an end.[1418] According to one account, he had been

himself outlawed by order of Harold.[1419] At any rate, the sight of the

palace of the English overlord, rising in a district which had once been

his father’s, rankled in his soul. He gathered as large a band as he

could, he came suddenly on the unfinished building, he slew nearly all

the workmen, and carried off all the good things which had been provided

for them and for the King.[1420] Such a raid was doubtless common in the

desolating border warfare which was ever going on between the English

and Welsh, but it is clear that a special political importance attached

to this act of Caradoc. One of the Chroniclers adds significantly, “We

know not who this ill counsel first devised.”[1421] These words, taken

with a fact which we shall have presently to speak of, may perhaps

suggest the idea that this lesser disturbance in South Wales was not

without connexion with the more important events in England which

presently followed it.

§ 3. _The Revolt of Northumberland._ 1065.

If Eadward or Harold made any preparations to avenge the insult offered

by Caradoc to the Imperial authority, their attention was soon called

off from that corner of the Empire to a far greater movement in the

Earldom of [Sidenote: Oppression of Tostig in Northumberland.]

Northumberland. However righteous may have been the intentions with

which Tostig set out, however needful a wholesome severity may have been

in the then state of his province, it is clear that his government had

by this time degenerated into an insupportable tyranny. This is not

uncommonly the case with men of his disposition, a disposition evidently

harsh, obstinate, and impatient of opposition. Rigid justice, untempered

by mercy, easily [Sidenote: Revolt of the Northhumbrians against him.

October 3, 1065.] changes into oppression. The whole province rose

against him. His apologist tries to represent the leaders of the

movement as wrong-doers whom the Earl’s strict justice had chastised or

offended.[1422] Such may well have been the case, but the long list of

grievances put forth by the Northumbrians, though it may easily have

been exaggerated, [Sidenote: Charges against Tostig.] cannot have been

wholly invented. He had robbed God;[1423] elsewhere Tostig bears a high

reputation for piety, and, in any case, the charge must be taken with

the same allowance as the like charges against his brother. But he had

also robbed many men of land and of life,[1424] he had raised up unjust

law,[1425] and had laid on the Earldom a tax wholly beyond its means to

bear.[1426] A list of particular [Sidenote: Murder of Gamel and Ulf.

1064.] crimes is added. Two Thegns, Gamel the son of Orm and Ulf the son

of Dolfin, had, in the course of the last year, been received in the

Earl’s chamber under pretence of peace, and had been there treacherously

slain by his order.[1427] That is to say, Tostig had repeated one of the

worst deeds of Harthacnut,[1428] and of Cnut himself before his

reformation.[1429] These men may have been criminals; Tostig may have

persuaded himself that he was simply doing an act of irregular justice

in thus destroying men who were perhaps too powerful to be reached by

the ordinary course of law. But, whatever were the crimes of Ulf and

Gamel, Tostig, by this act, degraded himself to their level. If even the

most guilty were to be cut off in such a way as this, even the most

innocent could not feel themselves safe. Another charge aimed yet higher

than the Earl himself. An accomplice of his misdeeds is spoken of, whom

we should certainly never have been expected to find charged with

[Sidenote: Murder of Gospatric. December 28, 1064.] bloodshed. A Thegn

named Gospatric had been, at the last Christmas Gemót, treacherously

murdered in the King’s court. The deed was said to have been done by

order of the Lady at the instigation of her brother.[1430] As there were

other bearers of the name, we may at least hope that this Gospatric was

not the one who had so nobly jeoparded his life to save the life of

Tostig on his return from his Roman pilgrimage.[1431] To avenge these

crimes, the chief men of both divisions of Northumberland, at the head

of the whole force of Bernicia and Deira,[1432] rose in arms.[1433]

[Sidenote: Rebel Gemót at York. October 3, 1065.] Soon after Michaelmas,

two hundred Thegns[1434] came to York, and there held what they

evidently intended to be a Gemót of the ancient Kingdom of

Northumberland. They were headed by several of the greatest men of

Northern England, by Gamel-bearn, doubtless a kinsman of the slain son

of Orm, by Dunstan the son of Æthelnoth, and Glonieorn the son of

Heardulf.[1435] The names seem to show that both English and Danish

blood was represented in the Assembly. Tostig was now absent from his

Earldom; he was engaged with the King in his constant diversion of

hunting, in some of the forests of Wiltshire or Hampshire.[1436] But the

rebels needed not his presence, and they began at once to pass decrees

in utter defiance of the royal authority. [Sidenote: Constitutional

position of Northumberland.] Earls had hitherto always been appointed

and removed by the King and his Witan, and any complaints of the

Northumbrians against Tostig ought legally to have been brought before a

Gemót of the whole realm. But nowhere was the feeling of provincial

independence so strong as in the lands north of the Humber. The

Northumbrians remembered that there had been a time when they had chosen

and deposed Kings for themselves, without any reference to a West-Saxon

overlord. The West-Saxon King was now no longer an overlord, but an

immediate sovereign; Northumberland was no longer a dependency, but an

integral part of the Kingdom; the men of Deira and Bernicia shared every

right which was enjoyed by the men of Wessex and East-Anglia. But the

old feelings still lingered on, and they were probably heightened by the

constant absence of the King and even of his lieutenant. Eadward had

never shown himself further north than Gloucester, or possibly

Shrewsbury;[1437] there is no record of any Gemót of his reign being

held at York or Lincoln. [Sidenote: Frequent absence of Tostig.] And the

frequent absences of Tostig, whom Eadward loved to have about him, are

clearly implied to have been reckoned among the grievances of his

province.[1438] While he was busied in the frivolities of Eadward’s

court, the care of [Sidenote: Copsige, deputy Earl.] Northumberland was

entrusted to a Thegn of the country, Copsige by name. He is described as

a prudent man and a benefactor to the Church of Durham. It does not

appear how far he now shared the unpopularity of his master, but it is

certain that, at a later time, he incurred equal unpopularity by his own

acts. He seems afterwards to have borne the title of Earl,[1439] and it

is possible that he may even have borne it now as Tostig’s deputy. This

systematic government by proxy was no doubt highly offensive to

Northumbrian local patriotism. It was, in a marked way, dealing with the

land as a mere dependency. The Danes of the North were indignant that

their ancient realm should be deemed unworthy of the presence, not only

of the King but of its own Earl. They had no mind to be governed by

orders sent forth from some West-Saxon town or hunting-seat. The

Northumbrians therefore, without presence or licence of King or Earl,

took upon them to hold a Gemót, doubtless an armed Gemót, of the

revolted lands.

[Sidenote: Acts of the Gemót at York. October 3, 1065.]

The Assembly thus irregularly got together did not indeed venture on

the extreme step of renouncing all allegiance to the King of the

English. But everything short of this extreme step was quickly done.

The Merciless Parliament of later days could not surpass this

Northhumbrian Gemót in violent or in blood-thirsty decrees. [Sidenote:

Vote of deposition and outlawry against Tostig. Morkere elected Earl.]

The rebels passed a vote of deposition against their Earl Tostig; they

declared him an outlaw,[1440] and elected in his place Morkere, the

younger son of Ælfgar of Mercia.[1441] Waltheof, the son of Siward,

was passed by, and they may have felt the danger of the rivalries

which were sure to arise if they chose one of the ordinary Thegns of

the country.[1442] Still the election of Morkere, and the whole

circumstances of the story, seem to show that, along with the real

grievances of Northumberland, the intrigues of the Mercian brothers

had a good deal to do with the stirring up of this revolt. The old

rivalry between the houses of Godwine and Leofric had now taken the

form of a special enmity between Tostig and the sons of Ælfgar.[1443]

The marriage of Ealdgyth with Harold doubtless protected her husband

from any open hostility on the part of her brothers, though it

certainly did not save him from their [Sidenote: Treasons of Eadwine.]

secret cabals. Eadwine, in short, was now entering on that series of

treasons which he had, within a very few years, the opportunity of

practising against four sovereigns in succession. Eadward, Harold,

Eadgar, and William all found in turn that no trust was to be put in

the allegiance or the oaths of the Earl of the Mercians. The treasons

of Eadwine were often passive rather than active; they never reached

the height of personal betrayal; otherwise the last Mercian Earl was

no unworthy representative of his predecessors [Sidenote: His policy;

the division of the Kingdom.] Ælfric and Eadric. Still the policy of

the sons of Ælfgar was at any rate more intelligible than the policy

of the arch-traitor. Their object evidently was to revive the old

division of the Kingdom, as it had been divided between Cnut and

Eadmund, or between Harold and Harthacnut. When the death of Eadward

should leave the throne vacant, they were ready to leave Wessex, and

probably East-Anglia, to any one who could get them, but Mercia and

Northumberland were to form a separate realm under the house of

Leofric. This view of their policy explains all their later actions.

They dreamed of dividing the Kingdom with Harold; they dreamed of

dividing it with Eadgar; they even dreamed, one can hardly doubt, of

dividing it with William himself. They were ready enough to accept

West-Saxon help in their own hour of need, but they would not strike a

blow on behalf of Wessex in her greatest extremity. The present

movement in Northumberland, above all the election of Morkere to the

Earldom, exactly suited their purposes. It was more than the mere

exaltation of one of the brothers; it was more than the transfer of

one of the great divisions of the Kingdom from the house of Godwine to

the house of Leofric. The whole land from the Thames to the Tweed was

now united under the rule of the two brothers. There was now a much

fairer hope of changing the northern and central Earldoms into a

separate Kingdom, as soon as a vacancy of the throne should occur.

When therefore the Northumbrians sent for Morkere, offering him their

Earldom, he gladly accepted the offer. He took into his own hands the

government of Deira, or, as it is now beginning [Sidenote: Oswulf in

Bernicia.] to be called, Yorkshire. But he entrusted the government of

the Northern province, the old Bernicia, now beginning to be

distinctively called Northumberland,[1444] to the young Oswulf, the

son of Siward’s victim Eadwulf.[1445] We have no account of the

motives of this appointment. It may have been a condition of Morkere’s

election; it may have been a popular act done of his own accord. But

in either case this appointment seems to show that the Northumbrians

bore no special love to Siward or his house, but that they rather

looked with affection on the more direct representative of their

ancient Earls. Oswulf is spoken of as a youth at this time, but as it

was now [Sidenote: 1041.] twenty-four years since the murder of his

father, he must have been a grown man. Waltheof, the son of Siward, so

[Sidenote: 1067.] eminent only two years later, could not have been

much younger. If Siward’s memory had been at all popular in

Northumberland, Waltheof, rather than Oswulf, would surely have been

chosen for this important subordinate government, even if it was not

thought proper to entrust him with the command of the whole of the

ancient Kingdom.

Thus far the Northumbrian Assembly, however irregularly called together,

had acted in something like the character of a lawful Gemót. To depose

and elect an Earl was a stretch of power beyond the constitutional

authority of a local Gemót; still the unconstitutional character of the

act consisted solely in the Gemót of a single Earldom taking upon itself

functions which lawfully belonged only to a Gemót of the whole Kingdom.

But the Thegns who were assembled at York went on to acts which showed

that, however guilty Tostig may have been, they at least had small right

to throw stones at him. Slaughter and plunder were soon shown to be

quite as much their objects as the redress of grievances or the

punishment of offenders. [Sidenote: The Northumbrians slay Amund and

Ravenswart. October 3.] On Monday, the first day of the Assembly, two of

Tostig’s Danish Housecarls, Amund and Reavenswart, who had fled from

York, were overtaken, and were put to death without the walls of the

city.[1446] How far these men deserved their doom, how far their doom

was the sentence of anything which even pretended to be a lawful

tribunal, we have no [Sidenote: General massacre of Tostig’s followers,

and plunder of his treasury. October 4.] means of knowing. But it is

hardly possible that there can have been even the shadow of lawful

authority for the acts of the next day. As many of Tostig’s personal

followers, English and Danish, as could be found, two hundred in number,

were massacred.[1447] The Earl’s treasury was next broken open, and all

its contents, weapons, gold, silver, and other precious things, were

carried off. This may have been a rough and ready way of repaying

themselves for the unjust tax of which they complained; otherwise any

notion of policy would rather have bidden them to hand over the

treasures of their enemy untouched to the chief whom they had themselves

chosen.[1448]

[Sidenote: Morkere’s march southwards.]

The real character of the revolt, as far at least as the sons of Ælfgar

were concerned, soon showed itself. Morkere did not sit down quietly to

reign in Northumberland; he does not seem to have even demanded the

consent of the King and of the national Witan to his usurpation. He at

once marched southwards. On his march he was joined by the men of the

shires of Lincoln, Nottingham, and Derby.[1449] These were districts in

which the Danish element was strong, especially in their three chief

towns, which [Sidenote: Morkere at Northampton.] were reckoned among the

famous Five Boroughs.[1450] At the head of this force he reached

Northampton. This town was probably chosen as the head-quarters of the

rebels, as being, like Northumberland itself, under the government of

Tostig. Whatever were their designs as to the Earldoms of Northampton

and Huntingdon, it was in any case important to win over their

inhabitants to the cause of the revolt. At Northampton Morkere was met

by his brother Eadwine, at the head of the men of his [Sidenote:

Presence of Welshmen in Eadwine’s army.] Earldom, together with a large

body of Welsh.[1451] Were these last simply drawn thither by the chance

of plunder? Were they followers of the last Gruffydd, faithful to the

old connexion between Ælfgar and their slain King? Or are we to see

something deeper in the matter? It may well be that the movement in

Gwent and the movement in Northumberland were both of them parts of one

scheme devised in the restless brain of the Mercian Earl. The way in

which one event followed on the other, the significant remark made by

the Chronicler on the deed of Caradoc,[1452] the suspicious appearance

of Welshmen in the train of Eadwine, all look the same way. Caradoc and

Gamel-bearn are not likely to have had any direct communication with one

another; but it is quite possible that both of them may have been little

more than puppets moved by a single hand. At all events, a great force,

Northumbrian, Mercian, and Welsh, was now gathered [Sidenote: Ravages of

the Northumbrians about Northampton.] together at Northampton. The

Northumbrians were in what they doubtless expected to be a friendly

country, but it would seem that they found the men of Northamptonshire

and Huntingdonshire less zealous in the cause than they had hoped. At

least we find that Morkere’s Northern followers dealt with the country

about Northampton as if it had been the country of an enemy. They slew

men, burned corn and houses, carried off cattle, and at last led captive

several hundred prisoners, seemingly as slaves.[1453] The blow was so

severe that it was remembered even when one would have thought that that

and all other lesser wrongs would have been forgotten in the general

overthrow of England. Northamptonshire and the shires near to it were

for many winters the worse.[1454]

[Sidenote: Harold carries messages from the King to the insurgents.]

It seems to have been at Northampton that the first attempts at

negotiation began between the King and the insurgents.[1455] Eadward and

Tostig were still in their woodland retreats, enjoying the slaughter of

unresisting animals, while half England was in confusion, and while

whole shires were being laid waste. The Earl of the West-Saxons was most

likely as keen a hunter as either of them, but he at least did not let

his sport interfere with his duty to his country. While his brother and

brother-in-law still remained in the woods, Earl Harold hastened to

Northampton with a message from the King. Eadward, who had once been so

wrathful at Godwine’s appeal to Law on behalf of the men of Dover,[1456]

had now, under Harold’s guidance, better learned the duties of a

constitutional [Sidenote: Demands of Eadward.] King. Through the mouth

of the great Earl, he called on the men of Northumberland to lay down

their arms, to cease from their ravages, and, if they had any matter

against their own Earl, to bring it forward for discussion in a lawful

Assembly. We may conceive the feeling of triumph with which Harold put

into the King’s mouth the very words which, in the mouth of Godwine, had

led to the temporary overthrow of himself and his house. But [Sidenote:

Answer of the Northumbrians.] the Northumbrians would not yield to any

proposal which implied even the possibility of Tostig’s return to power.

They were freemen born and bred, they would not bow to the pride of any

Earl;[1457] they had learned from their fathers to bear no third choice

besides freedom or death. If the King wished to retain Northumberland in

his allegiance, he must confirm the banishment of Tostig from

Northumberland and from all England, he must confirm the election of

Morkere to the Northern Earldom. If he persisted in forcing Tostig upon

them, they would deal with him as an enemy; if he yielded to their

demands, he would see what loyal subjects Northumbrians could be, when

they were gently ruled by a ruler of their own choice.[1458] Brave words

truly, if they really came from the heart of the Northumbrian people,

and were not simply put into their mouths by two ambitious Earls. More

than one message passed to and fro; messengers from the rebel camp

accompanied Harold to the royal presence;[1459] but there was no sign of

yielding on the part of the host encamped at Northampton. At last the

matter became so serious that Eadward left his hunting to apply himself

[Sidenote: Eadward holds a Gemót at Bretford.] personally to the affairs

of his Kingdom. At a royal abode called Bretford, near Salisbury, a

place whose name suggests memories of the warfare of five hundred years

before, Eadward called an Assembly together. It probably professed to be

a Witenagemót of the whole realm, but it must rather have been a meeting

of the King’s immediate counsellors, or at most, of the local Witan of

Wessex. [Sidenote: Debate in the Council; accusations against Tostig.]

This Assembly at once proceeded to discuss the state of the

nation;[1460] and the record of their debates at least shows what full

freedom of speech was allowed in our ancient national Councils. Some

speakers boldly accused Tostig of cruelty and avarice; his severities

had been caused, not by any love of justice, but by a wish to seize on

the wealth [Sidenote: Tostig charges Harold with stirring up the

revolt.] of the rich men of Northumberland.[1461] It was affirmed, on

the other hand, that the revolt against Tostig had been simply got up by

the secret machinations of Harold. No charge could be more unjust, and

we may suspect that it was brought forward by no mouth but that of

Tostig himself.[1462] Harold throughout tried in vain to reconcile the

[Sidenote: Improbability of the charge.] revolters to his brother.[1463]

Up to this time there is not the slightest sign in any trustworthy

account of any quarrel between the two brothers.[1464] Now that the

revolt had broken out, it was undoubtedly Harold’s interest to settle

matters without bloodshed, even at the expense of his brother; but he

had no interest, but quite the contrary, in stirring up the revolt in

the first instance. It was prudent, under the circumstances, to yield to

the demands of the Northumbrians, and to allow the aggrandizement of the

rival house; but Harold could have no motive for seeking, of his own

accord, to transfer Northumberland from a son of Godwine to a son of

Ælfgar. But Tostig doubtless expected his brother to support him, right

or wrong, at all hazards and against all foes, and he could not

understand any cause for Harold’s hesitating so to do except his being

art and part with his enemies. Before the King and all his Court, Tostig

so vehemently charged Harold with having kindled the Northumbrian

revolt, that Harold [Sidenote: Harold denies it on oath.] thought it

necessary to deny the charge, in the usual solemn form, upon oath.[1465]

It appears that the Earl’s own oath was thought enough, and that

compurgators were not called for. But the question how to quell the

revolt was still more urgent than the question how the revolt [Sidenote:

Eadward’s eagerness for war.] arose. The King was as vehement against

the real rebels of Northumberland as he had been, fourteen years before,

against the fancied rebels of Dover. He was as eager to avenge the

wrongs of his English favourite Tostig as he had then been to avenge the

wrongs of his foreign favourite Eustace. He would, doubtless by deputy,

chastise their insolence with the edge of the sword; it would almost

seem that the royal summons went out, calling the whole force of England

to the royal standard.[1466] But Eadward had counsellors about him who

were wiser than himself. They, Harold doubtless at their head, shrank as

soldiers from a winter campaign and as patriots from a civil war. They

pleaded that, with these two great difficulties in the way of immediate

action, it would be impossible to collect an army able to cope with the

insurgents.[1467] The Housecarls of the King and of the Earl were

doubtless ready to march at their command; but, of all courses in the

world, none could be so unpopular as to employ this force to put down a

popular insurrection. It would be a renewal of the days [Sidenote:

1041.] of Harthacnut and of the march against Worcester.[1468] The King

was so eager for battle that his advisers could not, [Sidenote: He is

prevented by Harold and others.] after all, persuade him formally to

revoke his orders for war; but they took means to prevent the expedition

from actually taking place.[1469] So to do would be no very difficult

task, when the feeling of the chiefs and of the people was doubtless

exactly the same. So great was Eadward’s wrath and excitement of mind

that he fell into the illness of which he never recovered. He complained

bitterly before God that he was hindered from chastising the

unrighteous, and called for divine vengeance seemingly alike upon the

original offenders, and on those who stood in the way of their

punishment.[1470] But the wrath of the Saint, if violent for the time,

was not always lasting,[1471] and however vigorous he may have been in

curses and prophecies, he seems to have practically allowed Harold to

act in his name, and to settle matters as he chose.[1472]

[Sidenote: Position of Harold. His public duty in the controversy.]

The course for Harold to take was obvious, whether looked at from the

point of view of his own interest or from that of the interest of his

country. The dictates of the two were exactly the same; both alike

prompted him to secure a real and great advantage at the cost of a

certain sacrifice of pride and passion. The revolt of the Northumbrians

could not be justified on any showing. They had undoubtedly suffered

great wrongs, but they had not taken the right means to redress them.

Their proper course would undoubtedly have been that which Harold

himself suggested, to bring their charges against their Earl for public

inquiry in a Witenagemót of the whole realm. The Gemót at York had

usurped functions which did not belong to it; the deposition and

outlawry of Tostig, and the election of Morkere, were utterly illegal

proceedings. The massacre and plunder at York, above all the ravages in

Northamptonshire, were still more thoroughly unjustifiable. All these

were doings which, in one man or in a few men, would have called for

exemplary punishment. But in a case like this, where the guilty parties

were the great bulk of the people of all Northumberland and of several

shires of Mercia, it was absurd to talk of punishment. The question was

not a question of punishment, but one of peace or war. Was it either

right or expedient, in the general interest of the Kingdom of England,

for Wessex and East-Anglia to make war upon Northumberland and Mercia?

The object of such a war would have been simply to force on

Northumberland an Earl whom the Northumbrian people had rejected, and

who had shown himself utterly unfit for his post. The royal authority

would undoubtedly suffer some humiliation by yielding to demands which

had been supported by armed force; still such humiliation would be a

less evil than a civil war, the issue of which would be very doubtful,

and whose results, in any case, would prove most baneful, if not

ruinous, to the country. As a brother, Harold had done all for his

brother that could be asked of him, in his proposal made in the first

conference at Northampton. It could not be his duty—I quote the

judgement of a writer of the next age not specially favourable to

Harold[1473]—to bring such untold evils on his country merely for the

chance of restoring his brother to the authority which he had so deeply

abused. Harold therefore, as a statesman and a patriot, rightly

determined to yield to the demands of the insurgents.

[Sidenote: His private interest. Complete agreement of the two.]

It is equally plain that exactly the same course was dictated to him by

his own interests as a candidate for the Crown. He had lost in every way

by the revolt. Hitherto all England, except Mercia, had been under the

government of himself and his brothers. The House of Godwine held four

out of the five great Earldoms; the House of Leofric held only one. Now

things were turned about. The House of Godwine still held three

Earldoms, while the House of Leofric held but two; but the two which

were held by the House of Leofric formed a larger, and a far more

compact and united, territory than the three which were held by the

House of Godwine. The opposition of a candidate from the rival family,

or a proposal for the division of the Kingdom, was incomparably more

likely, now that the vast region between the Thames and the Tweed was

practically under the control of a single will, and that a will which

Harold had small means of influencing. But, deeply as Harold had lost by

the Northumbrian revolution, he would have lost still more by an attempt

to bring about a counter-revolution by force. Whether such an attempt

succeeded or failed, the result would be much the same. In either case

his wife’s brothers, and the vast districts over which they ruled, would

become, not merely indifferent or unfriendly to his claims, but avowedly

and bitterly hostile. In the face of their open enmity, his succession

to the whole Kingdom would be hopeless; he might possibly become King of

the West-Saxons; he could never become King of the English. The tie of

affinity was weak, the tie of gratitude was likely to be still weaker.

Still it was the wisest course to make the best even of those weak ties.

It was wise to do his brothers-in-law a good turn, and so to take his

chance of winning their good will, rather than at once to turn them into

deadly foes. It was true that every step by which he conciliated his

brothers-in-law would make a bitterer enemy of his own brother. But his

mere hesitation and moderation were already in the eyes of Tostig an

unpardonable offence; his brother’s enmity he had won already, and he

could hardly foresee that that enmity would one day be still more

dangerous to him than any opposition that was to be dreaded from Mercia

or Northumberland.

[Sidenote: Gemót of Oxford. October 28, 1065.]

On these grounds then, public and private, Harold, armed, it would now

seem, with the full royal authority, determined to yield to the

insurgents. While their answer was under discussion in the King’s

court,[1474] they had been ravaging Northamptonshire, and they had since

advanced as far as Oxford. There, in the frontier town of Mercia and

Wessex, the town where the common affairs of the two great divisions of

the Kingdom had been so often discussed, the Earl of the West-Saxons

summoned a general Witenagemót of the whole realm.[1475] The Assembly

met on the Feast of Saint Simon and Saint Jude. After another attempt at

bringing about a reconciliation between Tostig [Sidenote: The Acts of

the York Gemót confirmed.] and the Northumbrians,[1476] Harold yielded

every point. The irregular acts of the Northumbrian Gemót were confirmed

by lawful authority. The deposition and outlawry of Tostig, the election

of Morkere to the Northern Earldom, were legalized. But the outlying

parts of the government of Siward and Tostig, the shires of Northampton

and Huntingdon, were now detached from Northumberland, [Sidenote:

Waltheof made Earl of Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire.] and

bestowed on Siward’s young son Waltheof.[1477] He thus received an ample

provision, while he was cut off from the exercise of any influence which

he might possess in Morkere’s Earldom, whether as the son of Siward or

as a descendant of the elder line of Earls. And another solemn

[Sidenote: Renewal of Cnut’s Law.] decree was passed, which shows that

this Gemót was meant to be a wiping out of old scores and the beginning

of a new epoch. Northern and Southern England were again to be solemnly

reconciled, as they had been reconciled forty-seven years before in

another Assembly held on the same spot.[1478] Then, under the presidency

of a Danish conqueror, Englishmen and Danes agreed to decree the renewal

of the Laws of Eadgar. The sway of law and justice was then held to be

impersonated in the peaceful Basileus, the hero of the triumph of

Chester. In the space of those forty-seven years, the foreign conqueror

who had presided in that earlier Gemót of Oxford had supplanted Eadgar

himself as the hero of the national affections. In the North above all,

where in life he had been perhaps less valued, the rule of the great

Dane was looked back to as the golden age, the happy time before the

tyranny of Tostig and the stern government of Siward. The South too,

which, under the rule of Godwine and Harold, had no such complaints to

make, might still look back with regret to the days of the King under

whom Wessex had been, what she never was before or after, the Imperial

state of all Northern Europe. Cnut now, as Eadgar then, was the one

Prince whose name North and South, Dane and Englishman, united in

reverencing. He was the one Prince whom all could agree in holding up to

future Kings and Earls as the faultless model of a ruler. In this case,

as in the earlier one, the reconciliation of the two parts of the realm

took the form of a decree for the restoration of an earlier and better

state of things. The Witenagemót of Oxford, with Earl Harold at its

head, decreed with all solemnity the renewal of the Laws of Cnut.[1479]

[Sidenote: Banishment of Tostig. November 1, 1065.]

One step more remained to be taken. The deposed Earl had to leave the

Kingdom. According to one account, it would seem that a violent

expulsion was still needed, in which Earl Eadwine appears as the chief

actor.[1480] But this account seems to be a misconception. It would

rather seem that, while all these messages and debates were going on,

Tostig had never quitted the King. After this last decree, Eadward saw

that he had no longer any power to protect him, and he therefore, though

with deep sorrow, required his favourite’s departure.[1481] The Earl

bade farewell to his mother and his friends, and with his wife and his

children,[1482] and some partizans who shared his exile,[1483] he set

forth for the same friendly refuge which had sheltered him [Sidenote: He

takes refuge in Flanders.] when a guiltless exile fourteen years before.

He left England on the Feast of All Saints.[1484] The means of

communication in those days must, as we have already seen more than

once,[1485] have been much speedier than we are generally inclined to

think. This whole revolution, with its gatherings, its meetings, its

marches, its messages to and fro between distant places, took up less

than one Kalendar month, from the first assemblage of the Thegns at York

to the departure of Tostig from England. The banished Earl crossed over

to Baldwines land, the land of his wife’s father. Under his protection

he passed the whole of the winter at Saint Omer.[1486]

§4. _The Last Days of Eadward._ 1065–1066.[1487]

[Sidenote: Eadward’s last sickness.]

The life of Eadward was now drawing near to its end; we are approaching

the close of the first act of our great drama. From the illness into

which Eadward was thrown by the excitement of the Northumbrian revolt,

he never thoroughly recovered.[1488] He barely lived to complete the

[Sidenote: His foundation at Westminster.] great work of his life. The

royal saint deemed himself set upon the throne, not to secure the

welfare or the independence of his Kingdom, but to build a church and

endow a monastery in honour of the Prince of the Apostles. If we were

reading the life, not of a King, but of a Bishop or Abbot, we might well

look on this as an object worthy of the devotion of a life. It was no

small work to rear that stately minster which has ever since been the

crowning-place of our Kings, and which for so many ages remained their

place of burial. It was no small work to call into being that mighty

Abbey, whose chapter-house plays so great a part in the growth of the

restored freedom of England, and which has well nigh supplanted the

Kentish mother-church itself as the ecclesiastical home of the English

nation. The church of Saint Peter at Westminster, the great work of

Eadward’s life, has proved a more than equal rival of the older

sanctuaries of Canterbury and York and Winchester and Glastonbury. But,

as the work of a King in such an age, we look on it with very different

feelings from those with which we look on the ecclesiastical works of

Ælfred or Æthelstan or Harold. In the eyes of those great rulers, a care

for ecclesiastical administration and ecclesiastical reform, the

establishment of foundations likely to spread piety and enlightenment

among their people, naturally and rightly seemed an important part of

the duty of a Prince. But in Eadward we can discern no sign of the

higher aspirations of a ruler; a monk rather than a King, he seems never

to have risen beyond a monk’s selfish anxiety for the welfare of his own

[Sidenote: Eadward’s devotion for Saint Peter.] soul. The special object

of Eadward’s reverence was the Apostle Peter,[1489] and his reverence

for that Saint did no good to the Kingdom of England. His devotion to

the Apostle led to a devotion to his supposed successor, and to that

increased frequency of intercourse with the Roman See which is a marked

characteristic of his reign. There seems no reason to doubt, though his

Biographer is silent on the subject,[1490] that, as I have told the tale

in earlier chapters, Eadward vowed a pilgrimage to Rome, that his Witan

dissuaded him from leaving his Kingdom, that Pope Leo dispensed with his

vow, and imposed on him, instead of a personal visit to the tomb of the

Apostle, the duty of founding or enlarging a monastery in his honour

within his own Kingdom. We have seen that the two missions of Ealdred

and other Prelates to Rome were probably connected with this design. The

earlier one was sent to obtain the remission of the vow, the later one

to obtain the [Sidenote: His foundation in honour of the Apostle.

1051–1065.] Papal confirmation of the privileges of the house.[1491] We

thus get a clear notion of the chronology of the foundation which

occupied Eadward during the last fourteen years of his reign. It must

again be remembered that the foundation of a monastery followed a course

exactly opposite to [Sidenote: Reverse order of proceeding at

Westminster and at Waltham.] the foundation of a secular college. In a

secular college the Canons or other clergy are ministers appointed, for

the common advantage of the Church and realm, to maintain divine worship

in a particular building. In a monastery, the monks are men who go out

of the world to save their own souls, and who need a church of their own

to pray in. In a college then the minster itself comes first; the clergy

exist only for its sake, and for the sake of those who worship in it. In

a monastery the society of monks comes first, and the minster exists

only for their sake. Harold therefore, in his great work at Waltham,

first built his church; he then settled the exact details of his

foundation, the number, the duties, the endowments, of the clergy whom

he placed in it.[1492] Eadward no doubt began to build his church as

soon as he had formed the scheme of his foundation; but the church was

not the same primary object which it was at Waltham, nor did its

building need to be pressed forward with the same special speed. At

Waltham the charter of foundation dates two years later than the

[Sidenote: Completion of the foundation, 1061.] consecration of the

minster.[1493] At Westminster the foundation itself, the establishment

and endowment of the monastic society, no doubt the building of the

refectory, [Sidenote: Consecration of the church, 1065.] dormitory, and

other buildings needed for their personal use, had all been brought to

perfection at least four years before the minster itself was ready for

consecration.[1494]

The rescript of Pope Leo required Eadward either to found a new, or to

enlarge an old, monastery in honour of [Sidenote: The Monastery of

Thorney or Westminster.] Saint Peter. He preferred the latter course.

And we are told that the visions of a holy recluse named Wulfsige,

probably the same who had finally determined Saint Wulfstan to accept

his Bishoprick, guided him to the predestined site.[1495] At a little

distance from the western gate of London lay what was then an island of

the Thames, which, from the dense bushes and thickets with which it was

covered, received the name of Thorney.[1496] There stood a [Sidenote:

Its foundation. 653–660.] monastery whose origin was carried up to the

earliest days of English Christianity. There Sigeberht, the first

Christian King of the East-Saxons, had begun a foundation in honour of

Saint Peter, to balance, as it were, the great minster of Saint Paul

within the city.[1497] Legends gathered round the spot; the Bishop

Mellitus, when about to hallow the church, was warned not to repeat the

ceremony; the church had been already hallowed by the Apostle himself in

his own honour.[1498] The church of Saint Peter, from its position with

regard to the church of the brother Apostle, obtained the name, so

familiar and so historical in the ears of every [Sidenote: Its state in

Eadward’s time.] Englishman, of the West Minster. Its reputation however

remained for several centuries altogether inferior to that of its

eastern rival. We are told that in Eadward’s time the foundation was

poor, the monks few, the buildings mean.[1499] [Sidenote: Burial of

Harold the son of Cnut. 1040.] Yet against this description we must set

the fact that Westminster was chosen as the burial-place of at least one

King, and that a King who had not died in the immediate

neighbourhood.[1500] We have also found the death of at least one Abbot

of the house thought worthy of record in the national Chronicles.[1501]

The temporary burial-place of the first Harold was now chosen by Eadward

as the place for his own sepulchre,[1502] as the place for the

redemption of his vow, as the place which should become the sacred

hearth of the English nation, the crowning-place of its future

Kings.[1503] The site, so near to the great city, and yet removed from

its immediate throng and turmoil,[1504] was chosen as the site of a

foundation in which royalty and monasticism were to dwell side by side,

where living Kings were to dwell and hold their court under the shadow

of the pile which covered the bones of the Kings who had gone before

them. Like Fécamp, which may well have been his model,[1505] like

Holyrood and the Escorial in later times, Eadward designed to place

palace and monastery in each other’s close neighbourhood, to make

Westminster the centre of all the strongest national feelings of

religion and loyalty. And he has had his reward. His scheme prospered in

his own time, and it has survived to ours. [Sidenote: Permanance of

Eadward’s minster and palace.] His minster still stands, rebuilt, partly

by a more illustrious bearer of his own name, in such a guise as to make

it the noblest of the noble churches of England. But, in its subordinate

buildings, large traces still remain of the work of its sainted founder.

Within, it has supplanted Sherborne and Glastonbury and Winchester as

the resting-place of the Kings and worthies of our land. And as the

centre of them all, displacing God’s altar from its worthiest site,

still stands the shrine of Eadward himself, his name and his dust still

abiding in somewhat of their ancient honour, while the nobler dust of

Ælfred and Eadgar and Harold is scattered to the winds. And by the

minster still stands the palace; no longer indeed the dwelling-place of

Kings, but more than ever the true home of the nation; where the Witan

of all England still meet for judgement and for legislation, as they did

in the days when Eadward wore his Crown at that last Midwinter Feast, as

they did when the first national act done beneath the roof of the newly

hallowed minster, was to place that Crown, as the gift of the English

people, on the brow of the foremost man of English blood and speech.

[Sidenote: Eadward’s church destroyed, and rebuilt in his own honour.]

The church of Westminster, as built by Eadward, has wholly given way to

the conceptions of later architects, who, in the true spirit of mediæval

times, sought to do fresh honour to the saint by making his own work

give way to theirs. With our feelings on such matters, we should look on

the pile itself as the best monument of its founder, and, if the

original West Minster had descended to our time, our first object would

be to preserve its genuine features precisely as they came from the

hands of its first builders. In the ideas of the thirteenth century the

memories of the past, the associations of a spot or of a building, were

feebly felt compared with the devotion which was felt towards the

precious possession of all, the saint himself still present in his

wonder-working relics. For them no receptacle could be too gorgeous or

too costly; reverence for the saint would of itself prompt the

destruction of his own building, if it could be replaced by one which

the taste of the age deemed more worthy of sheltering the shrine which

contained his bones. The church of Eadward was therefore destroyed by

his own worshippers in his own honour. His special devotee, one might

almost think his special imitator, Henry the Third, began that

magnificent temple which, after so many ages, still remains unfinished.

[Sidenote: Existing remains of Eadward’s buildings.] Of the domestic

buildings of the abbey as raised by Eadward large portions were spared.

The solid passages and substructures, built in the massive style of the

time, remain almost perfect, and even of the more important buildings,

as the refectory and dormitory, considerable traces still exist.[1506]

But the church itself, the central building of all, gradually gave way

to the superb structure with which we are all familiar; nothing is left

of Eadward’s minster save a few bases of pillars, and other fragments

brought to light in various excavations and alterations of the present

fabric. But we are not left without minute accounts of a structure which

made a deep impression on men’s minds, and whose erection [Sidenote: His

church the first great example of Norman architecture in England.]

formed an æra in our national architecture. Among other importations

from Normandy which we could well have spared, Eadward brought one with

him which even our insular pride might be glad to welcome. The building

art was now receiving daily improvements at the hands of the founders of

those great Norman churches which were rising in such abundance on the

other side of the sea. All those improvements Eadward carefully

introduced into his new minster. He built his church in the newest style

of the day, and it remained the great object of English imitation deep

into the twelfth century.[1507] Of the church thus built we have a

description and a pictorial representation made while the charm of

novelty was still fresh upon it.[1508] It was a Norman minster of vast

size, the increase of size in churches being one main distinction

between the new Norman style and the older English manner of building.

Its dimensions no doubt far surpassed those of any existing church in

England, as they certainly far surpassed those of the contemporary

church of Waltham. A short eastern limb, ending in an apse, contained

the high altar. Over the choir rose, in Norman fashion, the central

tower, seemingly surrounded at its angles by smaller turrets, and

crowned by a cupola of wood and lead. The transepts projected north and

south; to the west stretched the long nave, with its two ranges of

arches, resting seemingly on tall columnar piers, like those of

Jumièges, Gloucester, and Tewkesbury. Two smaller towers, for the

reception of the bells, were designed as the finish of the building to

the west.[1509] On the erection of this vast and stately fabric, and on

the other objects of his foundation, Eadward had for many years spent

the tenth part of his royal revenues.[1510] The monastic buildings had

been finished for some years; the monks with their Abbot Eadwine[1511]

were already in possession of their house and its endowments. [Sidenote:

The church finished. 1065.] The minster was meanwhile rising, and it was

Eadward’s wish to interfere as little as possible with the worship which

had still to be celebrated in the old building. The new church was

therefore begun at some distance to the east of its doomed predecessor,

which was doubtless not wholly demolished till the new one was

completed.[1512] In the foundation and endowment of the monastery the

King found helpers among his subjects, the fallen Earl of the

Northumbrians being among their number.[1513] But the building of the

church seems to have been wholly Eadward’s own personal work. At last

the work of so many years was brought to perfection. The time employed

on the building was indeed shorter than that bestowed on many other of

our great churches, which their own Prelates had to rear out of their

own resources. But here a King was pressing on the work with all his

might, a King who, when he had once completed the great object of his

life, was ready to depart in peace. After fourteen years from the

receipt of the Papal dispensation the building was finished from the

apse to the western front. By the time of the Midwinter festival of the

year one thousand and sixty-five the new minster of Saint Peter stood

ready for the great ceremony of its consecration.

[Sidenote: Legends.]

So great a work, raised under such circumstances, could hardly fail to

become surrounded by an atmosphere of legend. It was not every church

that was founded either by a King or by a canonized saint. Fewer still

among churches were founded by a King who was at once a canonized saint,

the last of an ancient dynasty, and one whose memory was embalmed in the

national recollection as the representative of the times before the evil

days of foreign domination. In his lifetime, or at most within a few

years after his death, Eadward was already deemed to be a worker of

miracles.[1514] For his dreams, visions, and prophecies he was renowned

to his last moment. One story tells us how the holy King, with his pious

friends Leofric and Godgifu, was hearing mass in the elder minster of

Saint Peter; how the King was deep in devotion; how he and the

Earl—Godgifu is no longer spoken of—saw the form of the divine Child in

the hands of the ministering priest; how Eadward bade his friend keep

his secret till after his death; how Leofric confided it only to a holy

monk at Worcester, who revealed it to no man till Leofric and Eadward

were both no more.[1515] Another tale sets the King before us in all the

Imperial pomp of the Easter festival; he goes with crown and sceptre

from the church—in this case doubtless the Old Minster of Winchester—to

the royal banquetting-hall. Heedless of the feast, absorbed in his own

meditations, the King is seen to smile. Afterwards, in his private

chamber, Earl Harold, a Bishop, and an Abbot, venture to ask him the

reason of his serene and pious mirth. His thoughts had been far away

from the royal hall of Winchester; he had seen the Seven Sleepers of

Ephesos; they had turned from the right side to the left, an omen which

presaged that some evil was coming upon the earth. The matter was deemed

worthy of a special embassy to the Imperial Court of Constantinople, but

the ambassadors took their commission, not from the King but from the

three dignified subjects who had shared his confidence. Earl Harold sent

a Thegn, the Bishop a clerk, the Abbot a monk. The three made their way

to the New Rome and told the tale to the reigning Emperor. By his orders

the tomb of the holy Sleepers at Ephesos was opened; the vision of the

English King was proved to be true; and his prophetic powers were soon

exalted by the general misfortunes of mankind, by the failure of the

royal line of England and by the conquests of the Infidel Turks at the

expense of Eastern [Sidenote: Legend of the ring.] Christendom.[1516]

One more tale will bring us back directly to the current of our

story.[1517] The King was present at the dedication of the church of

Saint John at Clavering.[1518] A beggar asks alms of his sovereign in

the name of the patron of the newly hallowed temple, the Apostle whom

Eadward reverenced next after his special patron Saint Peter. The King

has neither silver nor gold about him; he cannot find his almoner for

the press, he gives the poor man the only gift that he can give at the

moment, the costly ring on his finger. The beggar returns thanks and

vanishes. That very day,[1519] two English pilgrims are benighted in a

wilderness of the Holy Land. A band of bright youths appears, attending

an old man before whom two tapers are borne as in the service of the

Church. He asks the pilgrims from what land they come, and of what King

they are subjects. They are Englishmen, subjects of the good King

Eadward. For the love of good King Eadward he guides them to a city and

an hostelry, where they find abundant entertainment. In the morning he

reveals himself to them as John the Apostle and Evangelist; he gives

them the ring to bear to the King of the English, with the message that,

as the reward of his good and chaste life, he should within six months

be with himself in Paradise. The message is delivered; the King’s alms

and prayers and fastings are redoubled; but one thing specially occupies

his mind, the longing to see the new minster of Saint Peter hallowed

before he dies.

[Sidenote: Consecration of Eadgyth’s church at Wilton. 1065.]

The time was at last come. The great ceremony had been preceded by a

lesser one of the same kind. The Lady Eadgyth—was it as an atonement for

the blood of Gospatric?—had rebuilt the church of nuns at Wilton, the

church of her sainted namesake the daughter of Eadgar.[1520] The fabric

had hitherto been of wood,[1521] but the Lady now reared a stone

minster, pressing on the work with unusual haste, in pious rivalry with

her husband.[1522] The new building was hallowed by Hermann, the Bishop

of the diocese, just before the Northumbrian revolt.[1523] That revolt

was now over, and the land was once more quiet; the work of the King’s

life was finished; the time of the Christmas Festival [Sidenote:

Midwinter Gemót at Westminster. 1065–1066.] drew nigh. This year the

Midwinter Gemót was not gathered, as in former years, at Gloucester, but

the Witan of all England were specially called to the King’s Court at

Westminster, to be present at the hallowing of the new church of Saint

Peter.[1524] The Assembly met; the King’s strength was failing, but he

assayed to appear in the usual kingly state. On the Festival of the

Nativity and on the two following days, one of them the day of his

patron Evangelist, he wore his Crown in public.[1525] But the [Sidenote:

Consecration of Westminster. December 28, 1065.] exertion was too much

for him. The fourth day, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, had been

appointed for the great ceremony; but Eadward was no longer able to take

any personal part in the rite which he had so long looked forward to as

the crowning act of his life. The minster was hallowed with all the

rites of the Church, but the Founder’s share in the ceremony was

discharged by deputy; Eadward, King, saint, and founder, was represented

in that day’s solemnity by his wife the Lady Eadgyth.[1526] Eadward’s

work on earth was now over; his church was finished and hallowed, and it

was soon to be the scene of rites still more solemn, still more

memorable. Saint Peter’s minster had been built to be the crowning-place

and the burying-place of future Kings of the English. Its special

functions soon fell thick upon the newly hallowed temple. Before another

year had passed, the West Minster was to be the scene of one royal

burial, of two royal consecrations, and those consecrations the two most

memorable that England ever saw. But it had not to wait for months, or

even for weeks, before its special history began. The sound of the

workman’s hammer had hardly ceased, the voice of the consecrating

Prelate was hardly hushed into silence, before the church of the Apostle

was put to the lofty purposes for which it was designed. Before the

Christmas Festival was over, it beheld the funeral rites of its founder,

the coronation [Sidenote: Death of Eadward. January 5, 1066.] rites of

his successor. The days of the holy season were not yet accomplished,

the Witan of England had not yet departed to their homes, when the last

royal son of Woden was borne to his grave, and his Imperial Crown

[Sidenote: Burial of Eadward and coronation of Harold. January 6, 1066.]

was placed on the brow of one whose claim was not drawn only from the

winding-sheet of his fathers. The most eventful year of our history had

begun, but its first week had not yet fully passed away, when Eadward,

the son of Æthelred and Emma, was gathered to his fathers, and Harold,

the son of Godwine and of Gytha, was King of the English and Lord of the

Isle of Britain.[1527]

[Sidenote: Summary.]

We have thus, through the three and twenty years of Eadward’s reign,

traced what we may fairly look upon as the first stage of the Norman

Conquest. Under a King, English by birth but Norman in feelings and

habits, England has been brought under a direct Norman influence, which

seemed at one moment likely to bring with it the peaceful establishment

of Norman dominion. We have seen the Court of England swarming with

Norman favourites; we have seen the Church of England handed over to the

government of Norman Prelates; we have seen Norman adventurers enriched

with English estates, and covering the land with those frowning castles

on which our fathers looked as the special badges of wrong and slavery.

Above all, we have seen the Duke of the Normans, not only received with

special honours at the English Court, but encouraged to look upon

himself as the destined successor to the English Crown. A national

reaction, almost rising to the rank of a revolution, has broken the yoke

of the strangers, has driven the most guilty from the land, and has

placed England and her King once more under the rule of the noblest of

her own sons. Still the effect of those days of Norman influence was not

wiped out; the land had not been wholly cleared of the strangers, and,

what is of far more moment, the wary and wily chief of the strangers had

been armed with a pretext plausible enough to win him general support

wherever the laws of England were unknown. The moment of struggle was

now come; the English throne had become vacant, and the Norman Duke knew

how to represent himself as its lawful heir, and to brand the King of

the nation’s choice as an usurper. We thus enter on the second, the

decisive, stage of the great struggle. It is no longer a half concealed

strife for influence, for office, for a peaceful succession to the

Crown. It is an open warfare of nation against nation, of man against

man. England and Normandy, Harold and William, are now brought face to

face. The days of debate and compromise are past; the sword alone can

now judge between England and her enemy. The details of that memorable

conflict, the events of that wonderful year which forms the

turning-point of all English history, will form the third portion of my

tale, the culminating point of the History of the Norman Conquest.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A. p. 5.

THE ELECTION AND CORONATION OF EADWARD.

In reading the account of Eadward’s accession to the Crown, as told in

the Chronicles and by Florence, we are at once struck by the great and

unusual delay between his first election and his consecration as King.

He is chosen in London in June by a popular movement which could not

even wait for the burial of the deceased King; but he is not crowned

till the Easter of the next year. No explanation is given of the delay,

no account of the way in which the intervening months were occupied, no

statement where Eadward was at the time of Harthacnut’s death. We must

therefore look to other writers for the means of filling up this

singular gap. I need hardly again refute the wild romance of Thierry, of

which I spoke in vol. i. p. 592. I will only say that Eadward’s

Westminster Charter (Cod. Dipl. iv. 173), which, doubtful as it is, is

at least as good authority as Brompton or Knighton, makes him speak of

himself as “eo [regno] potitus sine ullo bellorum labore.” It will be

more profitable to examine the witness of those writers who wrote at all

near the time, or who were at all likely to preserve contemporary

traditions.

According to Eadward’s Biographer (p. 394), as soon as England was free

from her Danish rulers (see vol. i. p. 592), Godwine at once proposed

the election of Eadward as the natural heir (“ut Regem suum recipiant in

nativi juris sui throno”). Godwine being looked on as a common father,

everybody agreed to his proposal (“quoniam pro patre ab omnibus

habebatur, in paterno consultu libenter audiebatur”). Earls and Bishops

are sent to fetch Eadward (“mittuntur post eum”); they bring him with

them; he is joyfully received, and crowned at _Canterbury_.

William of Poitiers (p. 85 Giles), as might be supposed, knows nothing

about Godwine, or about any free election by the English people.

Eadward, according to him, was chosen under a most powerful _congè

d’élire_ and letter missive from his cousin the Duke of the Normans. The

English are disputing about the succession, when a Norman embassy comes,

threatening a Norman invasion if Eadward is not received. The nation

chooses the wiser part, and Eadward comes home, protected by a small

array of Norman knights (“Disceptantes Angli deliberatione suis

rationibus utilissima consenserunt, legationibus justa petentibus

acquiescere, quam Normannorum vim experiri. Reducem cum non maximo

præsidio militis Normannici cupidè sibi eum præstituerunt, ne manu

validiore, si Comes Normannicus adveniret, subigerentur”). The same

version is given in a shorter form in the Chronicle of Saint Wandrille

(D’Achery, ii. 286). Eadward, already chosen and crowned King, but

hitherto kept out of his Kingdom by Swend, Cnut, and others, is now

restored by Norman help (“In regnum paternum _adnitentibus Normannis_

rediit”).

Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 759 A) mixes up the accession of Eadward

with his version of the death of Ælfred (see vol. i. p. 543), which, it

will be remembered, he places after the death of Harthacnut. Ælfred had

been slain by the English, because he had brought too many Normans with

him; the English then send to Normandy, offering the Crown to Eadward,

on condition that he brings only a small body of Normans with him

(“Miserunt ergo pro Edwardo juniore in Normanniam nuntios et obsides,

mandantes ei quod paucissimos Normannorum secum adduceret, et eum in

Regem fidelissimè stabilirent”). Eadward comes over with a small company

(“cum paucis venit in Angliam”); he is chosen King by all folk (“electus

est in Regem ab omni populo”), and is consecrated at Easter by Eadsige

at Winchester.

The Winchester Annals (Luard, pp. 18–20) swell out the story into a long

romance; but some points are worthy of notice. On the death of

Harthacnut, Godwine is, by a decree of the Witan and with the consent of

the Lady Emma (“Reginæ assensu et magnatum consilio”), appointed Regent

of the Kingdom till a King can be chosen (“regni cura Comiti Godwino

committitur, donec qui dignus esset eligeretur in Regem”). Eadward is in

Normandy, where, since the death of Duke Robert, he has no friends; he

has no hope from his mother; he determines to trust himself to the mercy

of his enemy Godwine (“inter desperandum tutius credebat manifesto

supplicare inimico, quam fictum amicum sine caussâ sollicitare”). He

comes over to England, he lands at Southampton, he avoids his mother at

Winchester, but goes to Godwine in London, and throws himself at the

Earl’s feet. A long dialogue follows, the upshot of which is that

Godwine swears fidelity to Eadward and promises him the Crown. Eadward

is sent to Winchester in disguise, and is bidden to reveal himself to no

one. Godwine meanwhile summons the Witan to Winchester for the election

of a King. They meet in the Old Minster. The Lady Emma seemingly

presides; the Archbishops are at her right hand, the Earl of the

West-Saxons at her left. Eadward, veiled, sits at the feet of Godwine.

At the proper moment Godwine unveils him; “Here,” he says, “is your

King; here is Eadward, son of this Lady Emma and of Æthelred King of the

English. I choose him King, and am the first to become his man” (“Huic

ego omnium primus homagium facio”). A debate follows; some object to the

choice, but no man dares seriously to oppose Godwine. Eadward is elected

and crowned.

The Hyde writer (pp. 287, 288), like Henry of Huntingdon, connects the

accession of Eadward with the death of Ælfred, and, like William of

Poitiers, brings in Duke William as a prominent actor. After Ælfred’s

death William meditates revenge, but an English embassy comes, praying

for another son of Æthelred to be sent to them as their King (“rogant

sibi alium domin_um_”—domin_i_?—“sui transmitti filium”), and promising

him all loyal service. William will not allow his cousin to adventure

himself, unless some of the noblest of the English, and especially one

of the sons of Godwine, are given him as hostages. This is done, and

Eadward is brought over to England by a Norman fleet.

Lastly, charters exist which imply that Eadward was for a while in

Normandy after he had acquired a right to the title of King. At an

earlier time he and his brother had subscribed a charter of Duke Robert,

with the form “Signum Hetwardi. Signum Helwredi.” (Delisle, Preuves, p.

11.) But the cartulary of Saint Michael’s Mount contains two Charters in

which Eadward is called “Rex.” I do not rely so much on the Charter in

Eadward’s own name, which is printed in Cod. Dipl. iv. 251, and Delisle,

Preuves, 20. It is signed by Robert Archbishop of Rouen, who died in

1037. Now it is really inconceivable that Eadward should call himself

King before 1042, unless possibly in some moment of exultation when Duke

Robert’s fleet was setting forth to restore him. (See vol. i. p. 525.)

The matter of the charter also is strange, and the English spelling

“Eadwardus” is unusual in a document which must have been drawn up in

Normandy. I have more faith in a Charter of Duke William (Delisle,

Preuves, p. 19), which, among other signatures, has that of “Hatuardus

Rex.” This looks to me far more likely to be genuine. It is quite

conceivable that, if Eadward was asked to witness a charter of his

cousin’s, just as he was leaving Normandy in 1042, he might assume the

title, though not yet strictly entitled to it by English Law.

The accounts of all these different writers seem to be independent of

one another, unless the Hyde version is made up by compounding the story

of William of Poitiers with that which we find in Henry of Huntingdon.

The mention of the hostages is one form of a story which I shall have

elsewhere to discuss at length. All these accounts agree in placing

Eadward in Normandy at the moment of Harthacnut’s death. William of

Malmesbury (ii. 196) however supposes him to have been in England. With

this difference, his story is much the same as that of the Winchester

Annals stripped of its romantic details. It is probably the groundwork

round which that legend has grown. Eadward, not knowing whither to turn

after the death of Harthacnut, throws himself at the feet of Godwine,

and craves leave to return to Normandy. The Earl raises him, and

addresses him in a speech whose substance may well be historical, and to

which I have not hesitated to give a place in the text. Eadward promises

everything; he will be Godwine’s firm friend; he will promote his sons

and marry his daughter. The Witan meet at Gillingham; Godwine speaks on

behalf of Eadward, and becomes his man (“rationibus suis explicitis,

Regem efficit, hominio palam omnibus dato”); the election, the

coronation, the punishment of the opponents of Eadward, follow as I have

told them in the text.

Now it strikes me that, in these accounts, when carefully compared

together, we may find the means of filling up the gap, and of explaining

the delay, between the first election and the coronation. In all the

versions the time is filled up by negotiation, not by war. In most of

them the negotiation is carried on between Eadward and Godwine; in all

those which mention Godwine at all, he stands forth as the leading man

in the business, in fact as the man who makes Eadward King. We see

glimpses of two Assemblies, the former being that hasty Gemót in London

which chose Eadward before the burial of Harthacnut, and a later one at

Gillingham or elsewhere shortly before the coronation. Again, all the

accounts, except that of William of Malmesbury, conceive Eadward as

being in Normandy. The inferior writers assert it; the contemporary

Biographer clearly implies it. Putting these hints together, I have

ventured to construct the narrative in the text. Eadward is chosen in

London immediately on the death of Harthacnut; as he is absent, an

embassy, doubtless headed by Godwine, is sent to offer him the Crown.

The case is thus far almost identical with the story of the first

election of Eadward’s half-brother Harthacnut. Delay is in both cases

caused by the election of a King who is absent. Eadward does not indeed

tarry so long as Harthacnut did; but his indecision, his unwillingness

to accept the Crown, the negotiations which were needed to overcome that

unwillingness, caused delay, and gave time for an adverse party to form

itself. A second Assembly, that recorded by William of Malmesbury, was

therefore needed to overcome all objections, and to elect Eadward, now

present in person, in a more formal manner. We thus get, from one

quarter or another, a credible narrative, which fills up the gap in the

Chronicles without contradicting their statements. A few special points

must be noticed.

1. We see that most of our statements assert or imply that Eadward was

in Normandy. Now it is most certain that Eadward had been recalled to

England by Harthacnut (vol. i. p. 584), and that the English court was

now his recognized dwelling-place. But this is quite consistent with the

notion, which I have ventured to throw out in the text, that Eadward was

at this moment in Normandy on some temporary visit or pilgrimage. This

view explains all the statements. The fact that Eadward was in Normandy

at the moment—a fact which we may surely accept on the credit of the

Biographer, to say nothing of the Norman Charters quoted above—led

careless writers to forget his recall by Harthacnut, and to speak as if

he had never left Normandy since the accession of Cnut. On the other

hand, the fact of his recall led William of Malmesbury to forget or to

disbelieve that he was in Normandy at the time of Harthacnut’s death.

Then the Winchester Annalist, aware of Eadward’s absence, tried to patch

it in to William’s account, which was not an easy matter. That an

embassy should be sent to Eadward in Normandy was credible enough. It

was also credible that Eadward, if in England, might throw himself into

the arms of Godwine. But no story can be more unlikely than that which

represents Eadward, when safe in Normandy, as coming of his own accord

to England to put himself into the hands of the man whom the same

account represents as the murderer of his brother.

2. I accept the second Assembly as the only means of reconciling the

different accounts and of meeting the probabilities of the case. And I

accept Gillingham as its place, on the authority of William of

Malmesbury. It is true that one of William’s manuscripts places it in

London, while the Winchester Annalist transfers it to his own city and

his own church. The universal law of criticism comes in here. If a thing

happened either in London or at Winchester, no transcriber or copyist

would be likely to remove it to Gillingham. But nothing was more natural

than for a transcriber to alter Gillingham into London, if he thought he

could thereby bring his text into conformity with the Chronicles. The

Winchester writer would have every motive to confound the Gemót at

Gillingham with the consecration which shortly followed at Winchester.

The very strangeness of the choice of Gillingham for such an Assembly is

the best proof that it is the right place. By Gillingham, I may add,

William of Malmesbury can only have meant the West-Saxon Gillingham,

already mentioned in his history (ii. 180). The Kentish Gillingham would

connect itself more naturally with the Biographer’s statement of a

coronation at Canterbury, but the other is the more obvious place for a

Meeting which was followed by a coronation at Winchester.

3. The reader must judge for himself as to the amount of value to be

attached to the statements of William of Poitiers and the Hyde writer as

to the influence of the Duke of the Normans in the matter. It must not

be forgotten that in 1042 William was only fourteen years old, and in

the midst of the troubles of his minority. It is quite possible that

William or his advisers may, perhaps even then with some vague designs

on the English Crown, have pressed the acceptance of that Crown on

Eadward. And, in any case, the story could hardly have arisen, unless

embassies of some sort had passed between England and Normandy in the

course of the business. It so far falls in with my view of Eadward’s

position.

4. The statement of the Biographer that Eadward was crowned at

Canterbury seems, at first sight, very strange. There can be no doubt

that the final ceremony took place at Winchester. That the Biographer’s

account is rhetorical and somewhat confused is no more than his usual

fashion. But it would be strange if a contemporary made a mistake on a

point of this kind. Is it possible that the ceremony was performed

twice? Coronations were sometimes repeated in those days. If we read the

Biographer’s account narrowly, it is plain that he distinguishes between

the ceremony at Canterbury, which he evidently looks on as happening

immediately on Eadward’s landing, and the reception of the foreign

ambassadors, which takes place when the news had reached foreign courts

(“exhilaratus quod eum in paternâ sede inthronizatum dedicerat”). But

their reception must surely be placed at the final and solemn

consecration at Winchester. A twofold coronation, as well as a twofold

Gemót, will perhaps solve all difficulties.

There is one more point to be discussed. According to William of

Malmesbury, there was an opposition, seemingly a rather strong one, made

to Eadward’s election. He does not say on whose behalf the objection was

brought. But it is hardly possible that it could have been made on

behalf of any one except Swend Estrithson. The English writers indeed

make no mention of Swend in the matter, but in Adam of Bremen we find

what may pass as Swend’s own version. Adam knew the Danish King

personally (ii. 73), and he probably put on record what Swend told him.

It will be remembered that, just at the moment of Harthacnut’s death,

Swend was in Denmark, carrying on the war with Magnus (see vol. i. p.

583). Adam then goes on thus;

“Suein, victus à Magno, quum in Angliam remearet, Hardechnut mortuum

repperit. In cujus locum Angli priùs elegerunt fratrem ejus Eduardum,

quem de priori marito Imma genuit; vir sanctus et timens Deum. Isque

suspectum habens Suein, quod sceptrum sibi Anglorum reposceret, cum

tyranno pacem fecit, constituens eum proximum se mortuo regni Anglorum

hæredem, vel si filios susceperit. Tali pacto mitigatus Suein in Daniam

remeavit.” (ii. 74.)

I may here note that the word “priùs” in this passage distinctly refers

to the first election in London. And, whether we believe Swend’s story

of the bargain between himself and Eadward or not, we have here quite

enough to make an opposition on Swend’s behalf highly probable.

“Tyrannus” is of course to be taken in the sense of “pretender.”

Another passage of Adam (iii. 13) must here be mentioned;

“Simul eo tempore separabant se Angli a regno Danorum, filiis Gudwini

rebellionis auctoribus, quos amitæ Regis Danorum filios esse diximus, et

quorum sororem Eduardus Rex duxit uxorem. Hi namque, factâ

conspiratione, fratres Suein Regis, qui in Angliâ Duces erant, alterum

Bern statim obtruncant, alterum Osbern cum suis omnibus ejecerunt à

patriâ.”

This at first sight appears to be an account of the separation between

Denmark and England on the death of Harthacnut. It is not however really

so. It must be taken in connexion with a passage two chapters back (iii.

11), in which Adam gives a most strange version of the events which

followed the death of Magnus in 1048. In the true account, Swend then

asked for English help, which was refused, and a peace was concluded

between England and Harold Hardrada (see above, p. 93). But Adam makes

Swend possess both Denmark and Norway, and then prepare to invade

England (“Suein duo regna possedit, classemque parâsse dicitur, ut

Angliam suo juri subjiceret”). Eadward agrees to pay tribute, and renews

the promise of the succession (“Verum sanctissimus Rex Edwardus, quum

justitiâ regnum gubernaret, tunc quoque pacem eligens, victori obtulit

tributum, statuens eum, ut supra dictum est, post se regni hæredem”).

This must be another version of the intended expedition of Magnus (see

above, p. 73). On the strength of this tribute, Adam seems to look upon

Swend as at least overlord of England (“Quum Rex juvenis Suein tria pro

libitu suo regna tenuerit”). He seems to look on Beorn and Osbeorn as

Swend’s representatives in England, and the murder of Beorn by Swegen is

made into the groundwork of a story of “rebellio,” “conspiratio,” and

what not, about the sons of Godwine in general.

The only historical value of this very confused account is that it helps

us to the very probable fact of the banishment of Osbeorn, of whom we do

not hear in the English writers till 1069. But the story is very

curious, as it is the evident groundwork of the wonderful tale in Saxo

(p. 202). Saxo looks on Swend as the natural sovereign of England after

the death of Harthacnut. Going to Denmark to assert his rights there, he

left his interests in England in the hands of his cousins the sons of

Godwine. From Eadward himself he feared nothing, unlike Harthacnut, who

(see vol. i. p. 583, n. 4) had dreaded his ambition, and who therefore

made him his colleague in the Kingdom, lest he should attempt to gain

the whole (“Retinendæ insulæ spem non solùm in Godovini filiis, quibus

sanguine admodùm conjunctus fuerat, reponens, sed etiam ex ipsâ

consortis sui”—Eadwardi sc.—“_stoliditate desidiâque_ præsumens”). But

Harold the son of Godwine betrays Swend’s trust, makes Eadward King, and

massacres the Danes, according to the story in vol. i. p. 592.

I do not profess to harmonize every detail of the conflicting stories

about Eadward, Magnus, and Swend. But I think that there is enough

evidence to lead us to believe that Eadward’s election was opposed by a

Danish party in Swend’s interest, and that these were the persons who

were marked at the time and gradually punished afterwards. See pp. 9,

63, 72, 90.

NOTE B. p. 21.

THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF EADWARD.

There is something very remarkable in that gradual developement of

popular reverence for King Eadward, which at last issued in his being

acknowledged as the Patron Saint of England. I have endeavoured in the

text to point out the chief causes from which this feeling arose; how

Eadward was, in different ways, the one person whom Normans and

Englishmen could unite in honouring. I will now attempt to trace out the

growth of the feeling itself, and to point out some of the ways in which

Eadward’s true character and history have been clouded over by legendary

and miraculous tales.

Every English writer, as I shall presently show, speaks of Eadward with

marked respect, with a degree of respect, in most cases, which their own

narratives of his actions hardly account for. Yet, alongside of this, we

find indications of a counter feeling, as if there were all along some

who thought of him pretty much as the modern historian is driven to

think of him. The Scandinavian writers, placed beyond the influences

which had effect upon both English and Norman writers, seem to have all

along estimated him nearly at his true value. Saxo, though writing long

after Eadward had become a recognized saint, treats him with great

irreverence, and speaks openly of his “stoliditas et desidia.” The

biographer of Olaf Tryggwesson, according to whom Eadward was a special

admirer of his own hero, gives him only the rather faint praise of being

“princeps optimus in multis” (“oc var agetur Kongr i mórgum lutum.” p.

262). In Snorro’s time he had advanced somewhat; “Hann var kalladr

Játvardr inn Gódi, hann var sva” (Ant. Celt. Scand. 189. Laing, iii.

75). But his sanctity still seems only local; Snorro says emphatically

that “Englishmen call him a saint” (“oc kalla Enskir menn hann Helgan.”

Ant. Celt. Scand. 191. Laing, iii. 77). Adam of Bremen, who, as regards

English matters, may almost pass for a Scandinavian writer, is Eadward’s

warmest admirer in that part of the world. He gives him perhaps the only

unreserved praise which he gets in Northern Europe. With Adam he is not

only “vir bonus et timens Deum” (ii. 74), but he rises to the dignity of

“sanctissimus Rex Edwardus” (iii. 11). William of Malmesbury, in his

accustomed way of letting us see both sides of a question, shows us that

in his day there were still people in England by whom the royal saint

was lightly esteemed, and he himself seems now and then to halt between

two opinions. He gives him (iii. 259) no higher surname than “Edwardus

Simplex,” and over and over again, as if of set purpose, he speaks of

his “simplicitas” as his chief characteristic. The utmost that he can

say for him is that his simplicity won for him favour and protection

both with God and man. He was (ii. 196) “vir propter morum simplicitatem

parum imperio idoneus, sed Deo devotus, ideoque ab eo directus.”

“Fovebat profecto ejus simplicitatem Deus.” (Ib.) “Quamvis vel deses vel

simplex putaretur, habebat Comites qui eum ex humili in altum conantem

erigerent.” William believes in his holiness, and even in his miraculous

powers, but he has not wholly given up the right of criticism upon his

character and actions.

The English Chroniclers, and their harmonizer Florence, record Eadward’s

actions with perfect impartiality. Nowhere in their narratives do they

display towards him any of that affection which they do display towards

Harold and other actors in the story. Nor do they ever speak of him with

bated breath, as of an acknowledged saint. But the Abingdon and

Worcester Chroniclers, and Florence also, all send him out of the world

with a panegyric. The unbending Godwinist at Peterborough alone makes no

sign. But Florence’s panegyric is of the most general kind. He is (A.

1066) “Anglorum decus, pacificus Rex Eadwardus.” And the elaborate poem

in the two Chronicles attributes to the “baleless King” only the mildest

and most monastic virtues. One can hardly keep from a smile, till we

reach the genuine tribute of admiration with which the poet winds up. He

speaks at last from the heart when he makes it Eadward’s highest praise

to have “made fast his realm” to “Harold the noble Earl.”

The Chroniclers and Florence imply nothing as to any extraordinary

powers possessed by Eadward. Of these powers we get the first glimpses

in the contemporary Biographer. Already, within eight years after his

death, Eadward was held, at least by those who sought to win favour with

his widow, to have wrought miracles, to have seen visions, to have been

the subject of the visions of others. When Eadward was taken over as a

boy to Normandy, Brihtwold, Bishop of Ramsbury, had a vision in which he

saw Saint Peter consecrating Eadward as King (Vita Eadw. 394). The

Biographer also (pp. 430, 1) records the unintelligible talk of Eadward

on his death-bed, in which he already discerns a prophecy, and he

severely rebukes Archbishop Stigand, whose practical mind set small

store by the babble of the sick man. Eadward also appears in his pages

as the first of the long line of English Kings who undertook to cure the

evil by the royal touch. By washing and touching he healed (428) a

scrofulous woman, and, what one would hardly have expected, whereas she

had hitherto been barren, the touch of Eadward changed her into a joyful

mother of children. But here William of Malmesbury again helps us. He is

a full believer in Eadward’s miraculous power, but he again (ii. 222)

lets us see that there were two opinions on the subject. Some people

affirmed that Eadward cured the evil, not by virtue of his holiness, but

by virtue of his royal descent (“Nostro tempore quidam falsam insumunt

operam, qui asseverant istius morbi curationem non ex sanctitate, sed ex

regalis prosapiæ hæreditate fluxisse”). So others at a later time, as

Peter of Blois (ep. 150, vol. ii. p. 82 Giles), held that the Kings of

England possessed the gift by virtue of their royal unction. William

argues against such views, but by so doing he proves that Eadward’s

claims to holiness and miraculous power were still a moot point in his

time.

Besides this official kind of miracle, Eadward, according to his

Biographer, wrought other wonderful works. A blind man was cured by the

water in which the King had washed (429), and several cures were wrought

at his tomb (435). One is almost tempted to suspect that these stories

are interpolations, but there is no need for the supposition. An

interpolator would surely have taken care to insert the more famous

stories of the ring and of the Seven Sleepers, of which the Biographer

tells us nothing. We must remember how men then, and for ages

afterwards, instead of being surprised at miracles, looked for them. We

must not forget that Queen Anne touched for the evil as well as King

Eadward; we must remember that alleged miracles were wrought by the

blood, not only of Thomas of London and Simon of Montfort, but also of

Charles the First.

William of Malmesbury, clearly with the Biographer before him, enlarges

greatly on Eadward’s miraculous and prophetic powers (ii. 220–227),

adding to the stories in the Life the vision of the Seven Sleepers (see

above, p. 511). But the main disseminator of legendary lore about

Eadward was Osbern or Osbert of Clare, Prior of Westminster, who had a

hand in procuring his formal canonization, and who wrote a book on his

life and miracles (Introduction to M. H. B. 16. Luard, Preface xxv.

Hardy’s Catalogue of British History, i. 637, 642). His work has never

been printed, but it is the groundwork of the well known Life by

Æthelred of Rievaux, printed in the Decem Scriptores. On this again is

founded the French Life printed by Mr. Luard, which however adds many

particulars which are not to be found in Æthelred. Both of these are

truly wonderful productions. Of the French writer I have already given a

specimen in vol. i. p. 592. Perhaps his grandest achievement is to make

Godwine kill Eadmund Ironside (p. 47. V. 775). Both he and the Abbot of

Rievaux agree in describing King Æthelred as a mighty warrior, fighting

manfully against the Danes. He is “Rex strenuissimus,” “gloriosus Rex”

(X Scriptt. 372. Cf. the Abbot’s Genealogia Regum, 362, 363), and in the

French Life (v. 131) we read—