THE LADY EMMA.
A.D. 1002-1052
William's claims to the English throne.--The Lady Emma.--Claimants
to the English throne.--Ethelred.--Ethelred subdued.--He flies to
Normandy.--Massacre of the Danes.--Horrors of civil war.--Ethelred's
tyranny.--Emma's policy.--Emma's humiliation.--Ethelred invited to
return.--Restoration of Ethelred and Emma.--War with Canute.--Ethelred's
death.--Situation of Emma.--Her children.--War with Canute.--Treaty
between Edmund and Canute.--Death of Edmund.--Accession of
Canute.--Canute's wise policy.--His treatment of Edmund's
children.--Canute marries Emma.--Opposition of her sons.--Emma again
queen of England.--The Earl Godwin.--Canute's death.--He bequeaths
the kingdom to Harold.--Emma's plots for her children.--Her
letter to them.--Disastrous issue of Alfred's expedition.--His
terrible sentence.--Edward's accession.--Emma wretched and
miserable.--Accusations against Emma.--Her wretched end.--Edmund's
children.--Godwin.--Harold.--Plans of Edward.--Plots and counterplots.
It is not to be supposed that, even in the warlike times of which we are
writing, such a potentate as a duke of Normandy would invade a country
like England, so large and powerful in comparison to his own, without
some pretext. William's pretext was, that he himself was the legitimate
successor to the English crown, and that the English king who possessed
it at the time of his invasion was a usurper. In order that the reader
may understand the nature and origin of this his claim, it is necessary
to relate somewhat in full the story of the Lady Emma.
By referring to the genealogy of the Norman line of dukes contained in
the second chapter of this volume, it will be seen that Emma was the
daughter of the first Richard. She was celebrated in her early years for
her great personal beauty. They called her _the Pearl of Normandy_.
She married, at length, one of the kings of England, whose name was
Ethelred. England was at that time distracted by civil wars, waged
between the two antagonist races of Saxons and Danes. There were, in
fact, two separate dynasties or lines of kings, who were contending, all
the time, for the mastery. In these contests, sometimes the Danes would
triumph for a time, and sometimes the Saxons; and sometimes both races
would have a royal representative in the field, each claiming the
throne, and reigning over separate portions of the island. Thus there
were, at certain periods, two kingdoms in England, both covering the
same territory, and claiming the government of the same population--with
two kings, two capitals, two administrations--while the wretched
inhabitants were distracted and ruined by the terrible conflicts to
which these hostile pretensions gave rise.
Ethelred was of the Saxon line. He was a widower at the time of his
marriage to Emma, nearly forty years old, and he had, among other
children by his former wife, a son named Edmund, an active, energetic
young man, who afterward became king. One motive which he had in view in
marrying Emma was to strengthen his position by securing the alliance of
the Normans of Normandy. The Danes, his English enemies, were Normans.
The government of Normandy would therefore be naturally inclined to
take part with them. By this marriage, however, Ethelred hoped to detach
the Normans of France from the cause of his enemies, and to unite them
to his own. He would thus gain a double advantage, strengthening himself
by an accession which weakened his foes.
His plan succeeded so far as inducing Richard himself, the Duke of
Normandy, to espouse his cause, but it did not enable Ethelred to
triumph over his enemies. They, on the contrary, conquered _him_, and,
in the end, drove him from the country altogether. He fled to Normandy
for refuge, with Emma his wife, and his two young sons. Their names were
Edward and Alfred.
Richard II., Emma's brother, who was then the Duke of Normandy, received
the unhappy fugitives with great kindness, although _he_, at least,
scarcely deserved it. It was not surprising that he was driven from his
native realm, for he possessed none of those high qualities of mind
which fit men to conquer or to govern. Like all other weak-minded
tyrants, he substituted cruelty for wisdom and energy in his attempts to
subjugate his foes. As soon as he was married to Emma, for instance,
feeling elated and strong at the great accession of power which he
imagined he had obtained by this alliance, he planned a general massacre
of the Danes, and executed it on a given day, by means of private
orders, sent secretly throughout the kingdom. Vast numbers of the Danes
were destroyed; and so great was the hatred of the two races for each
other, that they who had these bloody orders to obey executed them with
a savage cruelty that was absolutely horrible. In one instance they
buried women to the waist, and then set dogs upon them, to tear their
naked flesh until they died in agony. It would be best, in narrating
history, to suppress such horrid details as these, were it not that in
a land like this, where so much depends upon the influence of every
individual in determining whether the questions and discussions which
are from time to time arising, and are hereafter to arise, shall be
settled peacefully, or by a resort to violence and civil war, it is very
important that we should all know what civil war is, and to what
horrible atrocities it inevitably leads.
Alfred the Great, when he was contending with the Danes in England, a
century before this time, treated them, so far as he gained advantages
over them, with generosity and kindness; and this policy wholly
conquered them in the end. Ethelred, on the other hand, tried the
effect of the most tyrannical cruelty, and the effect was only to arouse
his enemies to a more determined and desperate resistance. It was the
phrensy of vengeance and hate that these atrocities awakened every where
among the Danes, which nerved them with so much vigor and strength that
they finally expelled him from the island; so that, when he arrived in
Normandy, a fugitive and an exile, he came in the character of a
dethroned tyrant, execrated for his senseless and atrocious cruelties,
and not in that of an unhappy prince driven from his home by the
pressure of unavoidable calamity. Nevertheless, Richard, the Duke of
Normandy, received him, as we have already said, with kindness. He felt
the obligation of receiving the exiled monarch in a hospitable manner,
if not on his own account, at least for the sake of Emma and the
children.
The origin and end of Emma's interest in Ethelred seems to have been
merely ambition. The "Pearl of Normandy" had given herself to this
monster for the sake, apparently, of the glory of being the English
queen. Her subsequent conduct compels the readers of history to make
this supposition, which otherwise would be uncharitable. She now
mourned her disappointment in finding that, instead of being sustained
by her husband in the lofty position to which she aspired, she was
obliged to come back to her former home again, to be once more
dependent, and with the additional burden of her husband himself, and
her children, upon her father's family. Her situation was rendered even
still more humiliating, in some degree, by the circumstances that her
father was no longer alive, and that it was to her brother, on whom her
natural claim was far less strong, that she had now to look for shelter
and protection. Richard, however, received them all in a kind and
generous manner.
In the mean time, the wars and commotions which had driven Ethelred
away continued to rage in England, the Saxons gradually gaining
ground against the Danes. At length the king of the Danes, who had
seized the government when Ethelred was expelled, died. The Saxons then
regained their former power, and they sent commissioners to Ethelred to
propose his return to England. At the same time, they expressed their
unwillingness to receive him, unless they could bind him, by a solemn
treaty, to take a very different course of conduct, in the future
management of his government, from that which he had pursued before.
Ethelred and Emma were eager to regain, on any terms, their lost throne.
They sent over embassadors empowered to make, in Ethelred's name, any
promises which the English nobles might demand; and shortly afterward
the royal pair crossed the Channel and went to London, and Ethelred was
acknowledged there by the _Saxon_ portion of the population of the
island once more as king.
The _Danes_, however, though weakened, were not yet disposed to submit.
They declared their allegiance to _Canute_, who was the successor in the
_Danish_ line. Then followed a long war between Canute and Ethelred.
Canute was a man of extraordinary sagacity and intelligence, and also of
great courage and energy. Ethelred, on the other hand, proved himself,
notwithstanding all his promises, incurably inefficient, cowardly, and
cruel. In fact, his son Prince Edmund, the son of his first wife, was
far more efficient than his father in resisting Canute and the Danes.
Edmund was active and fearless, and he soon acquired very extensive
power. In fact, he seems to have held the authority of his father in
very little respect. One striking instance of this insubordination
occurred. Ethelred had taken offense, for some reason or other, at one
of the nobles in his realm, and had put him to death, and confiscated
his estates; and, in addition to this, with a cruelty characteristic of
him, he shut up the unhappy widow of his victim, a young and beautiful
woman, in a gloomy convent, as a prisoner. Edmund, his son, went to the
convent, liberated the prisoner, and made her his own wife.
[Illustration: THE RESCUE.]
With such unfriendly relations between the king and his son, who seems
to have been the ablest general in his father's army, there could be
little hope of making head against such an enemy as Canute the Dane.
In fact, the course of public affairs went on from bad to worse, Emma
leading all the time a life of unceasing anxiety and alarm. At length,
in 1016, Ethelred died, and Emma's cup of disappointment and humiliation
was now full. Her own sons, Edward and Alfred, had no claims to the
crown; for Edmund, being the son by a former marriage, was older than
they. They were too young to take personally an active part in the
fierce contests of the day, and thus fight their way to importance and
power. And then Edmund, who was now to become king, would, of course,
feel no interest in advancing _them_, or doing honor to _her_. A son
who would thwart and counteract the plans and measures of a father, as
Edmund had done, would be little likely to evince much deference or
regard for a mother-in-law, or for half brothers, whom he would
naturally consider as his rivals. In a word, Emma had reason to be
alarmed at the situation of insignificance and danger in which she found
herself suddenly placed. She fled a second time, in destitution and
distress, to her brother's in Normandy. She was now, however, a widow,
and her children were fatherless. It is difficult to decide whether to
consider her situation as better or worse on this account, than it was
at her former exile.
Her sons were lads, but little advanced beyond the period of childhood;
and Edward, the eldest, on whom the duty of making exertions to advance
the family interests would first devolve, was of a quiet and gentle
spirit, giving little promise that he would soon be disposed to enter
vigorously upon military campaigns. Edmund, on the other hand, who was
now king, was in the prime of life, and was a man of great spirit and
energy. There was a reasonable prospect that he would live many years;
and even if he were to be suddenly cut off, there seemed to be no hope
of the restoration of Emma to importance or power; for Edmund was
married and had two sons, one of whom would be entitled to succeed him
in case of his decease. It seemed, therefore, to be Emma's destiny now,
to spend the remainder of her days with her children in neglect and
obscurity. The case resulted differently, however, as we shall see in
the end.
Edmund, notwithstanding his prospect of a long and prosperous career,
was cut off suddenly, after a stormy reign of one year. During his
reign, Canute the Dane had been fast gaining ground in England,
notwithstanding the vigor and energy with which Edmund had opposed him.
Finally, the two monarchs assembled their armies, and were about to
fight a great final battle. Edmund sent a flag of truce to Canute's
camp, proposing that, to save the effusion of blood, they should agree
to decide the case by single combat, and that he and Canute should be
the champions, and fight in presence of the armies. Canute declined this
proposal. He was himself small and slender in form, while Edmund was
distinguished for his personal development and muscular strength. Canute
therefore declined the personal contest, but offered to leave the
question to the decision of a council chosen from among the leading
nobles on either side. This plan was finally adopted. The council
convened, and, after long deliberations, they framed a treaty by which
the country was divided between the two potentates, and a sort of peace
was restored. A very short period after this treaty was settled, Edmund
was murdered.
Canute immediately laid claim to the whole realm. He maintained that
it was a part of the treaty that the partition of the kingdom was to
continue only during their joint lives, and that, on the death of
either, the whole was to pass to the survivor of them. The Saxon leaders
did not admit this, but they were in no condition very strenuously to
oppose it. Ethelred's sons by Emma were too young to come forward as
leaders yet; and as to Edmund's, they were mere children. There was,
therefore, no one whom they could produce as an efficient representative
of the Saxon line, and thus the Saxons were compelled to submit to
Canute's pretensions, at least for a time. They would not wholly give up
the claims of Edmund's children, but they consented to waive them for a
season. They gave Canute the guardianship of the boys until they should
become of age, and allowed him, in the mean time, to reign, himself,
over the whole land.
Canute exercised his power in a very discreet and judicious manner,
seeming intent, in all his arrangements, to protect the rights and
interests of the Saxons as well as of the Danes. It might be supposed
that the lives of the young Saxon princes, Edmund's sons, would not have
been safe in his hands; but the policy which he immediately resolved to
pursue was to conciliate the Saxons, and not to intimidate and coerce
them. He therefore did the young children no harm, but sent them away
out of the country to Denmark, that they might, if possible, be
gradually forgotten. Perhaps he thought that, if the necessity should
arise for it, they might there, at any time, be put secretly to death.
There was another reason still to prevent Canute's destroying these
children, which was, that if _they_ were removed, the claims of the
Saxon line would not thereby be extinguished, but would only be
transferred to Emma's children in Normandy, who, being older, were
likely the sooner to be in a condition to give him trouble as rivals. It
was therefore a very wise and sagacious policy which prompted him to
keep the young children of Edmund alive, but to remove them to a safe
distance out of the way.
In respect to Emma's children, Canute conceived a different plan for
guarding against any danger which came from their claims, and that was,
to propose to take their mother for his wife. By this plan her family
would come into his power, and then her own influence and that of her
Norman friends would be forever prevented from taking sides against him.
He accordingly made the proposal. Emma was ambitious enough of again
returning to her former position of greatness as English queen to accept
it eagerly. The world condemned her for being so ready to marry, for her
second husband, the deadly enemy and rival of the first; but it was all
one to her whether her husband was Saxon or Dane, provided that she
could be queen.
The boys, or, rather, the young men, for they were now advancing to
maturity, were very strongly opposed to this connection. They did all in
their power to prevent its consummation, and they never forgave their
mother for thus basely betraying their interests. They were the more
incensed at this transaction, because it was stipulated in the marriage
articles between Canute and Emma that their _future_ children--the
offspring of the marriage then contracted--should succeed to the throne
of England, to the exclusion of all previously born on either side. Thus
Canute fancied that he had secured his title, and that of his
descendants, to the crown forever, and Emma prepared to return to
England as once more its queen. The marriage was celebrated with great
pomp and splendor, and Emma, bidding Normandy and her now alienated
children farewell, was conducted in state to the royal palace in London.
We must now pass over, with a very few words, a long interval of twenty
years. It was the period of Canute's reign, which was prosperous and
peaceful. During this period Emma's Norman sons continued in Normandy.
She had another son in England a few years after her marriage, who was
named Canute, after his father, but he is generally known in history by
the name of Hardicanute, the prefix being a Saxon word denoting
energetic or strong. Canute had also a very celebrated minister in his
government named Godwin. Godwin was a Saxon of a very humble origin, and
the history of his life constitutes quite a romantic tale.[H] He was a
man of extraordinary talents and character, and at the time of Canute's
death he was altogether the most powerful subject in the realm.
[Footnote H: It is given at length in the last chapter of our history of
Alfred the Great.]
When Canute found that he was about to die, and began to consider what
arrangements he should make for the succession, he concluded that it
would not be safe for him to fulfill the agreement made in his marriage
contract with Emma, that the children of that marriage should inherit
the kingdom; for Hardicanute, who was entitled to succeed under that
covenant, was only about sixteen or seventeen years old, and
consequently too young to attempt to govern. He therefore made a will,
in which he left the kingdom to an older son, named Harold--a son whom
he had had before his marriage with Emma. This was the signal for a new
struggle. The influence of the Saxons and of Emma's friends was of
course in favor of Hardicanute, while the Danes espoused the cause of
Harold. Godwin at length taking sides with this last-named party, Harold
was established on the throne, and Emma and all her children, whether
descended from Ethelred or Canute, were set aside and forgotten.
Emma was not at all disposed to acquiesce in this change of fortune.
She remained in England, but was secretly incensed at her second
husband's breach of faith toward her; and as he had abandoned the child
of his marriage with her for _his_ former children, she now determined
to abandon him for _hers_. She gave up Hardicanute's cause, therefore,
and began secretly to plot among the Saxon population for bringing
forward her son Edward to the throne. When she thought that things were
ripe for the execution of the plot, she wrote a letter to her children
in Normandy, saying to them that the Saxon population were weary of the
Danish line, and were ready, she believed, to rise in behalf of the
ancient Saxon line, if the true representative of it would appear to
lead them. She therefore invited them to come to London and consult with
her on the subject. She directed them, however, to come, if they came at
all, in a quiet and peaceful manner, and without any appearance of
hostile intent, inasmuch as any thing which might seem like a foreign
invasion would awaken universal jealousy and alarm.
When this letter was received by the brothers in Normandy, the eldest,
Edward, declined to go, but gave his consent that Alfred should
undertake the expedition if he were disposed. Alfred accepted the
proposal. In fact, the temperament and character of the two brothers
were very different. Edward was sedate, serious, and timid. Alfred was
ardent and aspiring. The younger, therefore, decided to take the risk of
crossing the Channel, while the elder preferred to remain at home.
The result was very disastrous. Contrary to his mother's instructions,
Alfred took with him quite a troop of Norman soldiers. He crossed the
Channel in safety, and advanced across the country some distance toward
London. Harold sent out a force to intercept him. He was surrounded, and
he himself and all his followers were taken prisoners. He was sentenced
to lose his eyes, and he died in a few days after the execution of this
terrible sentence, from the mingled effects of fever and of mental
anguish and despair. Emma fled to Flanders.
Finally Harold died, and Hardicanute succeeded him. In a short time
Hardicanute died, leaving no heirs, and now, of course, there was no one
left[I] to compete with Emma's oldest son Edward, who had remained all
this time quietly in Normandy. He was accordingly proclaimed king. This
was in 1041. He reigned for twenty years, having commenced his reign
about the time that William the Conqueror was established in the
possession of his dominions as Duke of Normandy. Edward had known
William intimately during his long residence in Normandy, and William
came to visit him in England in the course of his reign. William, in
fact, considered himself as Edward's heir; for as Edward, though
married, had no children, the dukes of the Norman line were his nearest
relatives. He obtained, he said, a promise from Edward that Edward would
sanction and confirm his claim to the English crown, in the event of his
decease, by bequeathing it to William in his will.
[Footnote I: The children of Ethelred's oldest son, Edmund, were in
Hungary at this time, and seem to have been wellnigh forgotten.]
Emma was now advanced in years. The ambition which had been the ruling
principle of her life would seem to have been well satisfied, so far as
it is possible to satisfy ambition, for she had had two husbands and two
sons, all kings of England. But as she advanced toward the close of her
career, she found herself wretched and miserable. Her son Edward could
not forgive her for her abandonment of himself and his brother, to
marry a man who was their own and their father's bitterest enemy. She
had made a formal treaty in her marriage covenant to exclude them from
the throne. She had treated them with neglect during all the time of
Canute's reign, while she was living with him in London in power and
splendor. Edward accused her, also, of having connived at his brother
Alfred's death. The story is, that he caused her to be tried on this
charge by the ordeal of fire. This method consisted of laying red-hot
irons upon the stone floor of a church, at certain distances from each
other, and requiring the accused to walk over them with naked feet. If
the accused was innocent, Providence, as they supposed, would so guide
his footsteps that he should not touch the irons. Thus, if he was
innocent, he would go over safely; if guilty, he would be burned. Emma,
according to the story of the times, was subjected to this test, in the
Cathedral of Winchester, to determine whether she was cognizant of the
murder of her son. Whether this is true or not, there is no doubt that
Edward confined her a prisoner in the monastery at Winchester, where she
ended her days at last in neglect and wretchedness.
When Edward himself drew near to the close of his life, his mind was
greatly perplexed in respect to the succession. There was one descendant
of his brother Edmund--whose children, it will be remembered, Canute had
sent away to Denmark, in order to remove them out of the way--who was
still living in Hungary. The name of this descendant was Edward. He was,
in fact, the lawful heir to the crown. But he had spent his life in
foreign countries, and was now far away; and, in the mean time, the Earl
Godwin, who has been already mentioned as the great Saxon nobleman who
rose from a very humble rank to the position of the most powerful
subject in the realm, obtained such an influence, and wielded so great a
power, that he seemed at one time stronger than the king himself. Godwin
at length died, but his son Harold, who was as energetic and active as
his father, inherited his power, and seemed, as Edward thought, to be
aspiring to the future possession of the throne. Edward had hated Godwin
and all his family, and was now extremely anxious to prevent the
possibility of Harold's accession. He accordingly sent to Hungary to
bring Edward, his nephew, home. Edward came, bringing his family with
him. He had a young son named Edgar. It was King Edward's plan to make
arrangements for bringing this Prince Edward to the throne after his
death, that Harold might be excluded.
The plan was a very judicious one, but it was unfortunately frustrated
by Prince Edward's death, which event took place soon after he arrived
in England. The young Edgar, then a child, was, of course, his heir. The
king was convinced that no government which could be organized in the
name of Edgar would be able to resist the mighty power of Harold, and he
turned his thoughts, therefore, again to the accession of William of
Normandy, who was the nearest relative on his mother's side, as the only
means of saving the realm from falling into the hands of the usurper
Harold. A long and vexatious contest then ensued, in which the leading
powers and influences of the kingdom were divided and distracted by the
plans, plots, maneuvers, and counter maneuvers of Harold to obtain the
accession for himself, and of Edward to secure it for William of
Normandy. In this contest Harold conquered in the first instance, and
Edward and William in the end.