GODWINE DEMANDS THE SURRENDER OF EUSTACE.

men.

minals.

8, 1051.

143

the surrender of the person of a foreign prince, the King's CHAP. vii, own favourite and brother-in-law. But the demand, if other cribold, was perfectly justifiable. The two parties of French- September men had been guilty of outrageous crimes within the jurisdictions of Godwine and Swegen respectively. The King, instead of bringing them to justice, was sheltering them, and even listening to their charges against innocent Their lawful judges, the Earls of the two districts, were ready, at the head of the Witan of their Earldoms, to do that justice which the King had refused. The demand was seemingly backed by threats of an appeal to that last argument by which unrighteous rulers must be brought to reason. Godwine and his followers threatened war against Eadward, as the later Barons of England threatened war against John.1 The King was frightened and perplexed. He sent to hasten the coming of Siward, Leofric, The Northand Ralph, and bade them bring a force strong enough bring their to keep Godwine and his party in check. Seemingly they full forces. had at first brought or sent only a small body of men; when they heard the full state of the case, they hastened to the King with the whole force of their Earldoms, and restored confidence to his timid mind. This was the sort of occasion which was sure to awaken those provincial jealousies which in that age were often lulled to sleep, but which were never completely got rid of. The northern and southern parts of England were again arrayed against

Richard's Castle had made on men's mind that it was known generally as "the castle," and this reference by the Worcester Chronicler to a part of the story which he has not himself given at length is a strong confirmation of the truth of the Peterborough narrative.

1

Rog. Wend. iii. 294. “Juraverunt super majus altare, quod, si Rex leges et libertates jam dictas concedere diffugeret, ipsi ei guerram tamdiu moverent et ab ejus fidelitate se subtraherent."

2 Flor. Wig. 1051. "Ob id autem ad tempus Rex perterritus, et in angore magno constitutus, quid ageret ignorabat penitus. Sed ubi exercitum Comitum Leofrici, Siwardi, et Radulfi adventare comperit, se nullatenus Eustatium aliosque requisitos traditurum constanter respondit."

ern Earls

1035.

CHAP. VII. each other, just as they had been in the great Gemót of Oxford sixteen years before.1 The French followers of Ralph and the French friends of Eadward were doubtless glad of any excuse to shed the blood or to seize the lands of Englishmen. Siward and his Danes were seemingly not displeased with a state of things in which jealousy of the WestSaxon Earl could be so honourably cloaked under the guise of loyalty to the West-Saxon King. They were therefore quite ready to play into the hands of the strangers. They were still on their march, but seemingly close to the town, when Eadward gave his final answer to the messengers surrender of Godwine; Eustace and the other accused persons should not be given up. The messengers had hardly left GlouThe North-cester, when the Northern host entered the city, eager to humbrians be led to battle against the men of Wessex and East

The King finally refuses to

the French

men.

ready for battle.

Anglia.2 Godwine and his followers saw by this time that there was little hope of bringing the King to reason by peaceful means. Every offer tending to reconciliation had been spurned; every demand of the Earls and their people had been refused. The punishment of the innocent had been commanded; the punishment of the guilty had been denied; the old charges, of which Godwine had been so solemnly acquitted eleven years before, were again raked up against him by the slanderous tongue of a foreign March of priest. Loath as the Earl and his followers were to fight against their Lord the King," they saw no hope but in an East-An appeal to arms, and the men of the three Earldoms made gles on Gloucester. themselves ready for battle. From the heights of the Cotswolds on which they had been gathered, they marched

1040.

the West

Saxons and

1 See vol. i. p. 534 et seqq.

2 Chron. Wig. 1052. "Wurdan þa ealle swa anræde mid þam cynge, bæt hy woldon Godwines fyrde gesecan, gif se cyng þæt wolde."

3 Chron. Petrib. 1048. "And wæs þam eorle Godwine and his sunan gecydd, þæt se cyng and þa menn þe mid him wæron woldon rædon on hi. And hi trymedon gefæstlice ongean, þæh him lao wære bat hi ongean heora cyne-hlaford standan sceoldon."

GODWINE'S MARCH TO GLOUCESTER.

145

down the hill-side which overlooks the fairest and most CHAP. VII. fertile of English valleys. The broad Severn wound

1

through the plain beneath them; beyond its sandy flood rose, range beyond range, the hills which guarded the land of the still unconquered Briton. Far away, like a glimpse of another world, opened the deep vale of the Welsh Axe, the mountain land of Brecheiniog, where, in the furthest distance, the giant Beacons soar, vast and dim, the mightiest natural fortress of the southern Cymry. Even then some glimpses of days to come may have kindled the soul of Harold, as he looked forth on the land which was, before many years, to ring with his renown, and to see his name engraved as conqueror on the trophies of so many battle-fields. They passed by relics of unrecorded antiquity, by fortresses and tombs reared by the hands of men who had been forgotten before the days of Ceawlin, some perhaps even before the days of Cæsar. They passed by the vast hill-fort of Uleybury, where the Briton had bid defiance to the Roman invader. They passed by the huge mound, the Giants'-Chamber of the dead, covering the remains of men whose name and race had passed away, perhaps before even the Briton had fixed himself in the islands of the West. Straight in their path rose the towers, in that day no doubt tall and slender, of the great minster of the city which was their goal, where their King sat a willing captive in the hands of the enemies of his

1 See the splendid panegyric of William of Malmesbury on this region in the Gesta Pontificum (Scriptt. p. Bedam, 161). He especially speaks of the abundance of the vineyards and the excellence of the wine, which was not sour, as seemingly other English wine was, but as good as that of France. No wine is now grown in the vale of Severn, but there is excellent cider and perry.

On the prospect here spoken of see Sydney Smith's Sketches of Moral Philosophy, p. 218. * See above, p. 110.

3 For descriptions of these two remarkable monuments of primæval times, by Dr. Thurnam and Professor C. C. Babington, see the Archæological Journal, vol. xi. (1854), pp. 315, 328.

CHAP. VII. people. And, still far beyond, rose other hills, the heights of Herefordshire and Shropshire, the blue range of Malvern and the far distant Titterstone, bringing the host as it were into the actual presence of the evil deeds with which the stranger was defiling that lovely region. Godwine had kept his watch on the heights of Beverstone, as Thrasyboulos had kept his on the heights of Phylê,1 and he now came down, with the truest sons of England at his bidding, ready, as need might be, to strive for her freedom either in the debates of the Witan or in the actual War hin- storm of battle. But there were now men in the King's dered by the inter- train at Gloucester who were not prepared to shed the vention of blood of their countrymen in the cause of strangers.

Leofric.

Eadward had now counsellors at his side who had no mind to push personal or provincial jealousy to the extent of treason to their common country. Earl Leofric had obeyed the command of the King, and had brought the force of Mercia to the royal muster at Gloucester. Some jealousies of Godwine may well have rankled in his breast, but love of his country was a stronger feeling still. He was not ready to sacrifice the champion of England to men who had trampled on every rule of English law and of natural right, men who seemed to deem it a crime if Englishmen refused to lie still and be butchered on their hearth-stones. The good old Earl of the Mercians now, as ever,2 stood forth as the representative of peace and compromise between extreme parties. The best men of journment England were arrayed in one host or the other. It were madness indeed for Englishmen to destroy one another, simply to hand over the land to its enemies without defence. But, while two armed hosts stood ready for 1 Childe Harold, ii. 84;

He effects

a compro

mise, and

procures the ad

of the

Gemót.

"Spirit of Freedom, when on Phyle's brow

Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train," &c.

2 See vol. i. p. 539.

3 Chron. Wig. 1052. "þæt mycel unræd wære þæt hy togedere comon

LEOFRIC BRINGS ABOUT A COMPROMISE.

147

battle, there was no room for peaceful debate. Let both CHAP. VII. sides depart; let hostages be given on both sides, and let the Meeting of the Witan stand adjourned, to assemble again, after a few weeks, in another place. Meanwhile all enmities on either side should cease, and both sides should be held to be in full possession of the King's peace and friendship.1 The proposal of Leofric was accepted by both parties, and the Gemót was accordingly adjourned, to meet in London at Michaelmas.

London.

appears at

The objects of Leofric in this momentary compromise Gemót of were undoubtedly honourable and patriotic. But King September Eadward and his foreign advisers seem to have been de- 29, 1051. termined to make the most of the breathing-space thus given them for the damage of the national cause. The King employed the time in collecting an army still more Eadward powerful than that which had surrounded him at Glou- the head cester. He seems to have got together the whole force of an army. of Northumberland and Mercia, and to have summoned the immediate following of the King, the royal Housecarls, and perhaps the King's immediate Thegns, even within Godwine's own Earldom.2 The King's quarters were probably at his favourite palace of Westminster. Godwine came, accompanied by a large force of the men of his Earldom, to his own house in Southwark.3 Several The King's messages passed to and fro between him and the King. Godwine. But it soon became clear that, though the King's full peace and friendship had been assured to Godwine, there was no intention in the royal councils of showing him any favour, or even of treating him with common justice. The two parties had separated at Gloucester on equal

[see vol. i. p. 435], forbam þær was mæst þæt rotoste bat was on Englalande on þam twam gefylcum; and leton þæt hi urum feondum rymdon to lande, and betwyx us sylfum to mycclum forwyrde."

1 Chron. Petrib. 1048. "Da gerædden þa witan on ægðer halfe, þæt man da alces yfeles geswác, and geaf se cyng godes grid and his fulne freondscipe on ægöre healfe.' 2 See Appendix L. 3 Ib.

demands of