CHAP. VII. the West-Saxon Dragon, shone also in gold, spreading his wings, the poet tells us, over the awe-struck waves.1 A rich piece of tapestry, wrought on a purple ground with the naval exploits of former English Kings,2 the sea-fights, no doubt, of Ælfred, the peaceful triumphs of Eadgar, [992.] perhaps that noblest fight of all when the fleets of Denmark gave way before the sea-faring men of the merchantcity, formed an appropriate adornment of the offering of the English Earl to the first-men did not then deem that he was to be the last-prince of the newly-restored English dynasty.

Character

of Eadward.

His posi

tion as a Saint.

§ 2. Condition of England during the early years

of Eadward.

Before we go on to the events of the reign of Eadward, it will be well to endeavour to gain a distinct idea of the King himself and of the men who were to be the chief actors in English affairs during his reign. In estimating the character of Eadward, we must never forget that we are dealing with a canonized saint. In such cases it is more needful than ever to look closely to a man's recorded acts, and to his character as described by those who wrote before his formal canonization. Otherwise we shall be in danger of mistaking hagiology for history.

1 Vita Eadw. 397.

"Aureus è puppi leo prominet; æquora proræ

Celsa pennato perterret corpore draco

Aureus, et linguis flammam vomit ore trisulcis." Were the dragon and the lion thus coupled to express Eadward's mixed origin, English and Norman ?

2 Ib.

"Nobilis appensum pretiatur purpura velum,
Quo patrum series depicta docet varias res,
Bellaque nobilium turbata per æquora Regum."
For instances of historical tapestry see vol. i. p. 303.

3 See vol. i. p. 307.

CHARACTER OF EADWARD.

21

When a man is once canonized, his acts and character CHAP. VII.
immediately pass out of the reach of ordinary criticism.
Religious edification, and not historical truth, becomes the
aim of all who speak or write of one who has been
formally enrolled as an object of religious reverence.1 We
must also be on our guard even in dealing with authors
who wrote before his formal canonization, but after that
popular canonization which was so often the first step
towards it. It was of course the general reverence in
which a man was held, the general belief in his holi-
ness and miraculous powers, which formed the grounds
of the demand for his formal canonization. But, while
we must be specially on our guard in weighing the
character of particular acts and the value of particular
panegyrics, we must remember that the popular esteem
which thus led to canonization proves a great deal as to
a man's general character. It proves still more when, Nature of
as in the case of Eadward, there was no one special act, to sanctity.
no one marked deed of Christian heroism or Christian
endurance, which formed the holy man's claim to popular
reverence. Eadward was not like one of those who died
for their faith or for their country, and who, on the
strength of such death, were at once revered as martyrs,
without much inquiry into their actions and characters
in other respects. He was not even like one of those,
his sainted uncle and namesake for instance, who gained
the honours of martyrdom on still easier terms, by simply
dying an unjust death, even though no religious or po-
litical principle was at stake. The popular reverence in
which Eadward was held could rest on no ground except
the genuine popular estimate of his general character.
There were indeed strong political reasons which attached
men to his memory. He was the one prominent man of

1 On the legendary history of Eadward see Appendix B.
2 See vol. i. pp. 288, 365.

his claims

Eadward's

memory

both to

men and to

CHAP. VII. the days immediately before the Conquest whom Normans and Englishmen could agree to reverence. The English acceptable naturally cherished the memory of the last prince of the English- ancient stock. They dwelt on his real or supposed virtues Normans as a bright contrast to the crimes and vices of his Norman on political successors. Under the yoke of foreign masters they looked grounds. back to the peace and happiness of the days of their native King. The King who reigned on the English throne without a spark of English feeling became the popular embodiment of English nationality, and men called for the Laws of King Eadward as in earlier times they had called for the Laws of Cnut or of Eadgar. On the other hand, it suited the policy of the Normans to show all respect to the kinsman of their own Duke, the King by whose pretended bequest their Duke claimed the English Crown, and whose lawful successor he professed himself to be. In English eyes Eadward stood out in contrast to the invader William; in Norman eyes he stood out in contrast to the usurper Harold. A King whom two hostile races thus agreed in respecting could not fail to obtain both popular and formal canonization on somewhat easy terms. Still he could hardly have obtained either the one or the other only on grounds like these. He must have displayed some personal qualities which really won him popular affection during life and maintained him in popular reverence after death. It is worth while to study a little more at length the character of a man who obtained in his own age a degree of respect which in our eyes seems justified neither by several of his particular actions nor by the general tenour of his government.

Popular

reverence

for him grounded

also on personal qualities.

That Eadward was in any sense a great man, that he displayed any of the higher qualities of a ruler of those days, no one probably will assert. He was doubtless in

1 See vol. i. pp. 244, 462.

CAUSES OF HIS POPULAR REPUTATION.

23

some respects a better man than Cnut, than Harold, or CHAP. VII. than William; as a King of the eleventh century no one will venture to compare him with those three mighty ones. His wars were waged by deputy, and his civil government

was carried on largely by deputy also. Of his many per- Eadward's personal sonal virtues, his earnest piety, his good intentions in character. every way, his sincere desire for the welfare of his people, there can be no doubt. Vice of every kind, injustice, wanton cruelty, were hateful to him. But in all kingly qualities he was utterly lacking. In fact, so far as a really good man can reproduce the character of a thoroughly bad one, Eadward reproduced the character of his father Æthelred. Writers who lived before his canonization, or who did not come within the magic halo of his sanctity, do not scruple to charge him, as his father is charged, with utter sloth and incapacity.1 Like his Points of father, he was quite incapable of any steady attention his father. to the duties of royalty; but, like his father, he had occasional fits of energy, which, like those of his father, often came at the wrong time.3 His contemporary panegyrist allows that he gave way to occasional fits of wrath, but he pleads that his anger never hurried him into unbecoming language. It hurried him however, more than once, into very unbecoming intentions. We shall find

1 See Appendix B.

* His monastic biographer (Æth. Riev. X Scriptt. 388) says by way of praise, “Cuncta regni negotia Ducibus proceribusque [to Earl Harold and the Witan] committens, totum se divinis mancipat obsequiis. Quantò autem se corporalibus subtrahebat, tantò luminosius se spiritalibus indidit theoriis."

3 See vol. i. p. 327.

Vita Eadw. 396. "Si ratio aliquem suscitaret animi motum, leonini videbatur terroris, iram tamen non prodebat jurgiis." We shall presently come across a ludicrous example of his "nobilis ira," venting itself in an oath. Possibly the reference may partly be to his abstinence, like that of Saint Lewis, from the French, and generally southern, vice of reviling God and the Saints. See Joinville, p. 120 ed. Du Cange, 1668; p. 217 ed. Michel, 1858.

likeness to

CHAP. VII. that, on two memorable occasions, it needed the intervention of his better genius, in the form first of Godwine and then of Harold, to keep back the saintly King from massacre and civil war.1 Here we see the exact parallels to Æthelred's mad expeditions against Normandy, Cumberland, and Saint David's. But Eadward was not only free from the personal vices and cruelties of his father; there can be no doubt that, except when carried away by ebullitions of this kind, he sincerely endeavoured, according to the measure of his ability, to establish a good administration of justice throughout his dominions. But the duties of secular government, although doubtless discharged conscientiously and to the best of his ability, were with Eadward always something which went against the His virtues grain. His natural place was, not on the throne of Engwholly monastic. land, but at the head of a Norman Abbey. Nothing, one

would think, could have hindered him from entering on the religious life in the days of his exile, unless it were a vague kind of feeling that other duties were thrown upon him by his birth. For all his virtues were those of a monk; all the real man came out in his zeal for collecting relics, in his visions, in his religious exercises, in his gifts to churches and monasteries, in his desire to mark his reign, as its chief result, by the foundation of his great Abbey of Saint Peter at Westminster. In a prince of the manly piety of Ælfred things of this sort form only a part, a pleasing and harmonious part, of the general character. In Eadward they formed the whole man. His time was oddly divided between his prayers and the pastime which seems least suited to the character of

I allude to his wish, frustrated by Godwine, to subject Dover to military chastisement (Chron. Petrib. 1048. Cf. the dealings of the Emperor Theodosius with Thessalonica and Antioch), and his wish, frustrated by Harold, to wage war with the Northumbrians on behalf of Tostig in 1065, Vita Eadw. 423.

2 See vol. i. pp. 328, 330, 383, 635.