CHAPTER IX. THE REIGN OF EADWARD FROM THE RETURN OF GODWINE THE 1052-1057. of the HE two streams of English and Norman history were Character joined together for a moment in the year when the Period. sovereigns of England and Normandy met face to face for the only time in the course of their joint reigns. Those streams will now again diverge. England shook off the Norman influence, and became once more, to all outward appearance, the England of Æthelstan and Eadgar. For several years the history of each country seems to have no Little direct influence upon the history of the other. But this nexion mutual independence is more apparent than real. Eng- English direct con between land once more became free from Norman influence as and Norman affairs. regarded her general policy; but the effects of Eadward's Norman tendencies were by no means wholly wiped away. 1 There is nothing specially to remark on the authorities for this period, which are substantially the same as those for the seventh Chapter. We have still to look, just in the same way as before, to the Chronicles, the Biographer, and Florence, to William of Malmesbury and the other subsidiary writers. Just as before, when Norman affairs are at all touched on, the Norman writers should be compared with the English. During these years we have little to do with Scandinavian affairs, so that the Sagas are of little moment. Welsh affairs, on the other hand, are of unusual importance, and the two Welsh Chronicles, the Annales Cambriæ and the Brut y Tywysogion, or Chronicle of the Princes, must be carefully compared with our own records. CHAP. IX. Normans still remained in the land, and the circumstances of the deliverance of England were not without their effect as secondary causes of the expedition of William. Through the whole period we may be sure that the wise statesmen of both countries were diligently watching each other's actions. Harold and William, though not as yet open enemies or avowed rivals, must have found out during these years that each was called on by his own policy to do all that he could to thwart the policy of the other. But though there was this sort of undercurrent closely connecting the interests of the two countries, yet, in all the outward events of history, it was a period of remarkable separation between them. The events recorded by English historians within this period belong almost exclusively to the affairs of our own island. It is a period in which the relations between the vassal Kingdoms of Britain and the Imperial power again assume special importance. But it is still more emphatically marked by the death of the greatest of living Englishmen, and the transmission of his power, and more than his power, to a worthy successor. We left Godwine and Harold banished the power We have now to record their triumphant return to of Harold. men. a rejoicing nation. We have then to record the death of Godwine, the accession of Harold to his father's formal rank, and the steps by which he gradually rose to be the virtual ruler of the Kingdom, perhaps the designated successor to the Crown. Growth of General regret at § 1. The Return and Death of Godwine. 1052-1053. If the minds of Englishmen had been at all divided in the absence their estimate of Godwine during his long tenure of power, of Godwine. it only needed his exile to bring every patriotic heart to one opinion with regard to him. Godwine doubtless had his ENGLAND DURING GODWINE'S ABSENCE. 309 1 enemies; no man ever stood for thirty years and more at CHAP. IX. the head of affairs without making many enemies; and there were points in his character which may have given reasonable offence to many. Even if the whole of his enormous wealth was fairly and legally acquired, its mere accumulation in the hands of one man must have excited envy in many breasts. His eagerness to advance his family may well have offended others, and the crimes and the restoration of Swegen, even under the guaranty of Bishop Ealdred, cannot fail to have given general scandal. It is possible then that there were Englishmen, not devoid of love and loyalty to England, who were short-sighted enough to rejoice over the fall of the great Earl. But, when Godwine was gone, men soon learned that, whatever had been his faults, they were far outweighed by his merits. Men now knew that the Earl of the West-Saxons had been the one man who stood between them and the dominion of strangers. During that gloomy winter England felt as a conquered land, as a land too conquered by foes who had not overcome her in open battle, but who had, by craft and surprise, deprived her of her champions and guardians. The common voice of England soon began to call for the return of Godwine. The banished Earl was looked to by all men as the Father of his Country; England now knew that in his fall a fatal blow had been dealt to her own welfare and freedom. Men began openly to declare that it was better to share the banishment of Godwine than 1 At the same time, it is worth considering whether the whole of the estates set down in Domesday as belonging to Godwine and his sons were always their private property, and whether some parts may not have been official estates attached to their Earldoms. Still, after any possible deductions, their wealth was enormous. 2 Vita Eadw. 404. "Et quoniam suprà diximus eum ab omnibus Anglis pro patre coli, subitò auditus discessus ejus exterruit cor populi. Ejus absentiam sive fugam habuere perniciem suam, interitum gentis Anglica, excidium insuper totius patriæ." invited to return. way CHAP. IX. to live in the land from which Godwine was banished.1 Godwine Messages were sent to the court of Flanders, praying the Earl to return. If he chose to make his back into the land by force, he would find many Englishmen ready to take up arms in his cause. Others crossed the sea in person, and pledged themselves to fight for him, and, if need were, to die in his behalf. These invitations, we are told, were no secret intrigue of a few men. The common voice of England, openly expressed and all but unanimous, demanded the return of the great confessor of English freedom.3 The King's preparations against Godwine. The fleet at Sand wich. These open manifestations on behalf of the exiles could not escape the knowledge of the King and his counsellors. It was thought necessary to put the south-eastern coast into a state of defence against any possible attack from the side of Flanders. The King and his Witan 1-one would like to have fuller details of a Gemót held under such influences-decreed that ships should be sent forth to watch at the old watching-place of Sandwich. Forty ships were accordingly made ready, and they took their place at the appointed station under the command of the King's nephew Earl Ralph, and of Odda, the newly appointed Earl of the Western shires." 1 Vita Eadw. 404. "Felicem se putabat qui post eum exsulari poterat." 2 Ib. "Quidam post eum vadunt, quidam legationes mittunt, paratos se, si velit reverti, eum cum violentiâ in patriâ suscipere, pro eo pugnare, pro eo, si necesse sit, velle se pariter occumbere." 3 Ib. "Et hoc accitabatur non clam vel privatim, sed in manifesto et publice, et non modo à quibusdam, sed penè ab omnibus indigenis patriæ.” Chron. Petrib. 1052. "Gerædde se cyng and his witan." Abingdon and Worcester do not mention the Witan. 5 See above, p. 99. Chronn. Ab. Wig. Petrib. The number of the ships, "xl. snacca," comes from Worcester; the names of the commanders from Peterborough, "and setton Raulf Eorl and Oddan Eorl to heafodmannum þærto." Florence seems to put these preparations later, after Harold's landing at Porlock. But surely the choice made both by Gruffydd and by Harold of their points for attack, shows that the Earls of those districts were already absent with the fleet. RAVAGES OF GRUFFYDD. 1052. 311 Precautions of this kind against the return of one for CHAP. ix. whose return the mass of the nation was longing must have been unpopular in the highest degree. And, if anything could still further heighten the general discontent with the existing state of things, it would be the events Ravages of Gruffydd which were, just at this time, going on along the Welsh of North border. The Norman lords whom Eadward had settled in Wales. Herefordshire proved but poor defenders of their adopted country. The last continental improvements in the art of fortification proved vain to secure the land in the absence of chiefs of her own people. Gruffydd of North Wales marked his opportunity; he broke through his short-lived alliance with England, and the year of the absence of Godwine and his sons was marked by an extensive and successful invasion of the land of the Magesætas.1 Gruffydd doubtless took also into his reckoning the absence of the local chief at Sandwich. He crossed the border, he harried far and wide, and he seems not to have met with any resistance till he had reached the neighbourhood of Leominster.2 There His victory he was at last met by the levies of the country, together minster. with the Norman garrison of Richard's Castle.3 Perhaps, as in a later conflict with the same enemy in the same neighbourhood, English and foreign troops failed to act 1 Chron. Wig. and Flor. Wig. 1052. This incursion seems not to be mentioned in the Welsh Chronicles. Its perpetrator is described only as "Griffin se Wylisca cing;" "Walensium Rex Griffinus;" but the King intended must be the Northern Gruffydd. 66 2 The Worcester Chronicle says, Pæt he com swybe neah to Leomynstre." Florence speaks of the harrying, but does not mention the place. Chron. Wig. "And men gadorodon ongean, æger ge landes men ge Frencisce men of dam castele." So Florence, "Contra quem provinciales illi et de castello quamplures Nortmanni ascenderunt." "The castle" is doubtless Richard's Castle. Florence, who had mistaken the meaning of the Chronicler in the entry of the former year (see above, p. 142), now that he had got among Herefordshire matters, understood the description. Here again the expressions witness to the deep feeling awakened by the building of this castle. near Leo |