CHAP. IX. well together; at all events the Welsh King had the vic 1039. Godwine petitions for his return. tory, and, after slaying many men of both nations, he went away with a large booty.1 Men remarked that this heavy blow took place exactly thirteen years after Gruffydd's first great victory at Rhyd-y-Groes.2 Though the coincidence is thus marked, we are not told what day of what month was thus auspicious to the Welsh prince; but the dates of the events which follow show that it must have been early in the summer. Godwine must by this time have seen that the path for his return was now open, and it was seemingly this last misfortune which determined him to delay no longer.3 It was not till all peaceful means had been tried and failed, that the banished Earl made up his mind to attempt a restoration by force. He sent many messages to the King, praying for a reconciliation. He offered now to Eadward, as he had before offered both to Harthacnut and to Eadward himself, to come into the royal presence and make a compurgation in legal form in answer to all the charges which had been brought against him. But all such petitions were in vain. It marks the increasing intercourse between England and the continent, that Godwine, when his own messages were not listened to, sought, as a last resource, to obtain his object through the intercession of foreign princes.5 Embassies on his behalf were sent by his host 1 Chron. Wig. 1052. "And man þær ofsloh swybe feola Engliscra godra manna, and eac of bam Frenciscum." (The French get no honourable epithet.) All this evaporates in Florence's "multis ex illis occisis." 2 See above, p. 56, and vol. i. p. 564. 3 I infer this from the way in which Harold's expedition is spoken of as happening almost immediately ("sona," "parvo post hoc tempore") after Gruffydd's victory, as if the two things had some connexion with each other. 4 Vita Eadw. 405. "Mittit tamen adhuc pacem et misericordiam petere a Rege domino suo [cynehlaford], ut sibi liceat cum ejus gratiâ ad se purgandum legibus venire coram eo." See above, p. 142, and vol. i. p. 573. Ib. "Hoc quoque pro ejus dilectione et suo officio missis legatis suis, GODWINE ATTEMPTS TO NEGOTIATE. Embas 313 Count Baldwin and by the King of the French. Baldwin, CHAP. IX. who had so lately been at war with England, might seem sies from an ill-chosen intercessor; but his choice for that purpose foreign princes on may have been influenced by his close connexion with the his behalf. Court of Normandy. William was just now earnestly pressing his suit for Matilda. The ally of the great Duke might be expected to have some influence, if not with Eadward, at least with Eadward's Norman favourites. King Henry, it will be remembered, claimed some sort of kindred with Eadward, though it is not easy to trace the two princes to a common ancestor.1 But King and Marquess alike pleaded in vain. Eadward was surrounded by his foreign priests and courtiers, and no intercessions on behalf of the champion of England were allowed to have any weight with the royal mind, even if they were ever allowed to reach the royal ear.2 determines The Earl was now satisfied that nothing more was to Godwine be hoped from any attempts at a peaceful reconciliation. on a return He was also satisfied that, if he attempted to return by by force. force, the great majority of Englishmen would be less likely to resist him than to join his banners. He therefore, towards the middle of the summer, finally deter 3 of his con mined to attempt his restoration by force of arms, and Rex petit Francorum, et ipsum cum quo hiemabat idem persuadebat Marchio 1 See above, p. 17. Eadward and Baldwin had a common ancestor, though certainly a very remote one, in the great Ælfred. See above, p. 304. * Vita Eadw. 405. "Sed et illi hoc suggerebant satis frustra; obstruxerat enim pias Regis aures pravorum malitia." CHAP. IX. his way back into England in arms. So to do was indeed simply to follow the usual course of every banished man of those times who could gather together the needful force. The enterprises of Osgod Clapa at an earlier time, and of Ælfgar at a later time, are not spoken of with any special condemnation by the historians of the time. And the enterprise of Godwine was of a very different kind from the enterprises of Elfgar and of Osgod Clapa. Ælfgar and Osgod may have been banished unjustly, and they may, according to the morality of those times, have been guilty of no very great crime by seeking restoration with weapons in their hands. Still the question of their banishment or restoration was almost wholly a personal question. The existence or the welfare of England in no way depended on their presence or absence. But the rebellion or invasion of Godwine was a rebellion or an invasion in form only. His personal restoration meant nothing short of the deliverance of England from misgovernment and foreign influence. He had been driven out by a faction; Compari- he was invited to return by the nation. The enterprise of wine with Godwine in short should be classed, not with the ordinary Henry of forcible return of an exile, but with enterprises like those Bolingof Henry of Bolingbroke in the fourteenth century and of William of William of Orange in the seventeenth. In all three cases the deliverer undoubtedly sought the deliverance of the country; in all three he also undoubtedly sought his own restoration or advancement. But Godwine had one great advantage over both his successors. They had to deal with wicked Kings; he had only to deal with a weak King. They had to deal with evil counsellors, who, however evil, were still Englishmen. Godwine had simply to deliver King and people from the influence and thraldom of foreigners. He was thus able, while they were not able, to deliver son of God broke Orange (1688). 1 See above, p. 100. GODWINE DETERMINES TO RETURN BY FORCE. 315 England without resorting to the death, deposition, or CHAP. IX. exile of the reigning King, and, as far as he himself was personally concerned, without shedding a drop of English blood. The narrative of this great deliverance forms one of the most glorious and spirit-stirring tales to be found in any age of our history. It is a tale which may be read with unmixed delight, save for one event, which, whether we count it for a crime or for a misfortune, throws a shadow on the renown, not of Godwine himself, but of his nobler son. Harold and Leofwine, we have seen, had made up their minds from the beginning to resort to force, whenever the opportunity should come. They had spent the winter in Ireland in making preparations for an expedition. were by this time ready for action, and, now that their father had found all attempts at a peaceful reconciliation to be vain, the time for action seemed clearly to have come. They It was doubtless in concert with Godwine that Harold and Harold and Leofwine Leofwine2 now set sail from Dublin with nine ships. sail from Their crews probably consisted mainly of adventurers from Dublin. the Danish havens of Ireland, ready for any enterprise which promised excitement and plunder. But it is quite possible that Englishmen, whether vehement partisans or simply desperate men, may have also taken service under the returning exiles. The part of England which they chose for their enterprise would have been well chosen, if they had been attacking a hostile country. They made for They enter the debateable land forming the southern shore of the Bristol Channel, where no doubt large traces of the ancient British blood and language still remained. 1 See above, p. 152. The 2 Leofwine is not mentioned in the Chronicles, but his name is given by Florence, and the Biographer (405) speaks of “ duo prædicti filii.” 3 The language of the Biographer is here remarkable. He had just before spoken of the people of the East and South of England as Orientales sive Australes Angli." He now calls the point where Harold landed the Bristol Channel. of Somer shire ill towards them. Possible grounds for their hos tility. CHAP. IX. Country was left, through the absence of its Earl Odda with the fleet, without any single responsible chief. The people But it soon appeared that, from whatever cause, the setshire wishes of the people of this part of the kingdom were and Devon- not favourable to the enterprise of Harold and Leofwine. disposed Possibly the prevalence of Celtic blood in the district may have made its inhabitants less zealous in the cause of the English deliverer than the inhabitants of the purely English shires. Possibly the evil deeds of Swegen, whose government had included Somersetshire, may have made men who had lived under his rule less attached to the whole House of Godwine than those who had lived under the rule of Harold or of Godwine himself. And we must remember that, up to this time, Harold had done nothing to win for himself any special renown or affection beyond the bounds of his own East-Anglian Earldom. As yet he shone simply with a glory reflected from that of his father. And his enterprise bore in some points an ill look. He had not shared the place of exile of his father, nor had he taken any part in his father's attempts to bring about a peaceful restoration. He had gone, determined from the first on an armed return, to a land which might almost be looked on as an enemy's country. He now came back at the head of a force whose character could not fail to strike Englishmen with suspicion and dread. We are therefore not surprised to hear that the men of Somerset and Devon met him in arms. He landed on the borders of those two shires, in a wild and hilly region, which to this day remains thinly peopled, cut off from the chief centres even of local life, the last Harold's landing at Porlock; "Occidentalium Britonum sive Anglorum fines." So marked a change of expression cannot be accidental; it must point to the still debateable character of large parts of Somerset and Devon, neither purely Welsh nor purely English. Compare the significant use of the word "Britanni" by Thietmar, commented on in vol. i. p. 422. |