OPPOSITE FEELINGS IN THE TWO ARMIES.

327

least as thickly, with men who had come together, like CHAP. IX. their brethren of the southern coasts, ready to live and die with the great Earl. The whole force of the neighbourhood, instead of obeying the King's summons, had come unsummoned to the support of Godwine, and stood ready in battle array awaiting his orders. And different indeed was the spirit of the two hosts. The Earl's men were eager for action; it needed all his eloquence, all his authority, to keep them back from jeoparding or disgracing his cause by too hasty an attack on their sovereign or on their countrymen.2 But the Englishmen who had Lukeobeyed Eadward's call were thoroughly disheartened and of the lukewarm in his cause. The King's own housecarls shrank troops. from the horrors of a civil war, a war in which Englishmen would be called on to slaughter one another, for no object but to rivet the yoke of outlandish men about their necks. With the two armies in this temper, the success of Godwine was certain; all that was needed was for the

1 Chron. Ab. "And seo landfyrd com ufenon, and trymedon hig be þam strande." Flor. Wig. "Venit et pedestris exercitus, ac se per oram "Pefluvii ordinatim disponens, spissam terribilemque fecit testudinem." destris exercitus " is only accidentally an accurate rendering of "landfyrd." Doubtless they were on foot, but the force of the word is that the popular levies, the militia of the shires round London, came unbidden to support Godwine. The King had only his housecarls and any troops that may have come from the north.

2 Chron. Ab. "And hi hwemdon þa mid þam scypon wið þæs norðlandes, swylce hig woldon þæs cynges scipa abutan betrymman." Vita Eadw. 406. "Et quoniam facultas undique superiores vires administrabat, hortabantur quàm plures, ut etiam in ipsum Regem irruerent." This feeling was still stronger a little later in the day. We must remember that, in this story, we are dealing, not with days but with hours.

3 Chron. Ab. "Ac hit was heom mæst eallon lað þæt hig sceoldon fohtan wið heora agenes cynnes mannum ・ ・ ・ Eac hig noldon þæt utlendiscum þeodum wære þes eard þurh þæt be swiðor gerymed be hi heom sylfe ælc oðerne forfore." The words doubtless simply mean men of their own nation. Roger of Wendover (i. 491) must have had this Chronicle before him, and must have taken the words to mean kinsmen in the later and narrower sense; "Angli, quorum filii, nepotes, et consanguinei cum Godwino erant, noluerunt contra eos dimicare." Florence has the intermediate expression "propinquos ac compatriotas."

warmness

King's

demands

CHAP. IX. Earl to insure that it should be a bloodless success. The Godwine object of Godwine was to secure his own restoration and his restora. the deliverance of his country without striking a blow. tion; He sent a message to the King, praying that he and his might be restored to all that had been unjustly taken from Eadward them. The King, with his Norman favourites around him,

increased

of God

wine's

men;

hesitates; hesitated for a while. The indignation of the Earl's men indignation grew deeper and louder; fierce cries were heard against the King and against all who took part with him; no power less than that of Godwine could have checked the demand for instant battle.2 The result of a battle could hardly have been doubtful. Ralph the Timid and Richard the son of Scrob, even the pious Earl Odda himself, would hardly, even at the head of more willing soldiers, have found themselves a match for the warrior who had fleshed his sword at Sherstone and Assandun, and who had made the name of Englishman a name of terror among the stoutest Godwine warriors of the shores of the Baltic. But it was not with restrains their eageraxe and javelin that that day's victory was to be won. The mighty voice, the speaking look and gesture, of that old man eloquent could again sway assemblies of Englishmen at his will.4 His irresistible tongue now pleaded

ness.

1 Chron. Petrib. "pa sendon þa eorlas to bam cynge, and gerndon to him þæt hi moston beon wurde ælc þæra þinga þe heom mid unrihte ofgenumen was."

2 Ib. "Da wiðlæg se cyng sume hwile, beah swa lange, oỡ þet folc be mid þam eorle wes weard swide astyred ongean bone cyng and ongean his folc."

3 See vol. i. p. 466. The Worcester and Abingdon Chronicles, a little way before, have a singular remark that the only good troops on both sides were English; "Forðan þar wæs lyt elles be aht mycel myhton buton Englisce men on ægber healfe." This sounds like a slur on the military prowess alike of the King's Frenchmen, of Harold's Irish Danes, and of any Flemings who may have come with Godwine.

* Chron. Petrib. "Swa þæt se eorl sylf earfoðlice gestylde bat folc." So the Biographer, in his more rhetorical way; "Verùm fidelis et Deo devotus Dux verbis et nutu admodum abhorruit." William of Malmesbury, a little later, pays a fine tribute to Godwine's eloquence, which is rather a favourite subject of his; "Senex ille et linguâ potens [some read "et famâ clarus et linguâ potens"] ad flectendos animos audientium."

MEDIATION OF STIGAND.

329

and mat

with all earnestness against any hasty act of violence or CHAP. IX. disloyalty. His own conscience was clear from any lack of faithfulness; he would willingly die rather than do, or allow to be done on his behalf, any act of wrong or irreverence towards his Lord the King.1 The appeal was successful in every way. The eagerness of his own men was checked, and time was given for wiser counsels to resume their sway on the other side. Bishop Stigand and Embassy of Stigand; other wise men, both from within and from without the hostages city, appeared on board the Earl's ship in the character of exchanged mediators. It was soon agreed to give hostages on both ters resides, and to defer the decision of all matters to a solemn Gemót. Gemót to be holden the next morning.2 Godwine, Harold, and such of their followers as thought good, now left their ships, and once more set foot in peace on the soil of their Godwine native island.3 The Earl and his sons no doubt betook land. themselves to his own house in Southwark, and there waited for the gathering of the next day with widely different feelings from those with which they had last waited in that house for the decisions of an Assembly of the Wise.

ferred to a

and Harold

But there were those about Eadward who could not with the like calmness await the sentence of the great tribunal which was to give judgement on the morrow. There were those high in Church and State who knew Fears of the King's too well what would be the inevitable vote of a free Norman assembly of Englishmen. There were Thegns and Prelates favourites. in Eadward's court who saw in the promised meeting of

1 Vita Eadw. 406. “Dum,” inquit,“ fidelitatis suæ in corde meo habeam hodie testem, me scilicet malle mortem, quàm aliquid indecens et iniquum egerim, vel agam, vel me vivo agi permittam in dominum meum Regem [cynehlaforde]." William of Malmesbury is certainly justified in saying of Godwine personally, if not of all Godwine's followers, “pacifico animo repatriantes."

2 See Appendix S.

3 Chron. Ab. "And Godwine for upp, and Harold his sunu, and heora lio swa mycel swa heom þa gebuhte."

CHAP. IX. the Witan of the land only a gathering of men eager to inflict on them the righteous punishment of their evil deeds. First and foremost among them was the Norman monk whom the blind partiality of Eadward had thrust into the highest place in the English Church. Robert of Jumièges, the man who, more than any other one man, had stirred up strife between the King and his people, the man who, more than any other one man, had driven the noblest sons of England into banishment, now felt that his hour was come. He dared not face the assembled nation which he had outraged; he dared not take his place in that great Council of which his office made him the highest member. The like fear fell on Ulf of Dorchester, the Bishop who had done nought bishoplike, on William of London, and on all the Frenchmen, priests and knights alike, who had sunned themselves in the smiles of the court, but who shrank from meeting the assembly of the people. Flight was their only hope. As soon as the news came that peace was made, and that all matters were referred to a lawful foreigners. Gemót, the whole company of the strangers who had been the curse of England mounted their horses and rode for their lives. Eastward, westward, northward, Norman knights and priests were seen hurrying. Godwine and Harold, in the like case, had been treacherously pursued;1 but these men, criminals as they were fleeing from the vengeance of an offended nation, were allowed to go whither they would unmolested. Whatever violence was done was wholly the act of the strangers. Some rode west to the castle in Herefordshire, Pentecost's castle, the original cause of so much mischief; some rode towards a castle in the north, belonging to the Norman Staller, Robert the son of Wymarc.2 The Bishops, perhaps the objects of a still fiercer

General flight

of the

1 Harold certainly, perhaps Godwine also. See above, p. 154.

2 Chron. Petrib. "Sume west to Pentecostes castele, sume norð to Rodbertes castele." Pentecost, as we gather from Florence, who speaks of "Osbernus cognomento Pentecost"-what can be the meaning of so

GENERAL FLIGHT OF THE NORMANS.

4

Arch

331

Robert and

popular indignation than even the lay favourites, undertook CHAP. IX. za still more perilous journey by themselves. What became Flight of of William of London is not quite plain, but we have bishop a graphic description of the escape of the Prelates of Bishop Ulf. Canterbury and Dorchester. Robert and Ulf, mounted and sword in hand, cut their way through the streets, wounding and slaying as they went; they burst through the east gate of London; they rode straight for the haven of Eadwulfsness; there they found an old crazy ship;' they went on board of her and so gat them over sea. Never again did those evil Prelates trouble England with their personal presence; but the tongue of Robert was still busy in other lands to do hurt to England and her people. The patriotic chronicler raises an emphatic note of triumph over the ignominious flight of the stranger Primate. "He left behind his pall and all Christendom here in the land, even as God it willed; for that he had before taken upon him that worship, as God willed it not."5

strange a surname ?-is the same as Osbern, the son of Richard of Richard's Castle, of whom we have already heard so much. Robert's castle must be some castle belonging to Robert the son of Wymarc, as distinctly the most notable man of his name in the country after Robert the Archbishop. Most of his lands lay in the East of England; but he had also property in the shires of Hertford, Huntingdon, and Cambridge, though I do not find any mention of a castle on any of his estates there.

1 The Abingdon Chronicle, followed by Florence, makes William accompany Robert and Ulf on their desperate ride; "Rodbeard bisceop and Willem bisceop and Ulf bisceop uneade ætburstan mid þam Frenciscum mannum þe heom mid wæron, and swa ofer sæ becomon." But the Peterborough writer speaks only of Robert and Ulf, and William's restoration to his see, a matter of which there is no kind of doubt, could hardly have followed if he had any share in the murderous adventure of his brethren.

2 Chron. Petrib. "And Rodbert arcebisceop and Ulf bisceop gewendon út æt æst geate, and heora geferan, and ofslogon and elles amyrdon manige iunge men." One might almost fancy London apprentices, as in after times, zealous for the popular cause.

3 Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex; see above, p. 110.

Chron. Petrib. "And weard him þær on anon unwræste scipe, and ferde him on án ofer sæ." See Mr. Earle's note on "unwræste," p. 346. 5 Chron. Petrib. "And forlet his pallium and Christendom ealne her