HIS STRICT GOVERNMENT AND HIS ELOQUENCE. never the same power as 35 afterwards. it may be, but in phrases which do not the less ex- CHAP. VII. press the conviction of the country, as a ruler mild and affable to the good, but stern and merciless to the evil and unruly. But with all his vigour, all his eloquence, Godwine it is clear that Godwine never reached to the same com- reached plete dominion over King and Kingdom which, in later years, fell to the lot of his nobler son. He always remained Harold an object of jealousy, not only to the French favourites of Eadward, but to the Earls of the other parts of England. We shall find that his eloquent tongue could not always command a majority in the Meeting of the Wise.2 But the importance attributed to his oratory, the fluctua- Importtions of success and defeat which he underwent in the eloquence. great deliberative Assembly, show clearly how advanced our constitution already was in an age when free debate was so well understood, and when free speech was so powerful. In this respect the Norman Conquest undoubtedly threw things back. We shall have to pass over several centuries before we come to another chief whose influence clearly rested to so great a degree on his power of swaying great assemblies of men, on the personal affection or personal awe with which he had learned to inspire the Legislature of his country. ance of family. The marriage of Godwine with his Danish wife Gytha Godwine's had given him a numerous and flourishing offspring. Six sons and three daughters surrounded the table of the Earl of the West-Saxons. In the names which several of them bore we may discern the influence of their Danish mother.4 1 Vit. Eadw. 408. "When the chronicler praises the gift of proves the existence of constitutional freedom." 2 Fl. Wig. 1048, 1049. speech, he unconsciously Lytton, Harold, i. 165. I attribute the Danish names in Godwine's family to the influence of Gytha rather than to any Danish tastes prevalent at the Court of Cnut, because the Danes settled in England seem to have so often adopted English names for their children. See vol. i. pp. 580, 591. CHAP. VII. The sons of Godwin were Swegen,' Harold, Tostig, Gyrth, Swegen Leofwine, and Wulfnoth. His daughters were Eadgyth, Gunhild, and perhaps a third, Elfgifu.2 As twenty-three years had now passed since Godwine's marriage, we may assume that all of them were already born, though some of the younger ones may still have been children. The elder sons had reached manhood, and we shall find two at least of them filling the rank of Earl during the period with which we are now dealing. Swegen, the eldest son, seems to have been invested with an Earldom from the very beginning of Eadward's reign, as he signs a charter with that rank in the King's second year. Gytha's Beorn Earl, nephew, Beorn, also remained in England, while his brother Osbeorn was banished, and while his other brother Swend was putting forth his claims to the Crown of Denmark. He had doubtless attached himself firmly to the interests of his uncle. He was also, probably at a somewhat later time, raised to an Earldom, apparently the Earldom of the Middle-Angles, lately held by Thored.4 The Earldom held by Swegen was geographically most anomalous. It took in the Mercian shires of Hereford, Gloucester, and Oxford, and the West-Saxon shires of Berkshire and Somerset.5 1045? 1 I should perhaps have done better had I used the English form of this name throughout, as Swegen is clearly more correct etymologically than Svein, Sven, or Swend. It may however be convenient to distinguish the English and Danish bearers of the name. 2 On the sons and daughters of Godwine, see Appendix F. 3 Cod. Dipl. iv. 74. This charter must be early in the year 1043, earlier at least than the Gemót which we shall presently see was held in November. Swegen was therefore probably appointed in the Gemót at which Eadward was finally established as King. Another charter, of 1044 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 80), signed by Harold, Leofwine, Swegen, Tostig, and Gyrth, all with the rank of "Dux," is deservedly marked as doubtful by Mr. Kemble. See vol. i. p. 580, and Appendix G, on the Great Earldoms. His first signature is in 1045. Cod. Dipl. iv. 97. 5 Fl. Wig. 1051. CHARACTER OF HAROLD. 37 pearance of the son of East But, along with the comparatively obscure names of CHAP. VII. Swegen and Beorn, a greater actor now steps upon the First apfield. We have now reached the first appearance of the HAROLD illustrious man round whom the main interest of this GODWINE. history will henceforth centre. The second son of God- [Earl of the wine lived to be the last of our native Kings, the hero Angles, 1045?] and the martyr of our native freedom. We have indeed as yet to deal with him only in a subordinate capacity, and in some sort in a less honourable character. The few recorded actions of Harold, Earl of the East-Angles, could hardly have enabled men to look forward to the glorious career of Harold, Earl of the West-Saxons, and of Harold, King of the English. To his first great government, a trying elevation indeed for one in the full vigour of youth and passion, he was apparently raised about three years after the election of Eadward, when he himself could not have passed his twenty-fourth year. While still young, he experienced somewhat of the fluctuations of human affairs, and he seems to have learned wisdom by experience. Still there must have been in him from the beginning the germs of those great qualities which shone forth so conspicuously in his later career. His cha It is not hard to paint his portraiture, alike from his recorded actions, and from the elaborate descriptions of Contemhim which we possess from contemporary hands. The timonies. praises of the great Earl sound forth in the latest specimen of the native minstrelsy of Teutonic England. And they sound forth with a truer ring than the half conventional praises of the saintly monarch, whose greatest glory, after all, was that he had called Harold to the Evidence government of his realm. The biographer of Eadward, grapher. the panegyrist of Godwine, is indeed the common laureate of Godwine's whole family; but it is not in the special interest of Harold that he writes. He sets forth the 1 Chronn. Ab. and Wig. 1065. See Appendix D. racter. porary tes of the Bio CHAP. VII. merits of Harold with no sparing hand; he approves of him as a ruler and he admires him as a man; but his own personal affection plainly clings more closely to the rival brother Tostig. His description of Harold is therefore the more trustworthy, and it fully agrees with the evidence of his recorded actions. Harold then, the second son of Godwine, is set before us as a man uniting every gift of mind and body which could attract to him the admiration and affection of the age in which he lived. Tall in stature, beautiful in countenance, of a bodily strength whose memory still lives in the rude pictorial art of his time,2 he was foremost alike in the active courage and in the passive endurance of the warrior. His mili- In hunger and watchfulness, in the wearing labours of tary genius. a campaign no less than in the passing excitement of the day of battle, he stood forth as the leader and the model of the English people.3 Alike ready and vigorous in action, he knew when to strike and how to strike; he knew how to measure himself against enemies of every kind, and to adapt his tactics to every position in which the accidents of warfare might place him. He knew how to chase the light-armed Briton from fastness to fastness, how to charge, axe in hand, on the bristling lines of his Norwegian namesake, and how to bear up, hour after hour, against the repeated onslaughts of the Norman horsemen and the more terrible thundershower of the Norman arrows. It is plain that in him, no less than in his more successful, and therefore more 1 Vita Eadw. 408. "Virtute corporis et animi in populo præstabat ut alter Judas Machabæus." 2 In the Bayeux Tapestry Harold is represented as lifting the Norman soldiers from the quicksands with the greatest ease. 3 Vita Eadw. 409. "Uterque [the writer is comparing Harold and Tostig] satis pulcro et venusto corpore et, ut conjicimus, non inæquali robore, non disparis audaciæ. Sed major natu Haroldus procerior staturâ, patris satis [these words are clearly corrupt] infinitis laboribus, vigiliis et inediâ, multâ animi lenitate et promptiori sapientiâ." HAROLD'S MILITARY GENIUS. 39 famous, rival, we have to admire, not only the mere CHAP. VII. animal courage of the soldier, but that true skill of the leader of armies which would have placed both Harold and William high among the captains of any age. civil But the son of Godwine, the heir of his greatness, was Harold's not merely a soldier, not merely a general. If he inherited virtues. from his father those military qualities which first drew on Godwine the notice alike of the English Etheling 1 and of the Danish King, he inherited also that eloquence of speech, that wisdom in council, that knowledge of the laws of the land,2 which made him the true leader and father of the English people. Great as Harold was in war, his character as a civil ruler is still more remarkable, still more worthy of admiration. One or two actions of his earlier life show indeed that the spirit of those days of violence had laid its hand even on him. But, from the His singutime when he appears in his full maturity as the acknow- ance. ledged chief of the English nation, the most prominent feature in his character is his singular gentleness and mercy. Never, either in warfare or in civil strife, do we find Harold bearing hardly upon an enemy. From the time of his advancement to the practical government of the Kingdom, there is not a single harsh or cruel action with which he can be charged. His policy was ever a policy of conciliation. His panegyrist indeed confines his readiness to forgive, his unwillingness to avenge, to his dealings with his own countrymen only. But the same 1 See vol. i. p. 640. * De Inv. c. 14. "Tum... astutiâ et legum terræ peritiâ, tum quia se talem gerebat quod non solum Angli, verum etiam Normanni et Gallici imprimis invidebant pulcritudini et prudentiæ, militiæ et sagacitati." 1 Vita Eadw. 409. "Multum obloquia perferre, nam non facile prodere, non facile quoque, et in civem sive compatriotum, ut reor, nusquam, ulcisci." Compare the character of Edward the First, "Totus Christo traditur Rex noster Edwardus ; Velox est ad veniam, ad vindictam tardus." Political Songs (Camd. Soc.), p. 163. lar forbear |