HAROLD EARL OF THE WEST-SAXONS.

357

the English people. And, what was a harder task, he won CHAP. IX. and kept, though in a less degree than another of his house, the personal confidence and affection of the weak and wayward prince with whom he had to deal.

Earl of the

The translation of Harold to the greater government of Elfgar Wessex made a vacancy in his former Earldom of the EastEast-Angles. It would probably have been difficult to Angles. refuse the post to the man who had already held it for a short space, Ælfgar, the son of Leofric of Mercia. His appointment left only one of the great Earldoms in the House of Godwine, while the House of Leofric now again ruled from the North-Welsh border to the German Ocean. But it quite fell in with Harold's conciliatory policy to raise no objection to an arrangement which seemed to reverse the positions of the two families. The possession of Wessex was an object paramount to all others, and all the chances of the future were in favour of the rising House. Elfgar accordingly became Earl of the East-Angles. His career was turbulent and unhappy. Character of Ælfgar The virtues of Leofric and Godgifu seem not to have and his been inherited by their descendants.3 We hear of Ælfgar and of his sons mainly as rebels in whom no confidence could be placed, as traitors to every King and to every cause, as men who never scrupled to call in the aid of any foreign enemy in order to promote their personal objects. Rivalry towards Harold and his house was doubtless one great mainspring of their actions, but the Norman Conqueror and the last male descendant of Cerdic found it as vain as ever Harold had found it to put trust in the grandsons of Leofric.

1 See Appendix G.

2 Chronn. Ab. Wig. Petrib. Cant. in anno.

3 We have one panegyric on Elfgar in Orderic (511 A), but it is a panegyric by misadventure. Orderic clearly confounded Elfgar with his father. William of Malmesbury however (see above, p. 161) speaks well of his government of East-Anglia during Harold's banishment.

sons.

Probable

William

and other

Normans.

the Normans in

CHAP. IX. I have already suggested that it was probably in conse restoration quence of the death of Godwine and the succession of of Bishop Harold that the restoration of some of the King's Norman favourites, especially of William Bishop of London, was allowed. This may have taken place at this same Easter festival; but it is more natural to refer it to some later Gemót of the same year. It is certain that, during this second portion of the reign of Eadward, a considerable number of Normans, or others bearing Norman or French Position of names, were established in England. It is equally certain that their position differed somewhat from what it had the later been before the outlawry of Godwine. The attempts to days of Eadward. put them in possession of the great offices of the Kingdom were not renewed. Ralph retained his Earldom, William was allowed to return to his Bishoprick. The royal blood of the one, the excellent character of the other, procured for them this favourable exception, which, in the case of Ralph the Timid, proved eminently unlucky. But we hear of no other Norman or French Earls, Bishops, or Abbots. Excepting a few of the favoured natives of Lotharingia, none but Englishmen are now preferred to the great posts of Church and State. No local office higher than that of Sheriff, and that only in one or two exceptional cases,3 but Court was now allowed to be held by a stranger. But mere

Political office forbidden,

office allowed.

Court preferment, offices about the King's person, seem to have been freely held by foreigners to whom there was no manifest personal objection. The King was allowed to have about him his Norman stallers, his

1 See above, p. 347.

2 That the number of Frenchmen who remained in England was considerable is shown, as Lappenberg says (p. 514. ii. 255 Thorpe), by a passage in the so-called Laws of William (Thorpe, i. 491. Schmid, 354), by which it appears that many of them had become naturalized English subjects; "Omnis Francigena, qui tempore Eadwardi propinqui nostri fuit in Angliâ particeps consuetudinum Anglorum, quod ipsi dicunt an hlote et an scote, persolvat secundum legem Anglorum."

3 See above, p. 346.

RECALL OF SOME OF THE NORMANS.

359

Norman chaplains, and, an officer now first beginning CHAP. IX. to creep into a little importance, his Norman chancellor. And those Normans who were tolerated at all seem to have been looked on with less suspicion than they had been during the former period. They are now freely allowed to witness the royal charters, which implies their acting as members of the national assemblies.1 Their position is now clearly one of personal favour, not of political influence. They are hardly mentioned in our history; we have to trace them out by the light of entries in Domesday and of signatures to Charters. Once only English shall we have any reason to suspect that the course of of Eadevents was influenced by them. And in that one case their influence is a mere surmise, and if it was exercised at all, it must have been exercised in a purely underhand way. The policy of Eadward's reign is from henceforth distinctly an English policy. In other words, it is the policy of Harold.

character

ward's later

policy.

between

and that of

It is easy to understand that the feelings of Harold with Difference regard to the foreigners differed somewhat from those of the position his father. They belonged to different generations. God- of Godwine wine's whole education, his whole way of looking at Harold. things, must have been purely English. It is hardly needful to make any exception on behalf of influences from Denmark. The rule of Cnut was one under which Danes became Englishmen, not one under which Englishmen became Danes. We can hardly conceive that Godwine understood the French language. Such an accomplishment

1 I quote, as one example of many, the signatures to the foundation charter of Harold's own church at Waltham (Cod. Dipl. iv. 158). The seemingly Norman names, besides Bishop William, are "Rodbertus Regis consanguineus, Radulphus Regis aulicus [the two Stallers], Bundinus Regis palatinus (?), Hesbernus Regis consanguineus, Regenbaldus Regis cancellarius, Petrus Regis capellanus, Baldewinus Regis capellanus." But the deed is also signed by many English courtiers, as well as Earls, Prelates, and Thegns.

CHAP. IX. Would in his early days have been quite useless.

We can

well believe that, along with his really enlightened and patriotic policy, there was in the old Earl a good deal of mere sturdy English prejudice against strangers as strangers. But every act of Harold's life shows that this last was a feeling altogether alien to his nature. His travels of inquiry abroad, his encouragement of deserving foreigners at home, all show him to have been a statesman who, while he maintained a strictly national policy, rose altogether above any narrow insular prejudices. That he understood French well it is impossible to doubt.1 If he erred at all, he was far more likely to err in granting too much indulgence to the foreign fancies of his wayward master. His policy of conciliation would forbid him to be needlessly harsh even to a Norman, and he had every motive for dealing as tenderly as possible with all the wishes and prejudices of the King. Eadward in a position wholly different from that in which Godwine had stood. Godwine might claim to dictate as a father to the man to whom he had given a crown and a wife. Harold could at most claim the position of a younger brother. That Harold ruled Eadward there is no doubt, but he very distinctly ruled by obeying.2 Habit, temper, policy, would all lead him not to thwart the King one jot more than the interests of the Kingdom called for. The Compro- position of the strangers during the remaining years of Eadward's reign is a manifest compromise between EadHarold and ward's foreign weaknesses and Harold's English policy.

mise be

tween

the King.

Harold stood towards

I do not ground this belief on the well-known saying of the false Ingulf (Gale, i. 62), how in Eadward's days "Gallicum idioma omnes magnates in suis curiis tamquam magnum gentilitium [linguam gentilitiam ?] loqui [cœperunt]." Harold's foreign travels, and his sojourn at the Norman court, seem to imply a knowledge of French, and I can well believe that at home King Eadward looked more favourably on a counsellor who could frame his lips to the beloved speech.

2 This seems implied in the famous poetical panegyric on Eadward and Harold in the Chronicles for 1065.

ECCLESIASTICAL APPOINTMENTS.

361

They were to be allowed to bask in the sunshine of the CHAP. IX. court; they were to be carefully shut out from political power. If Harold erred, his error, I repeat, lay in too great a toleration of the dangerous intruders.

of Lich

The remaining events of the year of Godwine's death are Ecclesiastical apsome ecclesiastical appointments, which must have been point. made at the Christmas Gemót, and a Welsh inroad, which ments. Christmas, seems to have happened about the same time. In the one 1053-1054. month of October three Prelates died,1 Wulfsige, Bishop of Lichfield, and the Abbots Godwine of Winchcombe and Æthelweard of Glastonbury. The see of Lichfield was be- Leofwine stowed on Leofwine, Abbot of Earl Leofric's favourite monas- field. tery of Coventry.2 In this appointment we plainly see the 1953. hand of the Mercian Earl, of whom, considering his name, the new Bishop is not unlikely to have been a kinsman. At the same time, it would seem, the see of Dorchester Wulfwig was at last filled by the appointment of Wulfwig, and the chester. two Bishops, as we have seen, got them beyond sea for con- 1053. secration. The new Abbot of Glastonbury was Æthelnoth, Æthelnoth a monk of the house, who bears an ill character for dila- bury. pidation of the revenues of the monastery, but who con- 1053-1082. tinued to weather all storms, and to die in possession of his Abbey sixteen years after the Norman invasion.5 The Bishop disposition of Winchcombe is more remarkable. Ealdred, holds the Bishop of the diocese, who seems never to have shrunk combe.

1 Chron. Wig. 1053. "And þæs ylcan geres, foran to alra halgena mæssan, forðferde Wulsyg bisceop at Licetfelda, and Godwine abbod on Wincelcumbe, and Ægelward abbod on Glestingabyrig, ealle binnan anum monbe." 2 Chron. Ab. and Flor. Wig.

3 Leofric, it will be remembered, was the son of an Ealdorman Leofwine. See vol. i. p. 456. See above, p. 344.

5 On Abbot Æthelnoth see William of Malmesbury, Glastonbury History, ap. Gale, ii. 324. Ethelweard spoiled the lands, Æthelnoth the ornaments, of the house. "Ex illo res Glastoniæ retro relabi et in pejus fluere." He has much to tell about the miracles wrought by King Eadgar about this time-Eadgar, it must be remembered, passed at Glastonbury, in defiance of all legends, for a saint-specially in healing a mad German, "furiosus Teutonicus genus." Was he one of the suite of the Ætheling?

of Dor

of Glaston

Ealdred

Winch