HAROLD'S HOUSE AT PORTSKEWET. 479 builds a Port chose seat at well skewet. August 1, disturbance still lingered in the South. King Eadward CHAP. X. was growing old, but he still retained his love of hunting, and a new field seemed to be opened for the royal sport in the wild lands which had been lately brought into fuller subjection to the royal authority. In the low lands of Harold Gwent, near one of the usual places of crossing the mouth huntingof the Severn from England into Wales, the Earl out a place called Porth-iscoed or Portskewet as suited for his sovereign's diversions. One of the great 1065. Gemóts of each year was now so regularly held at Gloucester that a place at no very great distance from that city might seem well convenient for the purpose. But besides this, it was an obvious policy thus to take seizin, as it were, of the conquered lands, and to show to their inhabitants that the English Emperor was to be for the future a really present master. At Portskewet then Earl Harold began to build a house, and he had gathered together a large number of workmen and an abundant store of provisions and other good things. We see how thoroughly subdued the whole country was held to be, even this corner which did not belong to the immediate realm of the conquered Gruffydd, and which is not likely to have been the actual seat of warfare. It shows also the half-kingly position of Harold that he is described as acting in this way in a district not belonging to his own Earldom, but included in the dominions of a vassal prince. We do not read that Eadward ordered the building of the house; it seems rather like a voluntary act of Harold's own, rising out of his personal consideration for his royal brother-in-law's pleasure. Nor do we hear anything of discontent on the part of the newly appointed princes of the country. But there was one to whom a Saxon settlement 1 Chron. Ab. 1065. "Harold Eorl . . . bone Kingc Eadward þar to habbene for huntnobes bingon." So Flor. Wig. "Ut Dominus suus Rex Eadwardus illic aliquamdiu venationis caussâ degere possit." CHAP. X. Bleddyn and Rhiwallon,1 who received the land as underKings of the English Emperor. They swore oaths and gave hostages to King Eadward, and to Earl Harold, seemingly as his destined successor.2 They engaged also to pay the tribute which had been accustomed in past times, but which, we may be sure, had been very irregularly paid in the days of Gruffydd.3 Legislation about Wales. Two pieces of legislation are said to have followed the conquest of Wales. Harold is said to have ordained that any Welshman found in arms on the English side of Offa's Dyke should lose his right hand. If this was anything more than a temporary military regulation, Harold's ordaining it can only mean that it was he who proposed the enactment to the Witan. The other decree is attributed to the special indulgence of Eadward himself. The slaughter of the male population of Wales had been so great that there was no chance of the widows and daughters of the slain finding husbands among their own people. Lest the whole race should die out, the King allowed them to marry Englishmen, which we must infer had hitherto been unlawful.5 Stories like these must be 1 The Worcester Chronicle (1063) says expressly that the two princes were Gruffydd's brothers; "And se kyng Eadward betæhte þæt land his twam gebropran Bleþgente and Rigwatlan." In the two Welsh Chronicles no notice is taken of this investiture of Gruffydd's successors, but in 1068 we find Bleddyn and Rhiwallon reigning; they are however called sons of Cynfyn, and are described as waging war with the sons of Gruffydd. Of Bleddyn we have heard before in the invasion of Herefordshire. See above, p. 388. 2 See Appendix DD. The Peterborough Chronicle leaves out all mention of Eadward; "And he [Harold] sette operne cyng þærto." 3 Chron. Wig. "And hig [Bleddyn and Rhiwallon] abas sworon and gislas saldan þæm Cynge and bam Eorle, bæt heo him on allum þingum unswicende beon woldon, and eighwar him gearwe, on watere and on lande, and swyle of þam lande gelæstan swylc man dyde toforan ær obrum kynge.” ✦ Joan. Sarisb. iv. 18. "Legem statuit ut quicumque Britonum exinde citra terminum, quem eis præscripsit, fossam scilicet Offæ, cum telo inveniretur, ei ab officialibus regni manus dextra præcideretur." 4 5 Ib. " Adeoque virtute Ducis tunc Britones confecti sunt ut fere gens HAROLD MARRIES EALDGYTH. 477 taken at what they are worth. Though coming from the CHAP. X. same source, they do not bear about them the same stamp of truth as the military details of the campaign. marries If any law was now passed authorizing the marriage of Englishmen and Welshwomen, the greatest of living Englishmen was not slow to take advantage of it, so far as it could be considered as extending to an Englishwoman who had become Welsh by adoption. We have now reached a year which stands bare of events in the Chronicles. It may have been the year of Harold's fatal visit to Nor- Harold mandy; it can hardly fail to have been the year of his Ealdgyth. marriage. There is nothing to imply that the great Earl 1064? had ever been married before. Putting together such indications as we have, it seems that Harold's connexion with his East-Anglian mistress Eadgyth Swanneshals, if it still existed, now came to an end.1 The bride of Harold was in some sense the prize of his own sword and spear. The fallen Gruffydd had once, like eastern Kings, taken the wife of a conquered enemy to be his wife. Her successor, now in her present widowhood, met, willingly or unwillingly, with the like fate. The fair Ealdgyth, the daughter of Ælfgar, the sister of Eadwine, the widow of Gruffydd, became the wife of the rival of her father, the conqueror of her husband. Harold's enemies are of course scandalized at a marriage between Harold and the widow of a man of whom they choose to call him the murderer.3 But it is hard to see any objection to the union, except the possible wrong done to tota deficere videretur, et ex indulgentiâ jam dicti Regis mulieres eorum nupserunt Anglis." 1 I shall speak more largely of her in my third volume. 2 Brut y Tywysogion, 1039. “Gruffydd overcame Howel and captured his wife, and took her to be his own wife." 3 It is certainly hard measure when Sir Francis Palgrave (Hist. Ang. Sax. p. 372) speaks of Harold's wife as "her whose husband he had murdered." Did Alexander murder Darius ? CHAP. X. crimes is added. Two Thegns, Gamel the son of Orm and Murder of Gamel and Ulf. 1064. Ulf the son of Dolfin, had, in the course of the last year, been received in the Earl's chamber under pretence of peace, and had been there treacherously slain by his order.1 That is to say, Tostig had repeated one of the worst deeds of Harthacnut,2 and of Cnut himself before his reformation.3 These men may have been criminals; Tostig may have persuaded himself that he was simply doing an act of irregular justice in thus destroying men who were perhaps too powerful to be reached by the ordinary course of law. But, whatever were the crimes of Ulf and Gamel, Tostig, by this act, degraded himself to their level. If even the most guilty were to be cut off in such a way as this, even the most innocent could not feel themselves safe. Another charge aimed yet higher than the Earl himself. An accomplice of his misdeeds is spoken of, whom we should certainly never have been expected to find charged with Murder of bloodshed. A Thegn named Gospatric had been, at the Gospatric. December last Christmas Gemót, treacherously murdered in the King's court. The deed was said to have been done by order of the Lady at the instigation of her brother.1 As there were other bearers of the name, we may at least hope that this Gospatric was not the one who had so nobly jeoparded his life to save the life of Tostig on his return 28, 1064 1 Flor. Wig. 1065. "Pro exsecrandâ nece. . Gamelis filii Orm ac Ulfi filii Dolfini quos anno præcedenti Eboraci in camerâ suâ, sub pacis fœdere, per insidias, Comes Tostius occidere præcepit." Dolfin and Orm both appear in Domesday, seemingly as holders under William of small parts of great estates held under Eadward. See 278 b, 330 b, 331b. Orm married Æthelthryth, a daughter of Earl Ealdred (Sim. Dun. X Scriptt. 82) and sister-in-law of Earl Siward (see vol. i. p. 587), but Gamel was not her son. 2 See vol. i. p. 588. 3 See vol. i. p. 416. 4 + Fl. Wig. "Pro exsecrandâ nece... Gospatrici, quem Regina Edgitha, germani sui Tostii caussâ, in curiâ Regis, quartâ nocte Dominicæ nativitatis, per insidias occidi jussit." The deed here attributed to Eadgyth reminds one of the old crimes of Eadric at Oxford and Shrewsbury. See vol. i. pp. 356, 411. HAROLD'S HOUSE AT PORTSKEWET. 479 builds a chose seat at Port well skewet. August 1, disturbance still lingered in the South. King Eadward CHAP. x. was growing old, but he still retained his love of hunting, and a new field seemed to be opened for the royal sport in the wild lands which had been lately brought into fuller subjection to the royal authority. In the low lands of Harold Gwent, near one of the usual places of crossing the mouth huntingof the Severn from England into Wales, the Earl out a place called Porth-iscoed or Portskewet as suited for his sovereign's diversions. One of the great 1065. Gemóts of each year was now so regularly held at Gloucester that a place at no very great distance from that city might seem well convenient for the purpose. But besides this, it was an obvious policy thus to take seizin, as it were, of the conquered lands, and to show to their inhabitants that the English Emperor was to be for the future a really present master. At Portskewet then Earl Harold began to build a house, and he had gathered together a large number of workmen and an abundant store of provisions and other good things. We see how thoroughly subdued the whole country was held to be, even this corner which did not belong to the immediate realm of the conquered Gruffydd, and which is not likely to have been the actual seat of warfare. It shows also the half-kingly position of Harold that he is described as acting in this way in a district not belonging to his own Earldom, but included in the dominions of a vassal prince. We do not read that Eadward ordered the building of the house; it seems rather like a voluntary act of Harold's own, rising out of his personal consideration for his royal brother-in-law's pleasure. Nor do we hear anything of discontent on the part of the newly appointed princes of the country. But there was one to whom a Saxon settlement 1 Chron. Ab. 1065. "Harold Eorl... þone Kingc Eadward þar to habbene for huntnobes þingon." So Flor. Wig. "Ut Dominus suus Rex Eadwardus illic aliquamdiu venationis caussâ degere possit." |