offence of Emma.

CHAP. VII. She had herself suffered spoliation and exile in the days of Harold;1 she had returned with Harthacnut, and, in his days, she seems almost to have been looked on as a share in the royal authority. That authority she had at least not used to keep back her favourite son from the recall of his banished half-brother. It is not wonderful if, under these circumstances, there was little love between mother and son. Still there does not, up to the death of Harthacnut, seem to have been any unpardonable offence Probable committed on the part of Emma. But the charge that she had done less for Eadward than he would, since he came to the Crown, seems to have a more definite meaning. It doubtless means that she had refused to contribute of her treasures to the lawful needs of the State. It may also mean that she had been, to say the least, not specially zealous in supporting Eadward's claims to the Crown. She is described as dwelling at Winchester in the possession, not only of great landed possessions, the morninggifts of her two marriages, but of immense hoarded wealth of every kind. Harthacnut had doubtless restored, and probably increased, all that had been taken from her by Harold. Of her mode of employing her wealth we find different accounts; putting the two statements together, we may perhaps infer that she was bountiful to churches and monasteries, but niggardly to the poor.4

1 See vol. i. pp. 535, 561.

2 See the writ quoted at vol. i. p. 580, which cannot belong to the first reign of Harthacnut in Wessex only.

Besides land, the Abingdon Chronicle speaks of her wealth "on golde and on seolfre and on unasecgendlicum þingum." So that of Worcester says of her treasures, "pa wæron unatellendlice." So Florence; "quicquid in auro, argento, gemmis, lapidibus, aliisve rebus pretiosum habuerat."

66

4 Will. Malms. ii. 196. Congestis undecumque talentis crumenas infecerat, pauperum oblita; quibus non patiebatur dari nummum ne diminueret numerum. Itaque quod injustè coacervârat non inhonestè ablatum, ut egenorum proficeret compendio et fisco sufficeret regio." Though accepting

EMMA SPOILED OF HER TREASURES.

61

1043.

But neither this bounty nor this niggardliness was a legal CHAP. VII. crime, and it is clear that some more definite offence must have lurked behind. Her treasures, or part of them, may have been gained by illegal grants from Harthacnut; it is almost certain, from the language of our authorities, that they had been illegally refused to the public service. But what happened seems to imply some still deeper offence. WitenaThe conduct of Emma became the subject of debate in Gloucester. gemót of a meeting of the Witan; her punishment was the result November, of a decree of that body, and all that was done to her was done with the active approval of the three great Earls, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward.1 In the month of November after Eadward's coronation, a Gemót-perhaps a forestalling of the usual Midwinter Gemót-was held at Gloucester. That town seems now to take the place which was held by Oxford a little earlier2 as the scene of courts and councils. It became during this reign, what it remained during the reign of the Conqueror, the place where the King wore his Crown at the Christmas festival, as he wore it at Winchester at Easter. It was convenient for such purposes as lying near at once to the borders of two of the great Earldoms. It lay also near to the borders of the dangerous Welsh, whose motions, under princes like the two Gruffydds, it was doubtless often expedient to watch with the whole wisdom and the whole force of the realm. The result of the deliberations of the Wise Men was that the King in person, accompanied by the

this account (hæc referentibus etsi plurimum fides haberi debeat), he goes on, as he does elsewhere (ii. 181. see vol. i. p. 487), to speak of her bounty to monasteries, especially at Winchester.

1 A meeting of the Witan is implied in the language of the Worcester Chronicle, "Man gerædde þan cynge þæt he rád of Gleawcestre," and in the presence and consent of the three Earls-" ut illi [Leofricus, Godwinus, et Siwardus] consilium ei dederant," as Florence says.

2 See vol. i. p. 539.

3 See vol. i. p. 588.

Eadward

and the

Earls despoil

CHAP. VII. three great Earls,' rode from Gloucester to Winchester, came unawares upon the Lady, occupied her lands,3 and seized all that she had in gold, silver, jewels, and precious stones. They left her, however, we are told, enough for her maintenance, and bade her live quietly at Winchester.* November She now sinks into utter insignificance for the remainder of her days.5

Emma of her trea

sures.

16, 1043.

Now the last order, to live quietly at Winchester, seems to imply some scheme or intrigue on the part of Emma more serious than even an illegal refusal to contribute of her wealth to the exigencies of the State. Is it possible that she had been one of the opponents of her son's election? A woman who had so completely transferred her affection to her second husband and his children, even though she had no hand in actual conspiracies against the offspring of her first marriage, may conceivably have preferred the nephew of Cnut to her own son by Ethelred. If so, her punishment was only the first act of a sort of persecution

So says the Worcester Chronicle, followed by Florence; "He rád of Gleawcestre, and Leofric eorl and Godwine eorl and Sigwarð eorl mid heora genge, to Wincestre;" "Festinato Rex cum comitibus Leofrico, Godwino, et Siwardo de civitate Gla wornâ Wintoniam venit." The other Chronicles do not imply the King's personal presence; "se cyng let geridan," &c.

2 Chron. Wig. "On únwær on ba hlæfdian." Flor. Wig. "Venit improvise."

3 Chronn. Ab., Petrib., Cant. "Se cyng let geridan calle þa land þe his modor ahte him to handa." The Worcester Chronicler says nothing of the land.

Flor. Wig. "Verumtamen sufficienter ei ministrari necessaria præcepit et illam ibidem quietam manere jussit."

5 Emma signs a charter of her son's during this year 1043 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 74), which therefore belongs to an earlier Gemót than this of November, probably to one held at Winchester at the time of the coronation. From this time we find her signing only a few private documents (Cod. Dipl. iv. 86, 116) and documents connected with the Church of Winchester (iv. 90, 93). After her son's marriage she seems not to sign her son's charters at all. The documents at iv. 80, 99 are doubtful or spurious. On the Legend of Emma see Appendix H.

BANISHMENT OF SWEND'S PARTISANS.

63

ments of

which during the next three or four years seems to have CHAP. VII. fallen upon all who had supported the claims of Swend to the Crown. The whole party became marked men, and were gradually sent out of the Kingdom as occasion served.1 A few of their names may probably be recovered. We have records of several cases of banishment and confiscation during the early years of Eadward, which are doubtless those of the partisans of Eadward's Danish opponent. First and foremost was a brother of Swend himself, Osbeorn, who, like his brother Beorn, seems to have held the rank of Earl in England. The brothers must have Banishtaken different sides in the politics of the time, as Osbeorn Swend's was banished, while Beorn retained his Earldom. The partisans. 1043-1046. banishment of Osbeorn did not stand alone. The great Danish Thegn Osgod Clapa was banished a few years later, and it was probably on the same account that Ethelstan the son of Tofig lost his estate at Waltham,+ and that Gunhild, the niece of Cnut and daughter of Wyrtgeorn, was banished together with her two sons Heming and Thurkill. She was then a widow for the second time through the death of her husband Earl Harold. He had gone on a pilgrimage to Rome, and was on his way back to Denmark, when he was treacherously

3

1 See above, p. 10.

* Adam of Bremen, iii. 13.

Chronn. and Flor. Wig. 1044, 1045, 1046, 1047. All dates are

given.

• De Inv. 14. “Adelstanus . . . degenerans à patris astutiâ et sapientiâ ... multa ex his perdidit, et inter cetera Waltham.” This may however only mean that he squandered his estate. His son Esegar was Staller two years later. See Professor Stubbs' note, and vol. i. p. 591.

5 Chron. Wig. 1045. Flor. Wig. 1044. If Gunhild's sons were old enough to be dangerous, they must have been the children of Hakon who died in 1030. The names Heming and Thurkill have already appeared as those of a pair of brothers. Vol. i. p. 376. Cf. Knytlinga Saga, ap. Johnston, Ant. Celt. Scand. 105.

On this Harold see vol. i. p. 476. The signature to a charter of Bishop Lyfing's, 1042 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 69), must be his.

1046.

1044.

CHAP. VII. murdered by Ordulf, the brother-in-law of Magnus of Norway.1 That Harold was bound for Denmark, and not for England, where his wife and children or stepchildren were, may perhaps tend to show that he was already an exile from England. It is not impossible that Godescale the Wend ought to be added to the list.2

Stigand, appointed

and de

Whether the fall of Emma was or was not connected with the penalties which thus fell on the relics of the Danish party, it certainly carried with it the momentary fall of one eminent Englishman. The disgrace of the Lady Bishop of was accompanied by the disgrace of the remarkable-we Elmham, might almost say the great-churchman by whose counposed. sels she was said to be governed. We have already seen April-November, Stigand, once the Priest of Assandun, appointed to a Bishoprick and almost immediately deprived of it. The like fate now happened to him a second time. He was, it would seem, still unconsecrated; but, seemingly about the time of Eadward's coronation, he was named and

1043.

3

1 Adam Brem. ii. 75. "Caussa mortis ea fuit quod de regali stirpe Danorum genitus, propior sceptro videbatur quam Magnus."

2 The Chronica Sclavica, c. 13, makes Godescalc leave England after the death of Cnut (vol. i. 649, 494), but Adam (u. s.) puts his departure after the death of Cnut and his sons. If this last account be correct, it looks very much as if Godescale was banished. According to Saxo (p. 204), he served for some time under Swend in his war with Magnus. Saxo also (p. 208) marries him to Siritha (Sigrid ?) a natural daughter of Swend, but the national Chronicle distinctly makes his wife Demmyn, Cnut's sister or daughter, alive at the time of his death.

These banishments probably helped, along with the displaced massacre of Saint Brice, to form the groundwork for the legend of the general expulsion or massacre of Danes in England. See vol. i. p. 592.

9 See vol. i. p. 473.

5

See vol. i. p. 563.

A private document in Cod. Dipl. iv. 116 is signed by "Stigand p.” It is assigned to the year 1049, but this date must be wrong, as it is signed by Elfweard Bishop of London, who died in 1044. As it is signed by Eadward and Emma, it must belong to the early Gemót of 1043, that at which Stigand received his appointment as Bishop and Swegen as Earl.