CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035 1053. he must have seemed to Englishmen more Dane than Englishman. He had risen through the favour, he The House of had guided the counsels of a Danish conqueror. His renown as a warrior had been won in Danish wars. He was wedded to a wife of Danish blood, and his two eldest children, Swein and Harold, bore the Danish names of Cnut's elder boys. It was no wonder therefore that he supported on Cnut's death the continuance of that union of England with Denmark which Harthacnut's succession secured. But the internal policy of both king and minister Godwine's had made their outer policy impossible. crown. Their policy. whole system of government and administration had nursed English feeling into а new and vigorous life. To England Cnut had been an English king. If he had ruled other lands it was from Winchester, as dependencies of his English The very Danes who had settled in England had learned through his long and peaceful reign to look on themselves as Englishmen, and on Denmark as a foreign land. But Harthacnut had scarcely been seen in England; from early childhood he had been trained in Denmark as its king, and it might well be thought that his rule meant the rule of England from a Danish throne. If the influence of Godwine and the Lady Emma at Winchester was strong enough to hold the West-Saxon earldom true to the claims of Harthacnut, the rest of England called for a national king. In pleading for the succession of Harthacnut, Godwine doubtless seemed to the people at large to be pleading for Danish rule. To his fellow earls he seemed no doubt pleading for his CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035 1053. Harald own; and political rivalry united with national feeling The House of in urging Earl Leofric of Mercia to withstand him. It marks the hold which Cnut's greatness had given him on the affections of Englishmen that even in setting aside Harthacnut they showed no will to set aside his father's line. Not a cry was raised for the children of Ethelred. Cnut's death, indeed, had at once been followed by a descent of the Etheling Eadward with forty Norman ships at Southampton, but the attack had failed, and its failure was decisive. It was Cnut's elder son Harald, "Harefoot," as Harefoot. he was called for his swiftness of foot, who, Dane as he was, at any rate represented an England separate from Denmark, that Leofric and the "lithsmen," a merchant-gild of London, called to the throne. The hus-carls of the dead king were still with Emma at Winchester, and a word from God wine would have plunged England into war. But warrior as he had shown himself in earlier days, it is the noblest trait in the character of Godwine throughout his political career that he shrank from civil bloodshed. The Witan gathered at Oxford to decide the question of the succession; Leofric demanded a division of the realm, and stubborn as was Godwine's resistance, he yielded at last to the doom of his fellow nobles. For the moment indeed his influence, and it may be dread of the dead king's hus-carls, saved his own earldom, which was suffered to remain faithful to Harthacnut: but the rest of England took Harald for its king. Division of It was, however, impossible that such a division of the realm could last long. The strife which had СНАР. Х. Godwine. 1035 1053. again broken the land into two parts was indeed. the renewal of the old contest between Wessex The House of and the rest of England, but the new attitude of London marked a decisive and important change. From the moment that London sided, not with Wessex but with England, the relation of parties was altered, and the ultimate victory of the national will over provincial jealousies could be no longer doubtful. If the new division of England between two claimants recalled the compromise of Olney, there was still a significant difference. It was the king of the joint Mercian and Northumbrian realms who was now over-lord, while the West-Saxon ruler sank to the position of under-king. Such a settlement struck a hard blow at the authority of Earl Godwine. Under Cnut he had been second only to the king in his power over all England; with a stranger such as Harthacnut he would have ruled supreme. But Leofric's action limited his power to Wessex, and even in Wessex it would seem as if Emma was a formidable rival, for if, as is stated, she had been already robbed by Harald of Cnut's treasure, she still preserved Cnut's body of hus-carls round her at Winchester. The continued absence of Harthacnut, too, who was still held in Denmark, weakened Godwine's position. Even in his own earldom men's minds turned from the absent to the present king; and it would seem that public feeling was wholly against Godwine's policy, for the Chronicle says "the cry was then greatly in favour of Harald." So difficult indeed was his position in Wessex, that it woke the Æthelings over sea to a fresh attempt. Murder of CHAP. X. Godwine. 10351053. It may be that Emma, hopeless of inducing HarthaThe House of cnut to take possession of his West-Saxon kingdom, had turned to the children she had so long forgotten in Normandy. It was at any rate in peaceful guise, and with the pretext of visiting his mother, that Ælfred, the younger Ætheling, landed with a train of Normans at Dover, and rode through Surrey towards Winchester. He may have hoped that the old WestSaxon loyalty would spring into fresh life as he neared the West-Saxon capital; but whatever was his purpose it was ended by a brutal deed. At Guildford he was seized, carried over the Thames to Harald Harefoot, and by Harald's orders blinded, and left to die among the monks at Ely, while the Normans who followed him were put to the sword or sold for slaves. Even among Englishmen the cruel act was followed by a thrill of horror. "Viler deed was never done in this land since Dane came here," sang an English minstrel. Oversea it kindled among the Normans a thirst for vengeance which never ceased till the day of Senlac. And justly or unjustly, the Norman hate centred itself on Godwine. What his part in the matter had been it is hard to tell. Whether or not the seizure was made by Godwine's men is a matter of doubt, but it was made in Godwine's earldom; and the success of Ælfred would have overthrown Godwine's power. So general was the conviction that the deed lay at his door, that in the next reign the earl was charged with the guilt by Archbishop Ælfric, and forced to purge himself solemnly of the charge by oath before the altar. But though Godwine was acquitted by the Witan CHAP. X. Godwine. 10351053. of the charge of betrayal, his oath weighed little with Elfred's kindred. Emma believed that it was The House of the earl who had given up her son, and Eadward looked on him as his brother's murderer. It was no wonder that throughout the length and breadth of Normandy men held that the blood of Alfred and of the Normans who followed him rested upon Godwine and his house. The political action of the earl after the murder gave strength to the Norman belief. Godwine's loss of power had already been great. His influence was now bounded by Wessex, and even in Wessex it was seriously threatened. The compromise which reserved southern England to Harthacnut had every hour grown more impossible; men wearied of waiting for a king who never came, and it seemed as if Wessex had to choose between submission to Harald Harefoot, or a rising in favour of the line of Cerdic. But Godwine had as yet no mind to abandon the house of Cnut, though it seems as if despair of Harthacnut's coming was already swaying him to the side of Harald when Elfred landed. His landing precipitated a change of policy which had already become inevitable, and the murder made further hesitation impossible. It was the alliance with Emma which had enabled the earl to hold Wessex for Harthacnut, and now that Emma was parted from him by her belief in his guilt, Godwine was forced from the position he had held so stubbornly. A new Witenagemot was gathered in 1037 to receive his submission. Emma was driven from the country; Harthacnut was forsaken by the earl and Submission of Godwine. |