CHAP. X. Godwine. 10351053. have been commissioned to bring about that new The House of union of the count and earl which found its issue soon after in Tostig's marriage. He served at any rate another purpose of Godwine's. Early in 1050 he brought back Swein with him to England and made his peace with the king. The murderer's outlawry was reversed, and he was restored to his old rule over the shires of the west. Godwine and the Primacy. Such a restoration of such a criminal was an outrage to the general sense of justice which could hardly fail to weaken the cause of Godwine. But the earl's power remained unshaken; and ere the year ended the death of Archbishop Eadsige seemed about to raise it to a yet higher point. The vacancy of an English see, as of an English abbey, was at this time commonly filled by the direct nomination of the king in full Witenagemot; it was the king who "gave the bishopric by formal writ and seal, who placed the bishop's staff in his hand, who sometimes personally enthroned him in his bishop's seat. But in some cases the royal nomination was preceded by an election on the part of the clergy or monks, with a petition to the king for its confirmation. On the death of Eadsige the latter course was followed. The Canterbury monks chose Ælfric, a kinsman of Godwine, for the vacant see; and Godwine supported with his whole power their prayer for his acceptance by Eadward. The choice of Ælfric was the last step in the steady process by which the earl was concentrating all power in the hands of his house. Already master of the state, the primacy of his kinsman made him master of the Church. The efforts of Eadward to provide a check on his influence by the elevation of Norman bishops broke idly against CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035 1053. the overwhelming supremacy of an archbishop of The House of Godwine's blood. Nor was this all. The constitutional position of the primate was even more important than his ecclesiastical position. He alone could lawfully set the crown on the head of an elected king. He alone had the right of receiving from the people their assent to the king's rule, of receiving from the sovereign his oath to govern rightly. The choice of Ælfric pointed plainly to Godwine's designs on the crown. If even a shadow of kingship were to remain to him Eadward was forced to resist. He can hardly have needed the whispers of his Norman courtiers to disclose the significance of Ælfric's election, or the influence of Robert of Jumièges to estrange him, as Godwine's friends murmured that Robert did estrange him, from the earl. But once resolved on resistance the king acted with the violence of a weak man driven to stand at bay. The choice which he made was yet more anti-national than Godwine's own. If the primacy with its spiritual and political powers was no post for Godwine's kinsman, it was still less a post for a Norman stranger. But it was Robert of Jumièges whom the king named as archbishop in the Lenten Witenagemot of 1051. The new primate soon showed that his elevation was but the first blow in a strife which was from this moment assured. Spearhafoc, a partizan of Godwine, had been raised to the see of London as a means of counterbalancing the appointment to the primacy. Robert however hastened to Rome for his pallium and obtained from Robert of CHAP. X. Godwine.. 1035 Pope Leo, probably on the usual plea of simony, a The House of condemnation of Spearhafoc's choice. On the ground of this prohibition he refused on his return to consecrate the bishop, although he "came to him with the king's writ and seal." Spearhafoc, unhallowed as he was, defiantly took possession of his bishopric. 1053. The Count of Outbreak of strife. As August wore away the quarrel grew more bitter. Godwine complained of the primate's intrigues against him; Robert complained of the earl's trespass on lands belonging to his see. A fresh cause of irritation was doubtless added by a visit of Eustace of Boulogne to the court at Gloucester. His coming was natural enough he was wedded to the king's sister, and both he and his wife were endowed with wide estates in England. But it possibly had another end. The marriage of Tostig and Judith had just proclaimed to the world Godwine's triumph in Flanders; and Eustace, a near neighbour of Count Baldwin, a friend and ally of the Norman duke, was affected above all by this new turn in Flemish politics. But whether his visit was a result of this match or no, the sympathies of Count Eustace can hardly fail to have given fresh weight to the pressure which Robert was bringing to bear on the king against Godwine. That the count of Boulogne was looked upon with hostility by Godwine's party, we see from the precaution which Eustace took of arming his men as he approached the earl's town of Dover on his return at the opening of September. His fears of a conflict were soon realized. One of his soldiers while roughly seeking lodgings wounded a burgher who refused them; the townsmen attacked the count; and after i CHAP. X Godwine 10351053. the fall of some twenty men on either side Eustace was driven from Dover and fled almost alone to The House of Eadward. The king summoned Godwine in wrath from Tostig's marriage-feast, and bade him as earl of Wessex avenge the wrong done to his brother-in-law. With his usual skill Godwine seized on the opportunity which the demand gave him. A contest was plainly at hand between Eadward and the earl; but the fight at Dover enabled him at once to take ground, not as an enemy of the king, but as an enemy of the foreigners who surrounded the king. He refused to attack his own people on a stranger's behalf; and with his sons, Swein and Harold, summoned the men of their three earldoms to follow him in arms. Fighting in fact at once broke out between Swein's men and the men of Earl Ralf in Herefordshire. For the moment the bold stroke promised to be successful. Eadward lay defenceless in the midst of Swein's earldom. The followers of the three earls immediately gathered at their call a few miles off Gloucester, in a force so "great and countless" as to show what careful preparation the house of Godwine had made. beforehand for the blow. From his camp on the Cotswolds the earl demanded the surrender into his hands of Eustace and the Normans in Ralf's castle. But quick as had been Godwine's stroke, others were as quick as he. The earls of Mercia and Northumberland were doubtless on their way to the usual autumnal meeting of the Witan; but on the summons of the panic-struck king they called up the whole strength of their earldoms, and hurried with the smaller force about them to Gloucester. CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035. 1053. Failure of Godwine's plans. The approach of Leofric and Siward, with the men The House of whom Ralf brought up from Herefordshire, changed the whole face of affairs. The surrender of Count Eustace was at once refused, and as the Mercians and Northumbrians gathered round Eadward they clamoured to be led against Godwine and his sons. Dexterous as the earl's policy had been, it had utterly broken down. His aim had been to stand before England as the foe of strangers and not of the king. But the sudden rescue wrought by Siward and Leofric forced him, "loath" as he was, to stand boldly out in arms against Eadward himself; and it marks the power which the monarchy had now gained over the national sentiment, in great measure from Godwine's own policy and action, that the moment this attitude was fairly taken the earl's strength fell from him. But with the sentiment of loyalty was rising also the consciousness of national unity. The day had passed when Mercian or Northumbrian could shed West-Saxon blood as the blood of strangers. The wiser folk on both sides deemed it "unræd" or wisdom-lacking to join battle; "seeing that there was most that noblest was in England in the two hosts." His flight. Not less striking than the force of either sentiment was the new consciousness of national law. The great dispute was left to the judgement of the Witenagemot which was summoned on the twenty-first of September, so fast had events marched, at London. The two hosts were parted by the river; Godwine and his sons lay at Southwark; Eadward and the Mercian and Northumbrian earls encamped on the northern shore. The Witan no sooner met than they gave an |