CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035 1053. both William and Baldwin within the censure of the Church. Her mother Adela had been betrothed to The House of William's uncle, the third Duke Richard of Normandy, before her marriage with Baldwin; and such a betrothal created a spiritual affinity between the countess and the ducal house which may have served as the ground for the prohibition. But whatever was the obstacle, the marriage was counted incestuous, and William and Baldwin were alike forbidden to proceed with it on pain of excommunication. How far these acts of the council sprang from Duduc's prompting it is hard to say, but some light is thrown on the part which England was playing by the events which followed the close of the assembly. Its prohibition of the marriage was in any case a heavy blow to the Norman duke. But William showed no sign of submitting to the prohibition. Strict Churchman as he was, we shall see him clinging stubbornly to this project for years to come, and marrying Matilda in the end in defiance of the excommunication. Nor did the count of Flanders seem more likely to yield. In spite of Leo's thunders and the withdrawal of Duke Godfrey, Baldwin remained in arms. The emperor was forced to march against him; but Flanders required a fleet as well as an army for its reduction, and Henry called on England for naval aid. No request could have jarred more roughly against the traditional English relations with the Flemish counts, nor with the previous policy of Godwine himself; but the aid which Henry needed was at once granted, and the emperor no sooner marched on Baldwin's frontier than English ships Failure of William's schemes. CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035 1053. gathered under the king himself at Sandwich for a The House of cruise off the coast of Flanders. Attacked by two such powers at once even Baldwin's heart failed him : and the count bowed without a struggle to the imperial demands. We can hardly doubt from the part which Henry had taken in the council at Rheims, that among these was that of submission to the decree which prohibited Matilda's marriage with William. It is at any rate certain that so long as Henry lived Baldwin withheld his daughter's hand from the Norman duke. Godwine's alliance with Flanders. Whether this decisive aid of England had been stipulated as the price of the council's intervention. between the duke and the Flemish count it is impossible now to tell. But the result of both served Godwine's purpose too well to allow of a belief that he was strange to the real import of the policy he directed. At the close of 1049 the Flemish match seemed to be at an end. Baldwin however was no sooner severed from William, than Godwine hastened to renew the friendly relations which his policy had for the moment interrupted. His aim was precisely that of the Norman duke. Like William, the earl resolved to bind Flanders to his interests by a marriage tie. But where the duke failed Godwine succeeded. How Baldwin was won, whether the match with Godwine's house was a condition of the withdrawal of the English fleet, we do not know, but the reconciliation was a rapid one. In little more than a year after the close of the war with Baldwin, Godwine's third son, Tostig, was wedded to Judith, the sister or daughter of the count of Flanders. No triumph could have been more complete than CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035 1053. Swein. this diplomatic triumph of Godwine on foreign ground. The House of He was now at the height of his power; the king of England was his son-in-law, Swein the king of Denmark was his nephew, and the count of Flanders Outlawry of was closely linked to his house. But in the very moment of his success new difficulties met him at home. While Eadward still lay at Sandwich the exiled Swein returned to seek pardon and restoration to the lands he had lost. Harold and Beorn, to whom these lands had been granted, for a time withstood his demand; but at a subsequent conference at Pevensey with Godwine and his cousin, Beorn was brought to consent, and he rode with Swein to serve as his mediator with the king. Again however the brutal nature of Godwine's eldest son broke out in crime. Beorn was treacherously seized, carried on shipboard, and murdered. The outrage roused the wrath of all. Swein was formally branded as "nithing," as utterly worthless, and was forsaken by the bulk of his own followers. The men of Hastings chased the two ships which still clung to him, captured them, and slew their crews. But Swein escaped to Baldwin's land, where the war which Flanders was waging with England and the emperor at that moment secured him a refuge. He was soon to return. As the winter passed and peace between Flanders and England was again restored, Bishop Ealdred of Worcester, who had been raised to his see two years before in the very height of Godwine's power, appeared at the court of Bruges. Ealdred was an adroit negotiator, and he may possibly CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035 1053. 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 CHAP. X. Godwine. 1035 1053. by the elevation of Norman bishops broke idly against 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 |