CHAP. VIII. The course of our story has thus brought us once more to the shores of our own island. In our next Chapter we shall have to begin the picture of the bright, if brief, regeneration of England. We shall have to listen to the spirit-stirring tale, how the champions of England came back from banishment, how the heart of England rose to welcome her friends and to take vengeance on her enemies, how for fourteen years England was England once again under the rule of the noblest of her own sons. Cathedral. The bones of Cnut and Emma were among those which were so strangely exalted by Bishop Fox in the chests which surround the presbytery. Between him, Henry of Blois, and the Puritans, it is now impossible to distinguish the bones of Cnut from those of William Rufus. CHAPTER IX. THE REIGN OF EADWARD FROM THE RETURN OF GODWINE THE 1052-1057. of the HE two streams of English and Norman history were Character joined together for a moment in the year when the Period. sovereigns of England and Normandy met face to face for the only time in the course of their joint reigns. Those streams will now again diverge. England shook off the Norman influence, and became once more, to all outward appearance, the England of Æthelstan and Eadgar. For several years the history of each country seems to have no Little direct influence upon the history of the other. But this nexion mutual independence is more apparent than real. Eng- English land once more became free from Norman influence as and Norman affairs. regarded her general policy; but the effects of Eadward's Norman tendencies were by no means wholly wiped away. 1 There is nothing specially to remark on the authorities for this period, which are substantially the same as those for the seventh Chapter. We have still to look, just in the same way as before, to the Chronicles, the Biographer, and Florence, to William of Malmesbury and the other subsidiary writers. Just as before, whenever Norman affairs are at all touched on, the Norman writers should be compared with the English. During these years we have little to do with Scandinavian affairs, so that the Sagas are of little moment. Welsh affairs, on the other hand, are of unusual importance, and the two Welsh Chronicles, the Annales Cambria and the Brut y Tywysogion, or Chronicle of the Princes, must be carefully compared with our own records. direct con between CHAP. IX. Normans still remained in the land, and some of the results of the deliverance of England were not without their effect as secondary causes of the expedition of William. Through the whole period we may be sure that the wise statesmen of both countries were diligently watching each other's actions. Harold and William, though not as yet open enemies or avowed rivals, must have found out during these years that each was called on by his own policy to do all that he could to thwart the policy of the other. But though there was this sort of undercurrent closely connecting the interests of the two countries, yet, in all the outward events of history, it was a period of remarkable separation between them. The events recorded by English historians within this period belong almost exclusively to the affairs of our own island. It is a period in which the relations between the vassal Kingdoms of Britain and the Imperial power again assume special importance. But it is still more emphatically marked by the death of the greatest of living Englishmen, and the transmission of his power, and more than his power, to a worthy successor. We left Godwine and Harold banished We have now to record their triumphant return to Growth of a rejoicing nation. We shall then have to record the death the power of Harold. of Godwine, the accession of Harold to his father's formal rank, and the steps by which he gradually rose to be the virtual ruler of the Kingdom, perhaps the designated successor to the Crown. men. General regret at § 1. The Return and Death of Godwine. 1052-1053. If the minds of Englishmen had been at all divided in the absence their estimate of Godwine during his long tenure of power, of Godwine. it only needed his exile to bring over every patriotic heart to one opinion with regard to him. Godwine doubtless had ENGLAND DURING GODWINE'S ABSENCE. 307 his enemies; no man ever stood for thirty years and more CHAP. IX. at the head of affairs without making many enemies; and there were points in his character which may have given reasonable offence to many. Even if the whole of his enormous wealth was fairly and legally acquired, its mere accumulation in the hands of one man1 must have excited envy in many breasts. His eagerness to advance his family may well have offended others, and the crimes and the restoration of Swegen, even under the guaranty of Bishop Ealdred, cannot fail to have given general scandal. It is possible then that there were Englishmen, not devoid of love and loyalty to England, who were short-sighted enough to rejoice over the fall of the great Earl. But, when Godwine was gone, men soon learned that, whatever had been his faults, they were far outweighed by his merits. Men now knew that the Earl of the West-Saxons had been the one man who stood between them and the dominion of strangers. During that gloomy winter England felt as a conquered land, as a land too conquered by foes who had not overcome her in open battle, but who had, by craft and surprise, deprived her of her champions and guardians. The common voice of England soon began to call for the return of Godwine. The banished Earl was looked to by all men as the Father of his Country; England now knew that in his fall a fatal blow had been dealt to her own welfare and freedom. Men began openly to declare that it was better to share the banishment of Godwine than 1 At the same time, it is worth considering whether the whole of the estates set down in Domesday as belonging to Godwine and his sons were always their private property, and whether some parts may not have been official estates attached to their Earldoms. Still, after all possible deductions, their wealth was enormous. 2 Vita Eadw. 404. "Et quoniam supra diximus eum ab omnibus Anglis pro patre coli, subito auditus discessus ejus exterruit cor populi. Ejus absentiam sive fugam habuere perniciem suam, interitum gentis Anglică, excidium insuper totius patriæ." invited to return. CHAP. IX. to live in the land from which Godwine was banished.1 Godwine Messages were sent to the court of Flanders, praying the Earl to return. If he chose to make his way back into the land by force, he would find many Englishmen ready to take up arms in his cause. Others crossed the sea in person, and pledged themselves to fight for him, and, if need were, to die in his behalf.2 These invitations, we are told, were no secret intrigue of a few men. The common voice of England, openly expressed and all but unanimous, demanded the return of the great confessor of English freedom.3 The King's prepara tions against Godwine. The fleet at Sandwich. These open manifestations on behalf of the exiles could not escape the knowledge of the King and his counsellors. It was thought necessary to put the south-eastern coast into a state of defence against any possible attack from the side of Flanders. The King and his Witan 1-one would like to have fuller details of a Gemót held under such influences-decreed that ships should be sent forth to watch at the old watching-place of Sandwich.5 Forty ships were accordingly made ready, and they took their place at the appointed station under the joint command of the King's nephew Earl Ralph and of Odda, the newly appointed Earl of the Western shires." 1 Vita Eadw. 404. "Felicem se putabat qui post eum exsulari poterat." 2 Ib. "Quidam post eum vadunt, quidam legationes mittunt, paratos se, si velit reverti, eum cum violentiâ in patriâ suscipere, pro eo pugnare, pro eo, si necesse sit, velle se pariter occumbere." 3 Ib. "Et hoc accitabatur non clam vel privatim, sed in manifesto et publice, et non modo a quibusdam, sed pene ab omnibus indigenis patriæ." 4 Chron. Petrib. 1052. "Gerædde se cyng and his witan." Abingdon See above, p. 98. and Worcester do not mention the Witan. "xl. snacca," Chronn. Ab. Wig. Petrib. The number of the ships, comes from Worcester; the names of the commanders from Peterborough, "and setton Raulf Eorl and Oddan Eorl to heafodmannum þærto." Florence seems to put these preparations later, after Harold's landing at Porlock. But surely the choice made both by Gruffydd and by Harold of their points for attack, shows that the Earls of those districts were already absent with the fleet. |