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CHAP. IX. the reach of justice; but, had he been present, the mildness of English political warfare would have hindered any harsher sentence than that which was actually pronounced.1 "He had done most to stir up strife between Earl Godwine and the King" the words of the formal resolution peep out, as they so often do, in the words of the Chronicler —and, on this charge, Robert was deprived of his see, and was solemnly declared an outlaw. The like sentence was pronounced against "all the Frenchmen"—we are again reading the words of the sentence-" who had reared up bad law, and judged unjust judgements, and counselled evil counsel in this land.": But the sentence did not extend to all the men of Norman birth or of French speech who were settled in the country. It was meant to strike none but actual offenders. By an exception capable of indefinite and dangerous extension, those were excepted "whom the King liked, and who were true to him and all his folk." Lastly, in the old formula which we have so often already come across " Good law was decreed for all folk."5 As in other cases, the expression refers far more to administration than to legislation, to the observance of old laws rather than to the enactment of new. The Frenchmen

Normans excepted from the sentence.

"Good law" decreed.

1 See above, p. 263.

* Chron. Petrib. “And cweð mann útlaga Rotberd arcebisceop fullice, and ealle þa Frencisce menn, forðan þe hi macodon mæst þet unseht betweonan Godwine Eorle and þam Cynge." So William of Malmesbury; "Prolatâ sententiâ in Robertum archiepiscopum ejusque complices quod statum regni conturbarent, animum regium in provinciales agitantes.”

3 Chron. Ab. "And geutlageden þa ealle Frencisce men, þe ær unlage ræærdon, and undom demdon, and ûnræd ræddon into issum earde." Modern English utterly fails to express the power of the negative words, which modern High Dutch only partially preserves. So Florence; "Omnes Nortmannos qui leges iniquas adinvenerant [a poor substitute for unlage rærdon "] et injusta judicia judicaverant, multaque Regi insilia [an attempt at transferring the Teutonic negative to the Latin] adversus Anglos [a touch from Peterborough] dederant, exlegaverunt."

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Chron. Ab. and Fl. Wig. I shall have to speak of this exception again.
Ib. "And eallum folce gode lage beheton."

GODWINE RECONCILED TO THE KING.

335

had reared up bad law; that is, they had been guilty оHAP. IX. of corrupt and unjust administration; the good law, that is, the good government of former times, was now to be restored. There was no need to renew the Law of Eadgar or of Cnut or of any other King of past times. The "good state," as an Italian patriot might have called it, was not, in the eyes of that Assembly, a vision of past times, a tradition of the days of their fathers or of the old time before them. It was simply what every man could remember for himself, in the days before Robert, and men like Robert, had won the royal ear wholly to themselves. There was no need to go back to any more distant standard than the earliest years of the reigning King. Good Law was decreed for all folk. Things were to be once more as they had been in the days when Earl Godwine had been the chief adviser of the King on whom he had himself bestowed the Crown.

reconcilia

Godwine

The work of the Assembly was done; the innocent had Personal been restored, the guilty had been punished; the nation tion of had bound itself to the maintenance of law and right. and the Godwine was again the foremost man in the realm. But King. though the political restoration was perfect, the personal reconciliation seems still to have cost the King a struggle. It required the counsel of wise men, and a full conviction that all resistance was hopeless, before Eadward again received his injured father-in-law to his personal friendship. At last he yielded. He returned to Godwine the axe which the Earl had laid at his feet, the restoration of the official weapon being evidently the outward sign of restoration to office and to royal favour.1 King and Earl then walked together to the Palace of Westminster, and there, on his own hearth, Eadward again admitted Godwine to the kiss of peace. To receive again to his friendship the wife and sons of Godwine, Gytha, Harold, Tostig, Gyrth,

1 See the passage on which I ground this description in Appendix AA.

CHAP. IX. and Leofwine, probably cost Eadward no special struggle.

Restora-
tion of the

Lady
Eadgyth.

They had never personally offended him, and they seem, even before their outlawry, to have won his personal affection. But the complete restoration of the family to its former honours required another step which may perhaps have cost Eadward a pang. When Godwine, his wife and his sons, were restored to their old honours, it was impossible to refuse the like restitution to his daughter. The Lady Eadgyth was brought back with all royal pomp from her cloister at Wherwell; she received again all the lands and goods of which she had been deprived, and was restored to the place, whatever that place may have been, which she had before held in the court and household of Eadward.1 Absence of The restoration of the house of Godwine to its rank and Swegen ; honours was thus complete, so far as the members of that house had appeared in person to claim again that which they had lost. But in the glories of that day the eldest born of Godwine and Gytha had no part. Swegen had shared his father's banishment; he had not shared his father's return. His guilty, but not hardened, soul had been stricken to the earth by the memory of his crimes. his pilgrim- The blood of Beorn, the wrongs of Eadgifu, lay heavy Jerusalem, upon his spirit. At the bidding of his own remorse, he

age to

had left his father and brothers behind in Flanders, and had gone, barefooted, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Tomb. He

1 Chron. Petrib. 1052. "And se Cyng geaf þære Hlæfdian eall þæt

heo ær ahte." Chron. Ab. "And Godwine Eorl and Harold and seo
Cwen [this title is unusual, but not quite unique] sæton on heora áre.”
She had just before come in incidentally in the list of Godwine's family;
"his sunum...
and his wife and his dehter." Flor. Wig. "Filiam quoque
Ducis, Eadgitham Reginam, digniter Rex recepit et pristinæ dignitati
restituit." The Biographer (406) of course waxes eloquent; "Modico
exinde interfluente tempore mittitur æque regio, ut par erat, apparatu ad
monasterium Wiltunense [on this confusion see p. 154] et [I leave out
metaphors about the sun, &c.] reducitur Regina, ejusdem Ducis filia, ad
thalamum Regis." This last expression should be noticed, and compared
with the account in Roger of Wendover.

PILGRIMAGE AND DEATH OF SWEGEN.

337

fulfilled his Vow, but he lived not to return to his Earldom CHAP. IX. or to his native land. While his father and brothers were making their triumphant defence before their assembled countrymen, Swegen was toiling back, slowly and wearily, through the dwelling-places of men of other tongues and of other creeds. The toil was too great for a frame no doubt already bowed down by remorse and penance. Cold, and death in Lykia. exposure, and weariness were too much for him, and four- September teen days after Godwine's solemn restoration in London, 29, 1052. the eldest son of Godwine breathed his last in some unknown spot of the distant land of Lykia.1

of Earldoms;

There is no doubt that the three great decrees, for the restoration of Godwine and his family, for the outlawry of the Archbishop and the other Normans, and for the renewal of the good laws, were all passed in the great Gemót of this memorable Tuesday.2 Other measures which naturally followed may well have been dealt with in later, perhaps in less crowded and excited, assemblies. Some of the greatest offices in Church and State had to be disposed of. Godwine and Harold received their old Earldoms back Disposition again. The restoration of Harold implied the deposition of Elfgar. It is singular that we find no distinct mention Ælfgar gives way either of him or of his father, nor yet of Siward, through to Harold. the whole history of the revolution. The only hint which. we have on the subject seems to imply that they at least acquiesced in the changes which were made, and even that Ælfgar cheerfully submitted to the loss of his Earldom.3 As Swegen did not return, there was no need to disturb Ralph. Ralph in his Earldom of the Magesætas. Odda must have Odda. given up that portion of Godwine's Earldom which had

1 On the pilgrimage of Swegen see Appendix BB.

2 "On bone Tiwesdag hi gewurdon sehte, swa hit her beforan stent,"

says the Abingdon Chronicle.

3 See the passage of William of Malmesbury quoted above, p. 159.

VOL. II.

CHAP. IX. been entrusted to him, but he seems to have been indemnified by Ralph's former Earldom of the Hwiccas, both Ralph and Odda probably holding under the superior authority of Leofric.2

The vacant Bishopricks.

The disposal of the Bishopricks which had become vacant by the flight of their foreign occupants was a more important matter; at least it led to more important consequences in the long run. At the moment of Godwine's restoration, it probably did not occur to any Englishman to doubt that they were vacant both in fact and in law. Robert and Ulf had fled from their sees; they had been declared outlaws by the highest authority of the nation, or rather by the nation itself. Our forefathers most likely thought very little about canonical subtleties. They would hardly argue the point whether the Bishops had resigned or had been deprived, nor would they doubt that the nation had full power to deprive them. In whatever way the vacancies had occurred, the sees were in fact vacant; there was no Archbishop at Canterbury and no Bishop at Dorchester. That the King and his Witan would be stepping beyond their powers in filling those sees was not likely to come into any man's head. We must remember how thoroughly the English nation and the English Church at the time; were then identified. No broad line was drawn between identity of ecclesiastical and temporal causes, between ecclesiastical and temporal offices. The immediate personal duties of an Earl were undoubtedly different from those of a Bishop; but the two dignitaries acted within their shire with a joint authority in many matters which, a hundred years later, would have been divided between a distinct civil and a distinct ecclesiastical tribunal. In appointing a Bishop, though we have seen that canonical election was not shut out, we have also seen that the Witan of the land had their share in the matter, and that it was by the King's writ 2 See Appendix G.

Relations

of Church

and State

the two

bodies.

1 See above, p. 158.

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