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CHAP. IX. insignificance, and had become lost to history. The Danish

sex.

Reasons

for retaining the WestSaxon

Thurkill had founded no dynasty in his Earldom. We

cannot even make out with certainty the succession of Eastand Wes- Anglian Earls between him and Harold. The Earldom of the West-Saxons was a mere creation of Cnut himself. It would have broken in upon no feeling of ancient tradition, if the office had been abolished, and if the King had taken into his own hands the immediate government of the old cradle of his house. But such a step would have been in every way a step backward. The King of the English was now King in every part of his realm alike. Certain parts Earldom. of his realm might enjoy more of his personal presence than others; certain parts might even be practically more amenable to his authority than others; each great division of the Kingdom might still retain its local laws and customs; but there was now only one English Kingdom; no part of that Kingdom was a dependency of any other part; the King was King of the West-Saxons in no other sense than that in which he was King of the Northumbrians. But, if the local West-Saxon Earldom had been abolished, instead of a King of the English, reigning over one united Kingdom, there would again have been a King of the West-Saxons, holding East-Anglia, Mercia, and Northumberland as dependent provinces. Here then were good political reasons for retaining the institution of Cnut, and for again appointing an Earl of the WestSaxons. Reverence also for the memory of the great man who was gone pleaded equally for the same course. An Earl of the West-Saxons had done more for England than any other subject had ever done. With Godwine and his great deeds still living in the minds and on the tongues of men, there could be little doubt as to giving him a successor; there could be hardly more of doubt as to who that successor should be.

1 See Appendix G.

HAROLD EARL OF THE WEST-SAXONS.

Earl of

Saxons.

355

The choice of the King and his Witan fell upon the CHAP. IX. eldest surviving son of the late Earl.1 Harold was trans- Harold lated from the government of the East-Angles to the the Westgreater government of the West-Saxons. This was, under Easter, such a King as Eadward, equivalent to investing him with 1053. the practical management of the King and his Kingdom. Harold then, when he could not have passed the age of thirty-two, became the first man in England. His career up to this time had been stained by what in our eyes seems to be more than one great fault, but it is clear that, in the eyes of his contemporaries, his merits far outweighed his errors. He had perhaps been guilty of selfishness in the matter of his brother Swegen; 3 he had certainly been guilty of needless violence in the affair at Porlock. But Joy of the universal joy of the nation at his new promotion + shows that the general character of his East-Anglian government must have given the brightest hopes for the future. Grief for the loss of Godwine was tempered by rejoicing at the elevation of one who at once began to walk in his father's steps. From henceforth, as Earl and Character as King, the career of Harold is one of vigorous and just governgovernment, of skill and valour in the field, of unvarying ment. moderation towards political foes. He won and he kept the devoted love of the English people. And, what was a harder task, he won and kept, though in a less degree than another member of his house, the personal confidence and affection of the weak and wayward prince with whom he had to deal.

The translation of Harold to the greater government of

1 Chron. Petrib. 1053. "And feng Harold Eorl his sunu to dam eorldome and to eallum þam þe his fæder ahte." So the others in other words. 2 See above, pp. 37, 43. 3 See above, p. 100. 4 Vita Eadw. 408. 66 Subrogatur autem regio favore in ejus [Godwini] ducatu filius ejus major natu et sapientiâ Haroldus, unde in consolationem respirat universus Anglorum exercitus." Then follows the panegyric quoted in Appendix D.

the nation.

of his

East-
Angles.

CHAP. IX. Wessex made a vacancy in his former Earldom of the Ælfgar East-Angles. It would probably have been difficult to Earl of the refuse the post to the man who had already held it for a short space, Elfgar, the son of Leofric of Mercia. His appointment left only one of the great Earldoms in the House of Godwine, while the House of Leofric now again ruled from the North-Welsh border to the German Ocean.1 But it quite fell in with Harold's conciliatory policy to acquiesce in an arrangement which seemed to reverse the positions of the two families. The possession of Wessex was an object paramount to all others, and all the chances of the future were in favour of the rising House. Ælfgar accordingly became Earl of the East-Angles. His career Character was turbulent and unhappy. The virtues of Leofric and of Ælfgar Godgifu seem not to have been inherited by their descendand his ants. We hear of Ælfgar and of his sons mainly as rebels in whom no trust could be placed, as traitors to every King and to every cause, as men who never scrupled to call in the aid of any foreign enemy in order to promote their personal objects. Rivalry towards Harold and his house was doubtless one great mainspring of their actions, but the Norman Conqueror and the last male descendant of Cerdic found it as vain as ever Harold had found it to put trust in the grandsons of Leofric.

sons.

Probable

restoration

2

I have already suggested that it was probably in conseof Bishop quence of the death of Godwine and the succession of William Harold that the restoration of some of the King's Norman Normans. favourites, especially of William Bishop of London, was This may have taken place at this same Easter

and other

allowed.

1 See Appendix G. 2 Chronn. Ab. Wig. Petrib. Cant. in anno. : We have one panegyric on Ælfgar in Orderic (511 A), but it is a panegyric by misadventure. Orderic clearly confounded Ælfgar with his father. William of Malmesbury however (see above, p. 159) speaks well of his government of East-Anglia during Harold's banishment.

See above, p. 346.

POSITION OF THE NORMANS UNDER HAROLD.

357

mans in

festival; but it is more natural to refer it to some later CHAP. IX. Gemót of the same year. It is certain that, during this second portion of the reign of Eadward, a considerable number of Normans, or others bearing Norman or French names, were established in England. It is equally certain Position of that their position differed somewhat from what it had the Norbeen before the outlawry of Godwine. The attempts to the later days of put them in possession of the great offices of the Kingdom Eadward. were not renewed. Ralph retained his Earldom, William was allowed to return to his Bishoprick. The royal blood of the one, the excellent character of the other, procured for them this exceptional favour, which, in the case of Ralph the Timid, proved eminently unlucky. But we hear of no other Norman or French Earls or Bishops, and we have no certain notice of any Norman Abbot.2 Excepting Political a few of the favoured natives of Lotharingia, none but office for Englishmen are now preferred to the great posts of Church and State. No local office higher than that of Sheriff, and that only in one or two exceptional cases,3 was now allowed to be held by a stranger. But mere Court preferment, but Court offices about the King's person, seem to have been freely allowed. held by foreigners to whom there was no manifest personal objection. The King was allowed to have about him his Norman Stallers, his Norman chaplains, and, an officer now first beginning to creep into a little importance, his Norman Chancellor. And those Normans who were tolerated

1 That the number of Frenchmen who remained in England was considerable is shown, as Lappenberg says (p. 514. ii. 255 Thorpe), by a passage in the so-called Laws of William (Thorpe, i. 491; Schmid, 354), by which it appears that many of them had become naturalized English subjects; "Omnis Francigena, qui tempore Eadwardi propinqui nostri fuit in Angliâ particeps consuetudinum Anglorum, quod ipsi dicunt an hlote et an scote, persolvat secundum legem Anglorum."

* On Baldwin, Abbot of Saint Eadmund's, see Appendix L.

3 See above, p. 344.

Regenbald the Chancellor appears in Domesday, 180 b, by the description of "Reinbaldus canceler," as holding lands in Herefordshire T. R. E.,

bidden,

office

CHAP. IX. at all seem to have been looked on with less suspicion than

they had been during the former period. They are now freely allowed to witness the royal charters, which implies their acting as members of the national assemblies. Their position becomes now one of mere personal favour, not of political influence. They are hardly mentioned in our history; we have to trace them out by the light of their signatures and of entries in Domesday. Once only shall we have any reason to suspect that the course of events was influenced by them. And in that one case ward's later their influence is a mere surmise, and if it was exercised policy. at all, it must have been exercised in a purely underhand way. The policy of Eadward's reign is from henceforth a policy thoroughly English. In other words, it is the policy of Harold.

English character of Ead

Difference between

tion of Godwine

Harold.

It is easy to understand that the feelings of Harold with the posi- regard to the foreigners differed somewhat from those of his father. Godwine and Harold belonged to different and that of generations. Godwine's whole education, his whole way of looking at things, must have been purely English. It is hardly needful to make any exception on behalf of influences from Denmark. The rule of Cnut was one under which Danes became Englishmen, not one under which Englishwhich before the Survey he had exchanged with Earl William Fitz-Osbern. He still held lands in Berkshire (56 b, 60, 63), Gloucestershire (166 b), and Wiltshire (68 b), if he is, as he doubtless is, the same as "Reinbaldus de Cirencestre" and "Renbaldus Presbyter." He was Dean of Cirencester (see Ellis, i. 398), and besides his lay fees he held several churches in Wiltshire (Domesday, 65 b). It should be noticed that all his Gloucestershire property had other owners T. R. E., one of whom was a tenant of Earl Tostig.

I quote, as one example of many, the signatures to the foundation charter of Harold's own church at Waltham (Cod. Dipl. iv. 158). The seemingly Norman names, besides Bishop William, are "Rodbertus Regis consanguineus [no doubt the Staller Robert the son of Wymarc], Hesbernus Regis consanguineus, Regenbaldus Regis cancellarius, Petrus Regis capellanus, Baldewinus Regis capellanus." (Baldwin however [see Appendix L] may have been Flemish and not Norman.) But the deed is also signed by many English courtiers, as well as Earls, Prelates, and Thegns.

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