CHAP. X. the government of Norman Prelates; we have seen Norman adventurers enriched with English estates, and covering the land with those frowning castles on which our fathers looked as the special badges of wrong and slavery. Above all, we have seen the Duke of the Normans, not only received with special honours at the English Court, but encouraged to look upon himself as the destined successor to the English Crown. A national reaction, almost rising to the rank of a revolution, has broken the yoke of the strangers, it has driven the most guilty from the land, and has placed England and her King once more under the rule of the noblest of her own sons. Still the effect of those days of Norman influence was not wiped out, and the wary and wily chief of the strangers had been armed with a pretext plausible enough to win him general support wherever the laws of England were unknown. The moment of struggle was now come; the English throne had become vacant, and the Norman Duke knew how to represent himself as its lawful heir, and to brand the King of the nation's choice as an usurper. We thus enter on the second, the decisive, stage of the great struggle. It is no longer a half concealed strife for influence, for office, for a peaceful succession to the Crown. It is an open warfare of nation against nation, of man against man. England and Normandy, Harold and William, are now brought face to face. The days of debate and compromise are past; the sword alone can now judge between England and her enemy. The details of that memorable conflict, the events of that wonderful year which forms the turning-point of all English history, will form the third portion of my tale, the culminating point of the History of the Norman Conquest.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A. p. 5.

THE ELECTION AND CORONATION OF EADWARD.

IN reading the account of Eadward's accession to the Crown, as told in the Chronicles and by Florence, we are at once struck by the great and unusual delay between his first election and his consecration as King. He is chosen in London in June by a popular movement which could not even wait for the burial of the deceased King; but he is not crowned till the Easter of the next year. No explanation is given of the delay, no account of the way in which the intervening months were spent, no statement where Eadward was at the time of Harthacnut's death. We must therefore look to other writers for the means of filling up this singular gap. I need hardly again refute the wild romance of Thierry, of which I spoke in vol. i. p. 770. I will only say that Eadward's Westminster Charter (Cod. Dipl. iv. 173), which, doubtful as it is, is at least as good authority as Bromton or Knighton, makes him speak of himself as 66 eo [regno] potitus sine ullo bellorum labore." It will be more profitable to examine the witness of those writers who wrote at all near the time, or who were at all likely to preserve contemporary traditions.

According to Eadward's Biographer (p. 394), as soon as England was free from her Danish rulers (see vol. i. p. 771), Godwine at once proposed the election of Eadward as the natural heir ("ut Regem suum recipiant in nativi juris sui throno"). Godwine being looked on as a common father, everybody agreed to his proposal ("quoniam pro patre ab omnibus habebatur, in paterno consultu libenter audiebatur "). Earls and Bishops are sent to fetch EadLl

VOL. II.

ward ("mittuntur post eum"); they bring him with them; he is joyfully received, and crowned at Canterbury.

William of Poitiers (p. 85 Giles), as might be supposed, knows nothing about Godwine, or about any free election by the English people. Eadward, according to him, was chosen under a most powerful congé d'élire and letter missive from his cousin the Duke of the Normans. The English are disputing about the succession, when a Norman embassy comes, threatening a Norman invasion if Eadward is not received. The nation chooses the wiser part, and Eadward comes home, protected by a small array of Norman knights; "Disceptantes Angli deliberatione suis rationibus utilissima consenserunt, legationibus justa petentibus acquiescere, quam Normannorum vim experiri. Reducem cum non maximo præsidio militis Normannici cupidè sibi eum præstituerunt, ne manu validiore, si Comes Normannicus adveniret, subigerentur." The same version is given in a shorter form in the Chronicle of Saint Wandrille (D'Achery, ii. 286). Eadward, already chosen and crowned King, but hitherto kept out of his Kingdom by Swegen, Cnut, and others, is now restored by Norman help (“in regnum paternum adnitentibus Normannis rediit ”).

Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 759 A) mixes up the accession of Eadward with his version of the death of Ælfred (see vol. i. p. 762), which, it will be remembered, he places after the death of Harthacnut. Elfred had been slain by the English, because he had brought too many Normans with him; the English then send to Normandy, offering the Crown to Eadward, on condition that he brings only a small body of Normans with him ("miserunt ergo pro Edwardo juniore in Normanniam nuntios et obsides, mandantes ei quod paucissimos Normannorum secum adduceret, et eum in Regem fidelissime stabilirent"). Eadward comes over with a small company ("cum paucis venit in Angliam "); he is chosen King by all folk ("electus est in Regem ab omni populo "), and is consecrated at Easter by Eadsige at Winchester.

The Winchester Annals (Luard, pp. 18-20) swells out the story into a long romance; but some points are worthy of notice. On the death of Harthacnut, Godwine is, by a decree of the Witan and with the consent of the Lady Emma (" Reginæ assensu et magnatum consilio "), appointed Regent of the Kingdom till a King can be chosen ("regni cura Comiti Godwino committitur, donec qui dignus

THE ELECTION AND CORONATION OF EADWARD. 515

esset eligeretur in Regem "). Eadward is in Normandy, where, since the death of Duke Robert, he has no friends; he has no hope from his mother; he determines to trust himself to the mercy of his enemy Godwine ("inter desperandum tutius credebat manifesto supplicare inimico, quam fictum amicum sine caussâ sollicitare"). He comes over to England, he lands at Southampton, he avoids his mother at Winchester, but goes to Godwine in London, and throws himself at the Earl's feet. A long dialogue follows, the upshot of which is that Godwine swears fidelity to Eadward and promises him the Crown. Eadward is sent to Winchester in disguise, and is bidden to reveal himself to no one. Godwine meanwhile summons the Witan to Winchester for the election of a King. They meet in the Old Minster. The Lady Emma seemingly presides; the Archbishops are at her right hand, the Earl of the West-Saxons at her left. Eadward, veiled, sits at the feet of Godwine. At the proper moment Godwine unveils him; "Here," he says, "is your King; here is Eadward, son of this Lady Emma and of Ethelred King of the English. I choose him King, and am the first to become his man" ("huic ego omnium primushomagium facio "). A debate follows; some object to the choice, but no man dares seriously to oppose Godwine. Eadward is elected and crowned.

The Hyde writer (pp. 287, 288), like Henry of Huntingdon, connects the accession of Eadward with the death of Ælfred, and, like William of Poitiers, he brings in Duke William as a prominent actor. After Ælfred's death William meditates revenge, but an English embassy comes, praying for another son of Æthelred to be sent to them as their King ("rogant sibi alium dominum-domini? -sui transmitti filium"), and promising him all loyal service. William will not allow his cousin to adventure himself, unless some of the noblest of the English, and especially one of the sons of Godwine, are given to him as hostages. This is done, and Eadward is brought over to England by a Norman fleet.

Lastly, charters exist which imply that Eadward was for a while in Normandy after he had acquired a right to the title of King. At an earlier time he and his brother had subscribed a charter of Duke Robert, with the form "Signum Hetwardi. Signum Helwredi." (Delisle, Preuves, p. 11.) But the cartulary of Saint Michael's Mount contains two charters in which Eadward is called "Rex." I do not rely so much on the charter in Eadward's own

name, which is printed in Cod. Dipl. iv. 251, and Delisle, Preuves, 20. It is signed by Robert Archbishop of Rouen, who died in 1037. Now it is really inconceivable that Eadward should call himself King before 1042, unless possibly in some moment of exultation when Duke Robert's fleet was setting forth to restore him. (See vol. i. p. 469.) The matter of the charter also is strange, and the English spelling "Eadwardus" is unusual in a document which must have been drawn up in Normandy. I have more faith in a charter of Duke William (Delisle, Preuves, p. 19), which, among other signatures, has that of "Hatuardus Rex." This looks to me far more likely to be genuine. It is quite conceivable that, if Eadward was asked to witness a charter of his cousin, just as he was leaving Normandy in 1042, he might assume the title, though he was not yet strictly entitled to it by English Law.

The accounts of all these different writers seem to be independent of one another, unless the Hyde version is made up by compounding the story of William of Poitiers with that which we find in Henry of Huntingdon. The mention of the hostages is one form of a story which I shall have elsewhere to discuss at length. All these accounts agree in placing Eadward in Normandy at the moment of Harthacnut's death. William of Malmesbury (ii. 196) however supposes him to have been in England. With this difference, his story is much the same as that of the Winchester Annals stripped of its romantic details. It is probably the groundwork round which that legend has grown. Eadward, not knowing whither to turn after the death of Harthacnut, throws himself at the feet of Godwine, and craves leave to return to Normandy. The Earl raises him, and addresses him in a speech whose substance may well be historical, and to which I have not hesitated to give a place in the text. Eadward promises everything; he will be Godwine's firm friend; he will promote his sons and marry his daughter. The Witan meet at Gillingham; Godwine speaks on behalf of Eadward, and becomes his man ("rationibus suis explicitis, Regem efficit, hominio palam omnibus dato"); the election, the coronation, the punishment of the opponents of Eadward, follow as I have told them in the text.

Now it strikes me that, in these accounts, when carefully compared together, we may find the means of filling up the gap, and of explaining the delay, between the first election and the coronation.