THE NARRATIVES OF THE RETURN OF GODWINE. 627

inference; they do not translate any statement in the Chronicles, and we find from the Biographer, the best authority for the King's personal movements, that it is a wrong inference. "Audito itaque Rex ejus [Godwini] violento et absque ejus nutu in regnum suum ingressu, quamquam fidem referentibus non accommodaret, tamen cum militari copiâ quâ poterat, Lundoniam venit" (Vita Eadw. 405). He therefore was elsewhere when he heard the news. The writer goes on to say, "Utque acri erat animo et promptissimæ strenuitatis, ingressum civitatis, qua tendebat, prohibere tentabat." The words in Italics must apply to Eadward, and the Biographer would hardly venture upon satire. Ethelred himself, as we have seen, had his fits of energy, and Eadward also had his fits, if not of energy, at least of passion.

When we get to the negotiations on the evening of Monday, it is to the Peterborough Chronicler only that we owe our knowledge of the personal agency of Stigand (p. 327). A year before, the Biographer was the only writer who spoke of him. This is just the way in which, in a story of this kind, our several accounts fill up gaps in each other, and strengthen each other's authority. The conduct attributed to Stigand at one time by one account exactly agrees with the conduct attributed to him at another time by another and quite independent account. The Abingdon Chronicle simply says, "Geræddon þa þæt man sende wise men betweonan, and setton grið on ægre healfe." So Florence, "Sapientiores quique [Roger of Wendover, or his copyist, or his editor, turns this into "sapientes quinque," i. 491] ex utrâque parte, inter Regem et Ducem pacem redintegrantes, exercitum ab armis discedere jusserunt." The Canterbury writer follows Peterborough in mentioning Stigand, but adds, rather unluckily, "pe was pes cinges rædgifa and his handprest."

The adjournment till the morning of Tuesday appears from the words of Florence, "Mane autem facto, concilium Rex habuit." These words answer to nothing in the actual narrative of any of the Chroniclers; but they are implied in what the Abingdon writer says afterwards; "Dat was on pone Monandæg æfter Sča Marian mæsse þæt Godwine mid his scipum to Subgeweorce becom, and pas on merigen, on pone Tiwesdag hi gewurdon sehte, swa hit her beforan stent." We thus see that, in the flow of narration, especially in the rhetorical language of the Biographer, the events

of two days have been run into one. This is especially shown in one expression of the Biographer. According to him, one of the reasons which made Eadward finally yield at the Gemót was because he saw that Godwine's military force was the stronger (“Ducem, quem utique videbat, sibi satis, si uti vellet, superiorem armis"); this consideration would rather belong to the former day. It is clear that the "mycel Gemót," as the Peterborough Chronicler triumphantly calls it, was held on Tuesday morning. Its details must be gathered from all sources. Bits of the official decrees peep out

both in Abingdon and in Peterborough, but it is the Peterborough writer, the stoutest Englishman that ever took pen in hand, who loves emphatically to dwell on the democratic character of this great gathering. It is from his expression "wiðutan Lundene," combined with the description which the Biographer gives of Godwine and Eadward afterwards going together to the Palace (see p. 335), that we learn that the assembly was held in the open air. The Biographer cares little for the political character of the meeting, but there is no part of his whole narrative in which he is richer in those little personal touches which give him his chief value. His account is most graphic and animated, and the reader will easily see that I have largely drawn upon him.

The flight of Robert, Ulf, and the other Normans (see p. 328) certainly happened before the meeting of the Gemót, therefore doubtless on Monday evening. From the account in the Abingdon Chronicle and in Florence it might seem that it was on Tuesday, after sentence had been pronounced against them in the Gemót. But in the more careful order of the Peterborough writer it becomes plain that it happened immediately after the mission of Stigand, that is, on Monday; "Da geaxode Rotberd arcebiscop and pa Frencisce menn þæt [the agreement made by Stigand] genamon heora hors and gewendon." Then, after the details of their ride, comes the account of the Gemót. So William of Malmesbury, ii. 199. Before the Gemót, "Ille [Robert], non exspectatâ violentiâ, sponte profugerat, quum sermo pacis componeretur." And this is confirmed by one of the incidental references in the Biographer. He does not directly describe the flight of Robert and his companions, but he speaks of the King at the Gemót as "destitutus imprimis fugâ Archipræsulis et suorum multorum, verentium adspectum Ducis, qui scilicet auctores fuerant illius concitati turbinis.”

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The personal reconciliation between the King and Godwine, distinct from, and following after, the public votes of the Gemót (see p. 335), rests on the direct authority of the Biographer only. The Chroniclers, as was natural, think mainly of the proceedings in the Assembly, and merge the private reconciliation in the public one. The chaplain of the Lady, as naturally, looks at things in an opposite way. It is possible however that, in one passage of his story, the Peterborough writer had the private reconciliation in his mind. Once, and once only, is his way of speaking less popular than that of his Abingdon brother. Where Abingdon says, " And man sealde Godwine clæne his eorldom swa full and swa ford swa he fyrmest ahte," Peterborough has "and se cyng forgeaf þam eorle and his bearnum his fulne freondscype and fulne eorldom," &c. This sounds very much as if the Peterborough writer was combining in his mind the public restoration by the Gemót and the personal reconciliation with the King. But in any case we cannot mistake the minute and local description given by the Biographer; "Rex itaque coactus tum misericordiâ et satisfactione Ducis . . . devictus quoque precibus supplicantium, redditis armis suis, cum Duce in palatium processit, ibique, paullatim defervente animi motu sedatus, sapientium consilio usus, Duci osculum præbuit," &c. (p. 406). I have little doubt that "redditis armis suis" means that Eadward returned to Godwine the arms which Godwine had laid at his feet (see p. 335), the restoration of the official axe being the obvious outward sign of the restoration of the office itself. It may be doubted whether "sapientium consilio usus" means merely "following the advice of wise men," or whether it is a technical expression, "carrying out the decree of the Witan." In a simpler writer I should be inclined to take it in the latter sense; but the Biographer, if he had chosen to talk directly about the Witan at all, would probably have used some more rhetorical phrase. Besides we have already, in the course of the story, read in the Chronicles of "wise men," where the reference is clearly not to official but to personal wisdom.

There is certainly something very striking in the way in which our narrative of this great event has to be put together from several independent accounts, and in the amount of precision, even in very minute points, which we are able to reach by carefully comparing one account with another. It is hardly necessary to collect together

the shapes which the story takes in later writers, but I cannot pass by the way in which the Winchester annalist (p. 25) weaves the return of Godwine into the legend of Emma, which he places in 1043 (see above, p. 569). Eadward recalls Godwine at the prayer of his mother; "Precibus matris suæ revocavit Godwinum Comitem et filios ejus ab exsilio, et conceptum in eos rancorem remisit ad plenum, et singulis honores suos reddidit." Selden also (Titles of Honour, pp. 525, 526) seems to have confounded this reconciliation between Eadward and Godwine with that imaginary reconciliation soon after Eadward's election of which Bromton is so full. See vol. i. p. 767.

The story adopted by some writers, ancient and modern, about Godwine giving his son Wulfnoth and his grandson Hakon as hostages to the King, by whom they were immediately handed over to the keeping of Duke William, I mention here only lest I should seem to have forgotten it. It is part of the story of Harold's oath, which I shall discuss at large in my next volume.

NOTE BB. p. 336.

THE PILGRIMAGE OF SWEGEN.

I CANNOT help noticing the strange perversion of the story of Swegen which has been adopted by a writer generally so accurate as Dr. Lingard. "But to Sweyn," he tells us (i. 341), “Eadward · was inexorable. He had been guilty of a most inhuman and perfidious murder; and seeing himself abandoned by his family, he submitted to the discipline of the ecclesiastical canons." This seems to come from Roger of Wendover (i. 491); "Rex pristinum honorem restituit Godwino et filiis ejus omnibus, præter Suanum, qui Beornum peremerat Regis [sic] consobrinum, unde, pœnitentiam agens, de Flandriâ nudis pedibus Hierosolymam petens, in reditu suo per viam defunctus est." This would most naturally mean that Swegen set out on his pilgrimage after the restoration of his family, and it might also seem to imply that the pilgrimage was an imposed penance. But there is no doubt that Swegen had already set out for Jerusalem before his father left Flanders, and the expressions of the best writers seem to show that the penance

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was altogether self-imposed. On the former point the words of the Abingdon Chronicle (1052) are decisive; "Swegen for æror to Hierusalem of Bricge." So Florence (1052), who also gives a hint on the other point; "Ille enim, ductus pœnitentiâ, eo quod, ut prælibavimus, consobrinum suum Beorn occiderat, de Flandriâ nudis pedibus Jerusalem jam adierat." William of Malmesbury (ii. 200; see above, p. 101) does not mention the time, but says that he went "pro conscientiâ Brunonis cognati interempti." About the chronology then there is no doubt, and there is no reason to suppose that the pilgrimage was other than a self-imposed one. Swegen, in short, if a great criminal, was also a great penitent, and it is rather hard to deprive him of that character in order to exalt Saint Eadward and the ecclesiastical canons. Eadward had no opportunity of being inexorable; Swegen's family had no opportunity of abandoning him; he most likely did not need the discipline of the ecclesiastical canons; his own conscience had already pronounced sentence upon him. It was probably Florence's expression "pœnitentiâ ductus" which suggested Roger's "pœnitentiam agens," and from the latter Dr. Lingard clearly got his idea of the ecclesiastical canons.

Thierry (i. 201) seems, contrary to the best accounts, but in conformity with a possible interpretation of Roger, to bring Swegen to the Gemót, and to make him banish himself there; "Tous les membres de cette famille populaire rentrèment dans leurs honneurs, à l'exception d'un seul, de Sweyn, qui y renonça volontairement." Out of this view Lord Lytton (Harold, i. 196 et seqq.) has made a fine scene.

The Abingdon Chronicle makes Swegen die at Constantinople; Florence places his death in Lykia. He adds that he died of the cold-" invalitudine ex nimio frigore contractâ." Florence, writing with the Abingdon Chronicle before him, could have no motive to change the well known Constantinople into the less known Lykia, unless he had good information that Lykia really was the place. But the Chronicler might very easily put Constantinople, a thoroughly familiar name, instead of Lykia, of which he had perhaps never heard. William of Malmesbury (ii. 200) has quite another story; "A Saracenis circumventus et ad mortem cæsus est."

A close parallel to the pilgrimage of Swegen is found in that of