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suddenness of the stroke, and he adds the "miserabilis cruciatus," of which we hear nothing in the Chronicles, and which seems to come from the death of Harthacnut (see vol. i. p. 525).

We are now fairly landed in the region of romance. The sudden seizure of Godwine at the royal table was in itself a striking event, and those who looked on Godwine with dislike on the ground of sacrilege or any other ground, would naturally look on it as a judgment of God. So Eadmer (4) after mentioning Godwine's dispute about lands with the Church of Canterbury (see above, p. 545), “malâ morte post breve tempus interiit." This need not mean more than what we read in the Chronicles. But the sudden seizure of Godwine soon grew into his sudden death, and his sudden death suggested the thought of that form of ordeal in which the guilt or innocence of the accused person was tested by his power of swallowing a morsel, blessed or cursed for the purpose. Nor was the tale of Elfred the conspirator against Æthelstan forgotten. Ælfred, according to the story (Will. Malms. ii. 137), was struck before the altar after his false oath before Pope John, and died on the third day. The legend of Godwine appears in shapes in which both these sources can be recognized. According to William of Malmesbury (ii. 197), Eadward and Godwine were sitting at table discoursing about the King's late brother Alfred ("orto sermone de Elfredo regis fratre"); Godwine says that he believes that the King still suspects him of having had a hand in his death ("Tu, Rex, ad omnem memoriam germani, rugato me vultu video quod aspicias"); but he prays God that the morsel which he has in his hand may choke him ("non patiatur Deus, ut istam offam transglutiam ") if he had ever done anything tending to Elfred's danger or to the King's damage ("ad ejus periculum, vel tuum incommodum"). Of course the morsel does choke him, and he dies then and there; he is dragged from under the table by his son Harold, who is in attendance on the King ("qui Regi adstabat "), and is buried in the cathedral of Winchester ("in episcopatu Wintonia"). The moral of course is not wanting-"Deum monstrâsse quam sancto animo Godwinus servierit ;" but it is only fair to William to say that his infinitive mood shows that he is telling the tale only as part of the Norman version of Godwine's history (see above, p. 535).

The Hyde writer (p. 289) tells the story in a shape which is still more distinctly borrowed from the story of Elfred the conspirator. The scene is changed to London. Godwine sees that the King's mind is still kept back from a thorough reconciliation by the remembrance of the death of his brother ("animadvertens animum Regis Edwardi pro injustâ fratris sui interfectione erga se non esse sincerum"). He therefore constantly tries to regain his favour by frequent assertions of his innocence. He and the King are present in a church at the time of mass; Godwine, of his own free will ("nullo cogente sed ipso Rege cum Principibus vehementer admirante;" compare the oath taken by the young King Henry, "sponte suâ, nullo cogente," Ben. Petrib. i. 294), steps forward to the altar, takes the chalice in his hand, and pledges himself by a solemn oath ("cunctis audientibus inaudito se juramento constrinxit") that he had had no share in the death of Ælfred. King and the Earl then go to dinner, and the rest of the story is told in nearly the same way as by William of Malmesbury, only in a rather more impressive style. The morsel sticks in Godwine's throat ("buccellam ori impositam, urgente eum divino judicio, nec glutere potuit, nec revertere, sed in amentiam versus terribiliter cœpit exspirare"). Harold, who, as in the other version, is in attendance on the King ("qui servitoris officio Regi adstabat "), carries him out while still breathing ("jam extremum spiritum trahentem, foras asportavit ").

The

In Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 760 B) the chief departure from the version of William of Malmesbury is that the death of Elfred is not mentioned. The scene is removed to Windsor ("apud Windleshores, ubi plurimum manere solebat"); the conversation at dinner between the King and the Earl turns upon Godwine's supposed treasons against the King himself, a subject of discourse quite as strange as the death of Ælfred; Godwine ("gener suus et proditor, recumbens juxta eum") seemingly volunteers the remark that he has been often falsely accused of plotting against the King, but that he trusts that, if there be a true and just God in heaven, he will make the piece of bread choke him, if he ever did so plot. The true and just God, we are told, heard the voice of the traitor, who, as the chronicler charitably adds, "eodem pane strangulatus mortem prægustavit æternam." A shorter form of this story is found in the Lüneburg Chronicle in Eccard, Hist. Med. Evi,

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i. 1344. The characters are thus introduced; "In den Tiden was de Koning Edeward van Engelant den wolde sin Swager vorraden, de sat enis dages bi deme Koninge to deme Dische."

But there was something very lame in both these shapes of the story. Why should Eadward and Godwine choose as the subject of their discourse the topics which of all subjects one would have thought that both of them would have wished to avoid? Why should either Eadward or Godwine, in the familiar intercourse of the dinner-table, fall talking either about the murder of Elfred or about any other treasonable doings of the Earl? William and Henry give us no clew. The Hyde writer solves the difficulty, but in rather a desperate way. In the next stage of the legend the explanation is much more ingeniously supplied. Some teller of the story lighted on an ancient legend which William of Malmesbury had recorded in its proper place (ii. 139), but which he had not thought of transferring to this. There was another legend of the days of Æthelstan, telling how that King exposed his brother Eadwine at sea, on a false charge of conspiracy brought by his cupbearer. Seven years afterwards, the cup-bearer, handing wine to the King, slips with one foot, recovers himself with the other, and adds the witty remark, "So brother helps brother." But King Æthelstan is thereby reminded how this same man had made him deprive himself of the help of his brother, and he takes care that, however strong he may be on his feet, he shall presently be shorter by the head, which had no brother to help it. This story (of which I have spoken in an article in the Fortnightly Review, May 1, 1866) is worked into the legend of Godwine by Ethelred of Rievaux (X Scriptt. 395), in the French Life of Eadward (3253 et seqq. p. 117), in Roger of Wendover (i. 492), the Winchester Annals (p. 25), Thomas Rudborne's Winchester History (Ang. Sacr. i. 239), Bromton (X Scriptt. 944), and Knighton (X Scriptt. 2333). In all these accounts we read, with no difference of any importance, how, as Eadward and Godwine are at table, the cup-bearer slips and recovers himself, how Godwine says, "So brother helps brother," how Eadward answers, "So might my brother Ælfred have helped me, but for the treason of Godwine." The Earl's protestations of innocence, and the fearful test which he offers, have now a certain propriety, and the rest of the story follows much as in William of Malmesbury. The ball however has grown somewhat in its

rollings, and some characteristically strong language is put into the mouth of the Saint. "Drag out the dog" ("extrahite canem," or "canem istum ") is the King's terse command, as it appears in Æthelred and Bromton. In the French Life this is, by a slight improvement, developed into "this stinking dog" ("treiez hors ceu chen punois"); while in most of the versions Eadward goes on to order his father-in-law to be buried in the highway, as unworthy of Christian burial (“extrahite canem hunc et proditorem et illum in quadrivio sepelite, indignus est ut Christianam habeat sepulturam"). The burial in the Old Minster was, we are assured by Roger of Wendover, done wholly without the King's knowledge ("Rege id penitus ignorante "). One or two other smaller points may be noticed. Bromton and Knighton, like Henry of Huntingdon, transfer the story to Windsor, and the Winchester Annals more strangely transfer it to Odiham. This last version must have rested on some traditional ground or other, as one of the manuscripts of Wace (see Pluquet, ii. 102) also places it at Odiham. Roger of Wendover and Thomas Rudborne make the King bless the morsel, before Godwine takes it; and the latter mentions another version, according to which it was blessed by Saint Wulfstan. The presence of the Prior of Worcester at the royal banquet is not accounted for. The Winchester Annals, with an obvious scriptural allusion, tell us that with the morsel Satan entered into Godwine ("introivit in illum Sathanas"). Lastly, Bromton turns the cup-bearer whose foot slips into no less a person than the Earl of the East-Angles. One wonders that the legend of the quarrel between Harold and Tostig was not dragged in here also.

After all this, it is with some relief that one turns to honest Wace (10595), who at least had the manliness to confess that there were things which he did not know;

"Gwine poiz remist issi,

Li Reiz en paiz le cunsenti.

Jo ne sai cumbien i dura,

Maiz jo sai bien k'il s'estrangla

D'un morsel ke li Roiz chigna

Al' aünie ù il mainga."

Such is the rise and progress of this famous legend. I venture to think that a better instance of the gradual growth of fiction is hardly to be found in the whole range of mythology.

SEVERAL points of dispute are opened by Siward's expedition against Macbeth. In the popular story Macbeth is killed in the battle fought by Siward, and the immediate result is that Malcolm is put into full possession of the Kingdom of Scotland. On the other hand, authentic history makes Malcolm wage a much longer struggle, as I have mentioned in the text. The point which is left obscure is what share the English allies of Malcolm took in the war after the defeat of Macbeth by Siward.

On the other hand, a question has been raised by Mr. E. W. Robertson, whether the expedition of Siward had anything at all to do with the restoration of Malcolm. I cannot look on this question as much more than a cavil; still it may be as well to state the objection and the answer to it, as coming first in chronological order, before examining the other points.

1. The objection brought by Mr. Robertson (Scotland under her Early Kings, i. 122, 123) against the commonly received view as to the objects of Siward's expedition seems to rest on no ground except that, as he says, "neither the contemporary Irish annalist, nor the two MSS. of the Chronicle which describe the expedition of Siward, allude to any cause for it, or note any result beyond the immense booty acquired." "They never," he adds, "mention the name of Malcolm or of the Confessor." Elsewhere (ii. 400) Mr. Robertson calls it an "expedition which appears to have been directed against Macbeth on account of the protection he has afforded to the Norman favourites of the Confessor." Now this last explanation is a mere conjecture of Mr. Robertson's own. There is not a scrap of evidence in support of it, while on the other side we have the distinct statement of Florence. Florence tells us directly that one object at least of Siward's expedition was the restoration of Malcolm ("Malcolmum, Regis Cumbrorum filium, ut Rex jusserat, Regem constituit "). He is followed, in nearly the same words, by the Manx Chronicler (1035, Munch, p. 3). Mr. Robertson's conjecture seems to me to be not only unsupported, but Tt

VOL. II.