CHAP. VII. truth of Harold's warlike exploits is in no way impugned by the silence of the Byzantine writers; but so striking an event as the blinding of an Emperor could hardly fail to have found a native chronicler. But we may believe, if we please, that Harold carried off the princess by force, that the Scandinavian galleys burst the chain which guarded the Bosporos, that Harold then left his fair prize on shore, bidding her tell her Imperial kinswoman how little her power availed against either the might or the craft of the He returns Northman.1 Harold now returned to Russia. He had carried to Russia, off the Byzantine princess only as a bravado; his heart was fixed on Elizabeth, the daughter of his former host. Jaroslaf of Novgorod. He now hastened to her father's court, obtained her in marriage, and passed over with her into Sweden. He there found Swegen, defeated and Swegen in in banishment. With him he concerted measures for Sweden. a joint expedition against Magnus, now in possession of Denmark. There can be little doubt that it was this joint expedition of Swegen and Harold which saved EngMagnus, land from a Norwegian invasion. King Eadward watched England at Sandwich with his great fleet during the whole summer, expecting the approach of the enemy. But Magnus came not. Harold and Swegen together, by their invasion of Denmark, gave him full occupation throughout the year.3

and finds

Swegen

and Harold attack

and save

from in

vasion. 1045.

Eadward

marries

It seems to have been early in this year of expected invaEadgyth. sion that Eadward at last married Eadgyth the daughter of January Godwine. It is not easy to see why the marriage had been

23, 1045.

1 On these exploits of Harold Hardrada, see Appendix K.

2 Snorro, Harold, c. 18 (Laing, iii. 17).

3 Chron. Wig. 1046. "On þam geare gegaderade Eadward cyng mycele scypferde on Sandwic, burh Magnus preatunge on Norwegon; ac his gewinn and Swegenes on Denmarcon geletton þæt he her ne com." So Fl. Wig. 1045; Rog. Wend. i. 483.

* Chronn. Ab. 1044; Petrib. 1043; Cant. 1045. But 1043 in Peterborough really means 1045, and the 1044 of Abingdon takes in the whole

EADWARD MARRIES EADGYTH.

79

so long delayed; but, if the Norman influence was ad- CHAP. VIL vancing, the wary Earl might well deem that no time was to be lost in bringing about the full completion of a promise which the King was most likely not very eager to fulfil. Godwine's power however was not as yet seriously shaken.

of Lotha

It was also probably in this year, as we have seen, that Earldoms his son Harold and his wife's nephew Beorn received their Harold and given to Earldoms. The ecclesiastical appointments of the year Beorn. seem also to point to the predominance of the patriotic party. In this In this year died Brihtwold, Bishop of the Wil- Death of Bishop sætas, a Prelate who had in past times been honoured Brihtwold. with a vision portending Eadward's accession to the Crown, and who had had the good luck of living to see his prophecy fulfilled. The appointment of his successor should Hermann be carefully noticed. He was Hermann of Lotharingia, a ringia succhaplain of the King, the first of the series of German or 1045. other Imperialist Prelates of whom I have already spoken.3 The promotion of Germans in England was not wholly Promotion new. It had begun under Cnut, in whose time the Saxon Duduc had obtained the Bishoprick of Somersetshire, and lates. another German, Wythmann by name, had held the great Bishop of abbey of Ramsey. Had the appointment of Hermann stood alone, we might have simply looked on it as the Wythmann

Christmas season running into the next year. The Hyde writer (288), amusingly enough, places the marriage after Godwine's return in 1052. Eadward "adveniens multâ probitate multâque animi industriâ cœpit florere, et Normannos quos adduxerat principes per Angliam constituere ; contra hunc quoque Comes Godwinus, pacis inimicus, tentans rebellare, irâ commotus, Angliâ discessit, moxque repatrians usque in ipsam metropolim Londoniam classem suam advexit. Denique se non posse prævalere animadvertens, pacem cum Edwardo statuit componere, et ut nullius rebellionis suspicio remaneret, filiam suam Editham nomine ei matrimonio copulavit, filiumque suum Haroldum ejus dapiferum constituit."

1 See above, p. 36.

2 This legend occurs in the Vita Eadwardi, p. 394. It is of course not omitted by the professed hagiographers. See Appendix B.

See above, p. 41.

* See Appendix L.

ceeds.

of Ger

man Pre

Duduc

Somerset.

1033-1060.

Abbot of
Ramsay.

man ap

Lotharin

gian ap

pointments.

CHAP. VII. result of Eadward's connexion with King Henry. Or we might even have looked on it in a worse light, as a sign that Eadward preferred foreigners of any kind to his own countrymen. But several considerations may lead us to The Ger- look on the matter in another way. These German appointments pointments are clearly parts of a system; the system is probably continued after the death of Henry the Third, when the favoured by Godwine. close connexion between Germany and England ends; Harold himself, in the height of his power, appears as a special promoter of German churchmen. We can therefore hardly fail to see in these appointments, as I have already hinted, an attempt of Godwine and the patriotic party to counterbalance the merely French Policy of tendencies of Eadward himself. We must observe that most of these Prelates were natives of Lotharingia, a term which, in the geography of that age, includes— and indeed most commonly means-the Southern Netherlands. That is to say, they came from the border-land of Germany and France, where the languages of both kingdoms were already familiar to every educated man.1 We can well understand that, in those cases in which the patriots found it impossible to procure the King's consent to the appointment of an Englishman, they might well be content to accept the appointment of a German of Lotharingia as a compromise. One whose blood, speech, and manners had not wholly lost the traces of ancient brotherhood would be more acceptable to Godwine and to England than a mere Frenchman. And one to whom the beloved speech of Gaul was as familiar as his mothertongue would be more acceptable to the denationalized Eadward than one of his own subjects. This policy was probably as sound as any that could be hit upon in such a wretched state of things. But its results were not

1 See vol. i. p. 607.

THE LOTHARINGIAN PRELATES.

81

1

wholly satisfactory. I know of no reason to believe that CHAP. VII. any of these Lotharingian Prelates proved actual traitors to England; but they certainly did not, as a class, offer the same steady resistance to French influences as the men who had been born in the land. And, if they were not Normannizers, they were at least Romanizers. They brought with them habits of constant reference to the Papal See, and a variety of scruples on points of small canonical regularity, to which Englishmen had hitherto been strangers. Still something was gained, when, on the death of Brihtwold, a Lotharingian, instead of a French, successor was procured, in the person of Hermann, one of the King's Chaplains. A slight counterpoise was thus gained to the influence of the Norman Bishop of London. But at the next great ecclesiastical vacancy the patriotic party were more successful. In the Death of Bishop course of the next year England lost one of her truest Lyfing. worthies; the great Earl lost one who had been his right March 23, 1046. hand man in so many crises of his life, in so many labours for the welfare of his country. Lyfing, the His career patriot Bishop of Worcester, died in March in the follow- racter, ing year. Originally a monk of Winchester, he was first raised to the Abbacy of Tavistock. While still holding that office, he had been the companion of Cnut in his Roman pilgrimage, and had been the bearer of the great King's famous letter to his English subjects. The consummate prudence which he had displayed in that and in other commissions 3 had procured his appointment to the Bishoprick of Crediton or Devonshire. With that see the Bishoprick of Cornwall had been finally united during

1 See Appendix I, and L.

2 Fl. Wig. 1031; Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 145 b.

2

3 "Vir prudentissimus Livingus," says Florence (1031); “Omnibus quæ injuncta fuerant, sapienter et mirifice ante adventum Regis consummatis," says William.

and cha

1027,

4

CHAP. VII. his episcopate.1 With that double see he had held, ac1038. cording to a vicious use not uncommon at the time, the Bishoprick of Worcester in plurality. In this high position he had steadily adhered to the cause of the great Earl through all the storms of the days of Harold and Harthacnut, and he had had a share second only to that of Godwine himself in the work of placing Eadward upon the throne.3 Either his plurality of benefices had given, as it reasonably might, offence to strict assertors of ecclesiastical rule, or, what is at least as likely, the patriotic career of Lyfing had made him, like Godwine himself, a mark for Norman slander alike in life and death. His end, we are told, was accompanied by strange portents, which were however quite as capable of a favourable as of an unfavourable interpretation. But his memory was loved and cherished in the places where he was best known. Long after the Norman Conquest, the name of the Prelate whose body rested in their minster still lived in the hearts and on the mouths of the monks of Tavistock. And the simple entry of a Chronicler who had doubtless heard him with his own ears bears witness to

1 Will. Malms. Gest. Pont. 145 b. Cf. Gest. Regg. iii. 300. 2 See vol. i. p. 501. There is a curious notice of Lyfing's plurality of Bishopricks in a deed in Cod. Dipl. vi. 195. It is a conveyance of lands to Sherborne Minster made in a Scirgemót of Devonshire under the presidency of Earl Godwine. Lyfing is one of the witnesses, and he is described as "Lyfing bisceop be norðan," as if a Devonshire man's ideas of Worcester were not very clear. Worcester was clearly the see which Lyfing loved best. 3 See above, p. 7.

4 Will. Malms. u. s. "Ambitiosus et protervus ecclesiasticarum legum tyrannus, ut fertur, invictus, qui nihil pensi haberet, quominus omni voluntati suæ assisteret."

5 Will. Malms. u. s. "A majoribus accepimus, quum ille spiritum efflaret, tum horrisonum crepitum per totam Angliam auditum, ut ruina et finis totius putaretur orbis." The loss of men like Lyfing is indeed the ruin of nations.

• Will. Malms. (u. s.), who speaks of his gifts to the monastery, and of the services still said for him, "ut hodieque xv. graduum psalmos continuatâ per successores consuetudine pro ejus decantent quiete."