CHAPTER VII. FROM THE ELECTION OF EADWARD TO THE BANISHMENT OF GODWINE.1 1042-1051. We have thus far gone through the course of those events which acted as the more distant causes of the Norman Conquest; with the accession of Eadward we stand on the threshold of the Conquest 1 Among our authorities for this period the English Chronicles of course still retain their preeminent place, and the differences, especially the marked differences in political feeling, between the various versions become of constantly increasing importance. Florence also, always valuable, now increases in value. His narrative is still grounded on that of the Chronicles, but he gradually ceases to be a mere copyist. It is always of moment to see which of the several versions he follows; and, as he draws nearer his own time, he gradually acquires the character of a distinct authority. He can however hardly be looked on as such during the period embraced in this Chapter. The contemporary Biographer of Eadward now becomes of the greatest value in his own special department. For all matters which are strictly personal to the King, the Lady, and the whole family of Godwine, his authority is primary. He is however very distinctly not an historian, but a biographer, sometimes a laureate. In his narrative there are many omissions and some inaccuracies; his value lies mainly in his vivid personal portraits of the great men of the time, with all of whom he seems to have been personally acquainted. It must be borne in mind that his book, dedicated to the Lady Eadgyth, is to a great extent a panegyric on her family. Still it is highly important to have this description of them VOL. II. B from the English side to set against the dominant Norman calumnies. It is to the Chronicles as harmonized by Florence that we must go for our main facts; the Biographer gives us their personal aspect, their personal colouring, and many personal details. Just as the Encomiast of Eadgyth becomes of so much value, we lose the Encomiast of Emma, who ends his narrative with the accession of Harthacnut. The purely Norman writers now gain in importance. But, as regards purely English affairs, their importance is of this peculiar kind, that, after reading the English account of any fact, it is needful to turn and see what is the Norman perversion of it. At the head of the class stands William of Poitiers, Archdeacon of Lisieux, the chaplain and biographer of William the Conqueror. His work, unluckily imperfect, is our primary authority for all that concerns his hero; but allowance must be made throughout for his constant flattery of his own master and his frantic hatred towards Godwine and Harold. The later Norman writers, William of Jumièges and his continuator, and the poetical chroniclers, Robert Wace and Benoît de Sainte More, are of use as witnessing to Norman tradition, but they do not yet assume that special value which belongs to William of Jumièges and Wace at a somewhat later time. The subsidiary English writers, and the occasional notices to be found in the itself. The actual subjugation of England by force of arms is still twenty-four years distant; but the struggle between Norman and Englishman for dominion in England has already begun. That such would be the result of Eadward's accession was certainly not looked for by those who raised him to the throne. Never was any prince called to assume a crown by a more distinct expression of the national will. "All folk chose Eadward to King." The choice expressed the full purpose of the English nation to endure no King but one who was their bone and their flesh. No attachment to the memory of the Great Cnut could survive the utter misgovernment of his sons. The thought of another Danish King had become hateful. Yet the royal house of Denmark contained at least one prince who was in every way worthy to reign. Could the national feeling have endured another Danish ruler, Swegen Estrithson might have governed England as prudently and as prosperously as he afterwards governed Denmark. But the great qualities of Swegen had as yet hardly shown themselves. He could have been known at this time only as a young adventurer, who had signally failed in the only great exploit which he had attempted.1 And, above all things, the feeling of the moment called for an Englishman, for an Etheling of the blood of Cerdic. One such Ætheling only was at hand. One son of Eadmund Ironside was now grown up to manhood, but he had been from his infancy an exile in a distant land. Most likely no one thought of him as a possible candidate for the Crown; it may well be that his very existence was generally forgotten. In the eyes of Englishmen there was now only one representative of the ancient royal house. Eadward, the son of Ethelred and Emma, the brother of the murdered and half-canonized Ælfred, had long been familiar to English imaginations, and, since the accession of his halfbrother Harthacnut, the English Court had been his usual dwellingplace. Eadward, and Eadward alone, stood forth as the heir of English royalty, the representative of English nationality. In his behalf the popular voice spoke out at once and unmistakeably. "Before the King buried were, all folk chose Eadward to King at London." works of foreign historians, retain the same secondary value as before. Indeed, as Scandinavian affairs are of great importance during several years of this period, the Sagas of Magnus and of Harold Hardrada may be looked upon as of something more than secondary value. Among the secondary English writers. Henry of Huntingdon diminishes in importance, as he gets more out of the reach of those ancient ballads and traditions which it is his great merit to have preserved. On the other hand, the value of William of Malmesbury increases as he draws nearer to his own time. He often sets before us two versions of a story, and makes an attempt at a critical comparison of them. But his prejudices are distinctly Norman, and his utter lack of arrangement, his habit of dragging in the most irrelevant tales at the most important points of his narrative, makes him one of the most perplexing of writers to consult. 1 See vol. i. p. 353. |