EADGYTH SENT TO WHERWELL. 101 Baldwin at Bruges, and they stayed at his court through the whole winter, plotting schemes of vengeance. One member only of the family of Godwine still remained to be disposed of. What had been the position or the feelings of Eadgyth during the scenes which have been just described we have no means of knowing; but she too was doomed to have her share in the downfall of her father's house. The English Lady, the daughter of Godwine, could not be allowed to share the honours of royalty, now that all her kinsfolk were driven from the land,' now that the reign of the Normans was about to set in. The language of one contemporary authority seems almost to imply an actual divorce, of which Archbishop Robert was of course the main instigator." The lawfulness or possibility of divorce in such a case might form a curious subject of speculation for those who are learned in the Canon Law. Eadward consented, perhaps willingly, to the separation; he allowed the Lady to be deprived of all her goods, real and personal; 3 but he interfered at least to save her from personal ignominy. Eadgyth was sent, with no lack of respect or royal attendance, to the royal monastery of Wherwell, and was there entrusted to the safe keeping of the Abbess. This Abbess was a sister of the King, no doubt one of the daughters of Ethelred by his first wife. One of the widows of the slain and banished Earls, the relict of the traitor Eadric or of the hero Ulfcytel,' had taken the veil in the holy house of Eadgar and Ælfthryth, and she could there confer with her guest on the uncertainty of human happiness and the emptiness of human greatness.. The whole of this history of the fall of Godwine is most remarkable; and it is singular that, though it is told in great detail in three 1 Will. Malms. ii. 199. "Ne scilicet omnibus suis parentibus patriam suspirantibus sola sterteret in plumâ." This odd phrase sounds like a real sneer of some contemporary Frenchman. 2 Vita Eadw. 403. See above, p. 30. Florence says "repudiavit." 3 The Worcester Chronicle, Florence, and the Biographer do not mention the seizure of the Lady's property. The Peterborough Chronicle says, "ba forlet se cyng þa hlæfdian, seo was gehalgod him to cwene, and let niman of hire eall þæt heo ahte on lande and on golde and on seolfre." So William of Malmesbury; "Omnis reginæ substantia ad unum nummum emuncta." pedissequâ ad Hwereweallam eam sine honore misit." In the Life of Eadward (403), on the other hand, we read, “Cum regio honore et imperiali comitatu, morens tamen perducitur." The narrative, addressed to Eadgyth herself, is here the better authority. 5 Wherwell, according to all our authorities, except the Biographer. He says Wilton. As he could hardly be mistaken on such a point, and as the evidence for Wherwell seems conclusive, we must set down Wilton as a clerical error. The Worcester Chronicle, Florence, and the Biographer do not mention the kindred of the Abbess with the King; it is asserted by the Peterborough Chronicle and by William of Malmesbury. On the daughters of Ethelred, see vol. i. pp. 222, 224, 233, 278, 433, 455. 8 See vol. i. p. 211. distinct accounts, so much still remains which is far from being intelligible. The first point which at once strikes us is the strength of Godwine in the Gemót of Gloucester and his weakness in the Gemót of London. Next year indeed we shall see the tide turn yet again; we shall behold Godwine return in triumph with the good will of all England. This is of course no difficulty; it would be no difficulty, even if popular feeling had been thoroughly against Godwine during the former year. Englishmen welcomed Godwine back again, because they had learned what it was to be without him. But the change of Godwine's position during that eventful September of which we have just gone through the history is certainly perplexing. At Beverstone and at Gloucester he appears at the head of the whole force of Wessex, East-Anglia, and part of Mercia. All are zealous in his cause, ready, if need be, to fight in his quarrel against the King himself. He is clearly not without well-wishers even in the ranks of the Northern Earldoms. A compromise is brought about in which his honour is carefully guarded, and in which his party and the King's party are studiously put on equal terms. In the London Gemót, a few weeks later, all is changed. His followers gradually drop away from him; he does not venture to take his place in the Assembly which he had so often swayed at his pleasure; he is dealt with as an accused, almost as a convicted, criminal; he is subjected with impunity to every sort of unjust and irritating treatment; and he is at last driven to flee from the land, without a blow being struck, almost without a voice being raised, in his behalf. Such a falling away is difficult to understand; it is hard to see how Godwine could have given fresh offence to any one in the time between the conference at Gloucester and his appearance at Southwark. Norman flatterers and talebearers may have fanned the King's prejudice against him into a still hotter flame; but there is at first sight nothing to account for the desertion of his own followers. As for the Northern Earls and their followers, they had no ground of jealousy against Godwine in London which they had not equally at Gloucester; and at Gloucester they clearly were not disposed to push matters to extremities. Still it was clearly the number and strength of the following of Siward and Leofric in the London Gemót which decided the day against Godwine. The Earl of the West-Saxons was entrapped. He and his party came as to a peaceful assembly, and they found the King and his foreign followers bent on their destruction, and a powerful military force assembled to crush them. But why did even Siward lend himself to a scheme like this? Why, still more, did Leofric forsake the part, which he had so often and so worthily played, of mediator between extreme parties? Unless we are to believe, which one would not willingly do, that Leofric was won by the bait of Harold's Earldom for his son, we can only suppose that a mistaken feeling of loyalty hindered him from CAUSES OF Godwine's fall. 103 opposing a project on which he saw that the King was fully bent. It is in his position and that of Siward that the main difficulty lies. When Godwine found himself face to face with all the strength of Northern England, the rest of the story becomes more intelligible. He had come expecting a fair discussion of all the questions at issue. But fair discussion was not to be had amid the clash of the axes of Siward's Danes and of the lances of Ralph's Frenchmen. Godwine had really no choice but to fight or to yield. Had he chosen to fight, the whole force of Wessex and East-Anglia would no doubt have soon been again at his command. But he shrank from a civil war; he saw that it was better policy to bide his time, to yield, even to flee, certain that a revulsion of national feeling would soon demand his recall. Such a course was doubtless wise and patriotic; but it was not one which would be at the time either acceptable or intelligible to the mass of his followers. If he meant to resist, he should doubtless have resisted at once; the hopes of an insurrection always lie in promptness and energy; every hour of delay only adds to the strength of the other side. We can thus understand how men began to fall off from a chief who, it might be said, dared not meet his sovereign either in arms or in council. Still, after all, there is something strange in the details of the story. There is something amazing in so sudden and so utter a fall, not only from the general exaltation of himself and his family, but from the proud and threatening position which he had so lately held at Beverstone and Gloucester. It is not wonderful that Godwine's fall from such an unparalleled height of greatness made a deep impression on the minds of the men of his own age. The Biographer of Eadward, who had before likened the children of Godwine to the rivers of Paradise,1 now deems it a fitting occasion to call upon his Muse to set forth the sufferings of the innocent, and to compare the outlawed Earl to Susanna, Joseph, and other ancient victims of slander.2 The plain English of the Chronicler who is less strongly committed to Godwine's cause speaks more directly to the heart; "That would have seemed wonderful to ilk man that in England was, if any man ere that had said that so it should be. For that ere that he was so upheaven, so that he wielded the King and all England, and his sons were Earls and the King's darlings, and his daughter to the King wedded and married." He fell from his high estate; but in his fall he doubtless foresaw that the day of his restoration was not far distant. Another Gemót of London was soon 1 Vita Eadw. 397. See Appendix F. 2 Vita Eadw. 403. Twenty hexameters are devoted to the comparison. 3 Chron. Wig. 1052. 'pat wolde Syncan wundorlic ælcum men be on Englalande wæs, gif ænig man ær þam sæde 66 þæt hit swa gewurban sceolde. Forðam be he was ar to pam swyce up ahafen, swyde he weolde pas cynges and calles Englalandes, and his sunan waron eorlas and pæs cynges dyrlingas, and his dohtor pæm cynge bewedded and beawnod." to repeal the unrighteous vote of its predecessor; the champion of England was to return for a moment to his old honours and his old power, and then to hand them on to a son even more worthy of them than himself. were vacant. But for the moment the overthrow of the patriotic leaders was complete. The dominion of the strangers over the mind of the feeble King was fully assured. The Norman Conquest, in short, might now seem to have more than begun. Honours and offices were of course divided among the foreigners and among those Englishmen who had stood on the King's side. Through the banishment of Godwine and his sons three great Earldoms No one Earl of the West-Saxons seems to have been appointed. Probably, as in the early days of Cnut,1 the Imperial Kingdom, or at least its greater portion, was once more put under the immediate government of the Crown. The anomalous Earldom of Swegen was dismembered. The King's nephew Ralph seems to have been again invested with the government of its Mercian portions. Of the two West-Saxon shires held by Swegen, Berkshire is not mentioned, but Somersetshire was joined with the other western parts of Wessex to form a new government under Odda, a kinsman of the King. His Earldom took in the whole of the ancient Wealhcyn, but it is now Cornwall only which is distinguished as Welsh. The policy of Æthelstan had been effectual, and no part of the island east of the Tamar is now looked on as a foreign land. Odda was a special favourite of the monks, and is spoken of as a man of good and clean life, who in the end became a monk himself." The third Earldom, that of East-Anglia, hitherto held by Harold, was bestowed on Ælfgar the son of Leofric, of whom we hear for the first time during these commotions. He had himself, it would seem, played a prominent part in them,' and one would wish to believe that his promotion was the reward of acts of his own, rather than of his Ab. and Fl. Wig. in anno. Florence seems to translate "clæne" by "virginitatis custos.' He built the present church of Deerhurst (see vol. i. p. 237), as an offering for the soul of his brother Ælfric. See Earle, p. 345. 6 Chron. Petrib. 1048; Will. Malms. ii. 199. "Comitatus ejus [Haroldi] attributus Elgaro, Leofrici filio, viro industrio; quem ille suscipiens tunc rexit nobiliter, reverso restituit libenter." 7 The Biographer (401, 2) mentions his coming to Gloucester along with his father and Siward. PROMOTION OF THE KING'S FRIENDS. 2 105 father's seeming desertion of the patriotic cause.. Among churchmen, Spearhafoc, who had throughout the summer and autumn held the see of London without consecration,1 had now to give up his doubtful possession. The Bishoprick was then given to a Norman named William, a chaplain of the King. A man might now go from the Straits of Dover to the Humber, over Kentish, East-Saxon, and Danish ground, without once in the course of his journey going out of the spiritual jurisdiction of Norman Prelates. It is due however to Bishop William to say that he bears a very different character in our history from either his Metropolitan Robert or his fellow-suffragan Ulf. Banished for a while, he was restored when the patriotic party was in the height of its power-a distinct witness in his favour, perhaps a witness against his English competitor. William kept his Bishoprick for many years, and lived to welcome his namesake and native prince to the throne of England. But he had not to wait for so distant an opportunity of displaying his new honours in the eyes of his natural sovereign. While Godwine dwelt as an exile at Bruges, while Harold was planning schemes of vengeance in the friendly court of Dublin, William the Bastard first set foot on the shores of England.* We are thus at last brought face to face with the two great actors in our history. Harold has already appeared before us. We have seen him raised at an early age to the highest rank open to a subject; we have seen him, in the cause of his country, deprived of his honours and driven to take refuge in a foreign land. His great rival we have as yet heard of only at a distance; he now comes directly on the field. There can be no doubt that William's visit to England forms a stage, and a most important one, among the immediate causes of the Norman Conquest. I pause then, at this point, to take up the thread of Norman history, and to give a sketch of the birth, the childhood, the early reign, of the man who, in the year of Godwine's banishment, saw for the first time the land which, fifteen years later, he was to claim as his own. 1 See above, p. 79. 2 Chron. Wig. 1052; Petrib. 1048; Flor. Wig. 1051. 3 Flor. Wig. 1052. |