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CAUSES OF HIS POPULAR REPUTATION.

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needful than ever to look closely to a man's recorded acts, and to his character as described by those who wrote before his formal canonization. Otherwise we shall be in danger of mistaking hagiology for history. When a man is once canonized, his acts and character immediately pass out of the reach of ordinary criticism. Religious edification, not historical truth, becomes the aim of all who speak or write of one who has been formally enrolled as an object of religious reverence.1 We must also be on our guard even in dealing with authors who wrote before his formal canonization, but after that popular canonization which was so often the first step towards it. It was of course the general reverence in which a man was held, the general belief in his holiness and miraculous powers, which formed the grounds of the demand for his formal canonization. But while we must be specially on our guard in weighing the character of particular acts and the value of particular panegyrics, we must remember that the popular esteem which thus led to canonization proves a great deal as to a man's general character. It proves still more when, as in the case of Eadward, there was no one special act, no one marked deed of Christian heroism or Christian endurance, which formed the holy man's claim to popular reverence. Eadward was not like one of those who died for their faith or for their country, and who, on the strength of such death, were at once revered as martyrs, without much inquiry into their actions and characters in other respects. He was not even like one of those, his sainted uncle and namesake for instance,2 who gained the honours of martyrdom on still easier terms, by simply dying an unjust death, even though no religious or political principle was at stake. The popular reverence in which Eadward was held could rest on no ground except the genuine popular estimate of his general character. There were indeed strong political reasons which attached men to his memory. He was the one prominent man of the days immediately before the Conquest whom Normans and Englishmen could agree to reverence. The English naturally cherished the memory of the last prince of the ancient stock. They dwelt on his real or supposed virtues as a bright contrast to the crimes and vices of his Norman successors. Under the yoke of foreign masters they looked back to the peace and happiness of the days of their native King. The King who reigned on the English throne without a spark of English feeling, became the popular embodiment of English nationality, and men called for the Laws of King Eadward as in earlier times they had called for the Laws of Cnut or of Eadgar. On the other hand, it suited the policy of the Normans to show all respect to the kinsman of their own Duke, the King by whose pretended bequest

1 On the legendary history of Eadward see Appendix B.

2 See vol. i. pp. 177, 226.

3 See vol. i. pp. 147, 281.

their Duke claimed the English Crown, and whose lawful successor he professed himself to be. In English eyes Eadward stood out in contrast to the invader William; in Norman eyes he stood out in contrast to the usurper Harold. A King whom two hostile races thus agreed in respecting could not fail to obtain both popular and formal canonization on somewhat easy terms. Still he could hardly have obtained either the one or the other only on grounds like these. He must have displayed some personal qualities which really won him popular affection during life and maintained him in popular reverence after death. It is worth while to study a little more at length the character of a man who obtained in his own age a degree of respect which in our eyes seems justified neither by several of his particular actions nor by the general tenour of his government.

That Eadward was in any sense a great man, that he displayed any of the higher qualities of a ruler of those days, no one probably will assert. He was doubtless in some respects a better man than Cnut, than Harold, or than William; as a King of the eleventh century no one will venture to compare him with those three mighty ones. His wars were waged by deputy, and his civil government was carried on largely by deputy also. Of his many personal virtues, his earnest piety, his good intentions in every way, his sincere desire for the welfare of his people, there can be no doubt. Vice of every kind, injustice, wanton cruelty, were hateful to him. But in all kingly qualities he was utterly lacking. In fact, so far as a really good man can reproduce the character of a thoroughly bad one, Eadward reproduced the character of his father Æthelred. Writers who lived before his canonization, or who did not come within the magic halo of his sanctity, do not scruple to charge him, as his father is charged, with utter sloth and incapacity.1 Like his father, he was quite incapable of any steady attention to the duties of royalty; but, like his father, he had occasional fits of energy, which, like those of his father, often came at the wrong time. His contemporary panegyrist allows that he gave way to occasional fits of wrath, but he pleads that his anger never hurried him into unbecoming language. It hurried him however, more than once, into very unbecoming intentions.

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suscitaret animi motum, leonini videbatur terroris, iram tamen non prodebat jurgiis." We shall presently come across a ludicrous example of his "nobilis ira," venting itself in an oath. Possibly the reference may partly be to his abstinence, like that of Saint Lewis, from the French, and generally southern, vice of reviling God and the Saints. See Joinville, p. 120 ed. Ducange, 1668; p. 217 ed. Michel, 1858.

CHARACTER OF EADWARD.

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shall find that, on two memorable occasions, it needed the intervention of his better genius, in the form first of Godwine and then of Harold, to keep back the saintly King from massacre and civil war.1 Here we see the exact parallels to Ethelred's mad expeditions against Normandy, Cumberland, and St. David's. But Eadward was not only free from the personal vices and cruelties of his father; there can be no doubt that, except when carried away by ebullitions of this kind, he sincerely endeavoured, according to the measure of his ability, to establish a good administration of justice throughout his dominions. But the duties of secular government, although doubtless discharged conscientiously and to the best of his ability, were with Eadward always something which went against the grain. His natural place was, not on the throne of England, but at the head of a Norman Abbey. Nothing, one would think, could have hindered him from entering on the religious life in the days of his exile, unless it were a vague kind of feeling that other duties were thrown upon him by his birth. For all his virtues were those of a monk; all the real man came out in his zeal for collecting relics, in his visions, in his religious exercises, in his gifts to churches and monasteries, in his desire to mark his reign, as its chief result, by the foundation of his great Abbey of Saint Peter at Westminster. In a prince of the manly piety of Alfred things of this sort form only a part, a pleasing and harmonious part, of the general character. In Eadward they formed the whole man. His time was oddly divided between his prayers and the pastime which seems least suited to the character of a saint. The devotion to the pleasures of the chase was so universal among the princes and nobles of that age that it is needless to speak of it as a feature in any man's character, unless when some special circumstance forces it into special notice. We remark it in the two Williams, because it was their love of hunting which led them into their worst acts of oppression; we remark it in Eadward, because it seems so utterly incongruous with the other features of his character. There were

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votione, jocundabatur plurimum coram se allatis accipitribus vel hujus generis avibus, vel certe delectabatur applausibus multorum motuum canibus. His et talibus interdum deducebat diem, et in his tantummodo ex naturâ videbatur aliquam mundi captare delectationem." So William of Malmesbury (ii. 220), in a passage which, like several others, makes one think that he had this Life of Eadward before him; "Unum erat quo in sæculo animum oblectaret suum, cursus canum velocium,' quorum circa saltus latratibus solebat lætus applaudere; volatus volucrum quorum na

men even in those times who could feel pity for animal suffering and who found no pleasure in the wanton infliction of pain. Tenderness for animals is no unusual feature in either the real or the legendary portraits of holy men. Anselm, the true saint, like Ceadda in earlier times, saved the life of the hunted beast which sought his protection, and made the incident the text of a religious exhortation to his companions. He saw a worthy object for prayer in the sufferings of a bird tortured by a thoughtless child, and his gentle heart found matter for pious rejoicing in the escape of the feathered captive.1 Humanity like this met with but little response in the breast of the saintly monarch. The piercing cry, the look of mute agony, of the frightened, wearied, tortured beast awakened no more pity in the heart of the saintly King than in that of the rudest Danish Thegn who shared his savage pastime. The sufferings of the hart panting for the water-brooks, the pangs of the timid hare falling helpless into the jaws of her pursuers, the struggles of the helpless bird grasped in the talons of the resistless hawk, afforded as keen a delight to the prince who had never seen steel flash in earnest, as ever they did to men whom a life of constant warfare in a rude age had taught to look lightly on the sufferings and death even of their own kind. Once, we are told, a churl, resisting, it well may be, some trespass of the King and his foreign courtiers on an Englishman's freehold, put some hindrance in the way of the royal sport. An unsaintly oath and an unkingly threat at once rose to the lips of Eadward; "By God and his Mother, I will hurt you some day if I can." Had Anselm, in the might of his true holiness, thus crossed the path of his brother saint, he too, as the defender of the oppressed, might have become the object of a like outburst of impotent wrath. A delight in amusements of this kind is hardly a fair subject of blame in men of any age to whom the rights of the lower animals have

tura est de cognatis avibus prædas agere. Ad hæc exercitia continuis diebus, post audita mane divina officia, intendebat." He retained these tastes to the last. In 1065 Harold built a house at Portskewet as a hunting-seat for the King. Chronn. Ab. and Wig., and Flor. Wig. in anno.

1 For these two beautiful stories of Saint Anselm, see his Life by Eadmer, ii. 27, 28, who is followed by John of Salisbury, Anglia Sacra, ii. 165.

2 It is not clear whether Eadward did not take the same delight as Queen Elizabeth in another form of animal torture. There is something suspicious in part of the royal dues paid by the city of Norwich, "ursum et sex canes ad ursum" [a

very business-like phrase]. Domesday, ii. 117. Cf. Will. Fitz-Stephen, Giles, i. 180.

3 Will. Malms. ii. 196. “Dum quâdam vice venatum isset, et agrestis quidam stabulata illa quibus in casses cervi urgentur confudisset, ille suá nobili percitus irâ 'Per Deum' inquit 'et Matrem ejus, tantumdem tibi nocebo si potero."" William's whole comment is very curious. This story has been made good use of by Lord Lytton, in his romance of "Harold," which, if the sentimental and supernatural parts were struck out, would form a narrative more accurate than most so-called histories of the time. For a somewhat similar tale see Motley, United Netherlands, iii. 172.

EADWARD'S PERSONAL HABITS.

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perhaps never been presented as matter for serious thought. But in a man laying claim to special holiness, to special meekness and gentleness of character, we naturally look for a higher standard, a standard which a contemporary example shows not to have been unattainable even in that age.

In person Eadward is described as being handsome, of moderate height, his face full and rosy, his hair and beard white as snow.1 His beard he wore long, according to what seems to have been the older fashion both of England and of Normandy.2 Among his younger contemporaries this fashion went out of use in both countries, and the Normans shaved the whole face, while the English left the hair on the upper lip only. He was remarkable for the length and whiteness of his hands. When not excited by passion, he was gentle and affable to all men; he was liberal both to the poor and to his friends; but he had also the special art of giving a graceful refusal, so that the rejection of a suit by him was almost as pleasing as its acceptance by another. In public he always preserved his kingly dignity; but he took little pleasure in the pomp of royalty or in wearing the gorgeous robes which were wrought for him by the industry and affection of his Lady. In private company, though he never forgot his rank, he could unbend, and treat his familiar friends as an equal. He avoided however one bad habit of his age, that of choosing the time of divine service as the time for private conversation. It is mentioned as a special mark of his devotion that he scarcely ever spoke during mass, except when he was interrupted by others. The mention of his

1 Vita Eadw. 396. "Hominis persona erat decentissima, discreta proceritatis, capillis et barbâ canitie insignis lacteâ, facie plenâ et cute roseâ, manibus macris et niveis, longis quoque interlucentibus digitis, reliquo corpore toto integer et regius homo." William of Malmesbury (ii. 220) seems again to copy the Biographer; "Erat discrete proceritatis, barbâ et capillis cygneus, facie roseus, toto corpore lacteus, membrorum habitudine commodâ peridoneus." Eadward was seemingly an albino. 2 In the Bayeux Tapestry Eadward and one or two others are represented with long beards. William and Harold, and the mass of their respective countrymen, are represented according to the later fashions described in the text.

3 Vita Eadw. 396. "Cunctis poscentibus ut benigne daret aut benigne negaret, ita et ut benigna negatio plurima videretur largitio."

1 Ib. 415. So Will. Malms. ii. 220.
5 Ib. 396. "In frequentiâ vere se Re-
VOL. II.

gem et dominum, in privato, salvâ quidem
regiâ majestate, agebat se suis ut consocium."
6 Ib. 415.
"Inter ipsa divinorum my-
steriorum et missarum sacrosancta officia
agninâ mansuetudine stabat, et mente tran-
quillâ cunctis fidelibus spectabilis Christi-
cola, inter quæ, nisi interpellaretur, raris-
sime cui loquebatur." Compare the oppo-
site description given of Henry the Second,
who always talked of public affairs during
mass (Gir. Camb. Exp. Hib. i. 46. p. 305
Dimock, and see more at large Stubbs,
Benedict, ii. xxx.), and the curious story of
his holding a discourse at such a moment
with Saint Thomas of Canterbury himself,
as told by Roger of Pontigny (Giles, i.
132). It is however somewhat differently
told by William Fitz-Stephen (ib. i. 218). See
Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1860, p. 386.

The Ayenbite of Inwyt (p. 20 ed. Morris) reproves this practice as a common fault; "And huanne þe ssoldest yhere his messe ober his sermon at cherche, pou iangledest and bourdedest to-vor God."

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