within this period belong almost exclusively to the affairs of our own island. It is a period in which the relations between the vassal Kingdoms of Britain and the Imperial power again assume special importance. But it is still more emphatically marked by the death of the greatest of living Englishmen, and the transmission of his power, and more than his power, to a worthy successor. We left Godwine and Harold banished men. We have now to record their triumphant return to a rejoicing nation. We shall then have to record the death of Godwine, the accession of Harold to his father's formal rank, and the steps by which he gradually rose to be the virtual ruler of the Kingdom, perhaps the designated successor to the Crown.

1

§ 1. The Return and Death of Godwine.

1052-1053.

If the minds of Englishmen had been at all divided in their estimate of Godwine during his long tenure of power, it only needed his exile to bring over every patriotic heart to one opinion with regard to him. Godwine doubtless had his enemies; no man ever stood for thirty years and more at the head of affairs without making many enemies; and there were points in his character which may have given reasonable offence to many. Even if the whole of his enormous wealth was fairly and legally acquired, its mere accumulation in the hands of one man must have excited envy in many breasts. His eagerness to advance his family may well have offended others, and the crimes and the restoration of Swegen, even under the guaranty of Bishop Ealdred, cannot fail to have given general scandal. It is possible then that there were Englishmen, not devoid of love and loyalty to England, who were short-sighted enough to rejoice over the fall of the great Earl. But, when Godwine was gone, men soon learned that, whatever had been his faults, they were far outweighed by his merits. Men now knew that the Earl of the West-Saxons had been the one man who stood between them and the dominion of strangers. During that gloomy winter England felt as a conquered land, as a land too conquered by foes who had not overcome her in open battle, but who had, by craft and surprise, deprived her of her champions and guardians. The common voice of England soon began to call for the return of Godwine. The banished Earl was looked to by all men as the Father of his Country; England now knew that in his fall a fatal

At the same time, it is worth considering whether the whole of the estates set down in Domesday as belonging to Godwine and his sons were always their

private property, and whether some parts may not have been official estates attached to their Earldoms. Still, after all possible deductions, their wealth was enormous.

ENGLAND DURING GODWINE'S ABSENCE.

205

blow had been dealt to her own welfare and freedom.1 Men began openly to declare that it was better to share the banishment of Godwine than to live in the land from which Godwine was banished.2 Messages were sent to the court of Flanders, praying the Earl to return. If he chose to make his way back into the land by force, he would find many Englishmen ready to take up arms in his cause. Others crossed the sea in person, and pledged themselves to fight for him, and, if need were, to die in his behalf.3 These invitations, we are told, were no secret intrigue of a few men. The common voice of England, openly expressed and all but unanimous, demanded the return of the great confessor of English freedom.*

5

These open manifestations on behalf of the exiles could not escape the knowledge of the King and his counsellors. It was thought necessary to put the south-eastern coast into a state of defence against any possible attack from the side of Flanders. The King and his Witan -one would like to have fuller details of a Gemót held under such influences-decreed that ships should be sent forth to watch at the old watching-place of Sandwich. Forty ships were accordingly made ready, and they took their place at the appointed station under the joint command of the King's nephew Earl Ralph and of Odda, the newly appointed Earl of the Western shires."

6

Precautions of this kind against the return of one for whose return the mass of the nation was longing must have been unpopular in the highest degree. And if anything could still further heighten the general discontent with the existing state of things, it would be the events which were, just at this time, going on along the Welsh border. The Norman lords whom Eadward had settled in Herefordshire proved but poor defenders of their adopted country. The last continental improvements in the art of fortification proved vain to secure the land in the absence of chiefs of her own people. Gruffydd

1 Vita Eadw. 404. "Et quoniam supra diximus eum ab omnibus Anglis pro patre coli, subito auditus discessus ejus exterruit cor populi. Ejus absentiam sive fugam habuere perniciem suam, interitum gentis Anglica, excidium insuper totius patriæ."

2 Ib. "Felicem se putabat qui post eum exsulari poterat."

3 lb. 66 Quidam post eum vadunt, quidam legationes mittunt, paratos se, si velit reverti, eum cum violentiâ in patriâ suscipere, pro eo pugnare, pro eo, si necesse sit, velle se pariter occumbere."

4 Ib. "Et hoc accitabatur non clam vel privatim, sed in manifesto et publice, et non modo a quibusdam, sed pene ab omnibus indigenis patriæ."

of North Wales marked his opportunity; he broke through his shortlived alliance with England, and the year of the absence of Godwine and his sons was marked by an extensive and successful invasion of the land of the Magesætas.1 Gruffydd doubtless took also into his reckoning the absence of the-local chief at Sandwich. He crossed the border, he harried far and wide, and he seems not to have met with any resistance till he had reached the neighbourhood of Leo- . minster. There he was at last met by the levies of the country, together with the Norman garrison of Richard's Castle. Perhaps, as in a later conflict with the same enemy in the same neighbourhood, English and foreign troops failed to act well together; at all events the Welsh King had the victory, and, after slaying many men of both nations, he went away with a large booty. Men remarked that this heavy blow took place exactly thirteen years after Gruffydd's first great victory at Rhyd-y-Groes. Though the coincidence is thus marked, we are not told what day of what month was thus auspicious to the Welsh prince; but the dates of the events which follow show that it must have been early in the summer.

6

Godwine must by this time have seen that the path for his return was now open, and it was seemingly this last misfortune which determined him to delay no longer. It was not till all peaceful means had been tried and failed, that the banished Earl made up his mind to attempt a restoration by force. He sent many messages to the King, praying for a reconciliation. He offered now to Eadward, as he had before offered both to Harthacnut and to Eadward himself, to come into the royal presence and to make a compurgation in legal form in answer to all the charges which had been brought against him.

1 Chron. Wig. and Flor. Wig. 1052. This incursion seems not to be mentioned in the Welsh Chronicles. Its perpetrator is described only as "Griffin se Wylisca cing," "Walensium Rex Griffinus;" but the King intended must be the Northern Gruffydd.

2 The Worcester Chronicle says, "Pæt he com swype neah to Leomynstre." Florence speaks of the harrying, but does not mention the place.

3 Chron. Wig. "And men gadorodon ongean, ægðer ge landes men ge Frencisce men of dam castele." So Florence, "Contra quem provinciales illi et de castello quamplures Nortmanni ascenderunt." The "castle" is doubtless Richard's Castle. Florence, who had mistaken the meaning of the Chronicler in the entry of the former year (see above, p. 92), now that he had

But

got among Herefordshire matters, understood the description. IIere again the expressions witness to the deep feeling awakened by the building of this castle.

4 Chron. Wig. 1052. "And man þær ofsloh swype feola Engliscra godra manna, and eac of þam Frenciscum." (The French get no honourable epithet.) All this evaporates in Florence's "multis ex illis occisis." 5 See above, p. 36, and vol.'i. p. 339. 6 I infer this from the way in which Harold's expedition is spoken of as happening almost immediately ("sona," parvo post hoc tempore") after Gruffydd's victory, as if the two things had some connexion with each other.

66

7 Vita Eadw. 405. "Mittit tamen adhuc pacem et misericordiam petere a Rege domino suo [cynehlaford], ut sibi liceat cum ejus gratiâ ad se purgandum

GODWINE ATTEMPTS TO NEGOTIATE.

207

all such petitions were in vain. It marks the increasing intercourse between England and the Continent, that Godwine, when his own. messages were not listened to, sought, as a last resource, to obtain his object through the intercession of foreign princes.1 Embassies on his behalf were sent by his host Count Baldwin and by the King of the French. Baldwin, who had so lately been at war with England, might seem an ill-chosen intercessor; but Godwine's choice of him for that purpose may have been influenced by Baldwin's close connexion with the Court of Normandy. William was just now earnestly pressing his suit for Matilda. The ally of the great Duke might be expected to have some influence, if not with Eadward, at least with Eadward's Norman favourites. King Henry, it will be remembered, claimed some sort of kindred with Eadward, though it is not easy to trace the two princes to a common ancestor.2 But King and Marquess alike pleaded in vain. Eadward was surrounded by his foreign priests and courtiers, and no intercessions on behalf of the champion of England were allowed to have any weight with the royal mind, even if they were ever allowed to reach the royal ear.3

The Earl was now satisfied that nothing more was to be hoped from any attempts at a peaceful reconciliation. He was also satisfied that, if he attempted to return by force, the great majority of Englishmen would be less likely to resist him than to join his banners. He therefore, towards the middle of the summer, finally determined to attempt his restoration by force of arms, and he began to make preparations for that purpose. His conduct in so doing hardly needs any formal justification. It is simply the old question of resistance or non-resistance. If any man ever was justified in resistance to established authority, or in irregular enterprises of any kind, undoubtedly Godwine was justified in his design of making his way back into England in arms. So to do was indeed simply to follow the usual course of every banished man of those times who could gather together the needful force. The enterprises of Osgod Clapa at an earlier time, and of Elfgar at a later time, are not spoken of with any special condemnation by the historians of the time. And the enterprise of Godwine was of a very different kind from the enterprises of Elfgar and of Osgod Clapa. Elfgar and Osgod may have been banished unjustly, and they may, according to the morality of those times, have been guilty of no very great crime

legibus venire coram eo." See above, p. 91, and vol. i. p. 344.

i Vita Eadw. 405. "Hoc quoque pro ejus dilectione et suo officio missis legatis suis, Rex petit Francorum, et ipsum cum quo hiemabat idem persuadebat Marchio Flandrensium."

2 See above, p. 1o. Eadward and

Baldwin had a common ancestor, though certainly a very remote one, in Elfred himself. See above, p. 200.

3 Vita Eadw. 405. "Sed et illi hoc suggerebant satis frustra; obstruxerat enim pias Regis aures pravorum malitia.”

4 Ib. "Mediante proximâ æstate." 5 See above, p. 64.

men.

in seeking restoration with weapons in their hands. Still the question of their banishment or restoration was almost wholly a personal question. The existence of the welfare of England in no way depended on their presence or absence. But the rebellion or invasion of Godwine was a rebellion or an invasion in form only. His personal restoration meant nothing short of the deliverance of England from misgovernment and foreign influence. He had been driven out by a faction; he was invited to return by the nation. The enterprise of Godwine in short should be classed, not with the ordinary forcible return of an exile, but with enterprises like those of Henry of Bolingbroke in the fourteenth century and of William of Orange in the seventeenth. In all three cases the deliverer undoubtedly sought the deliverance of the country; in all three he also undoubtedly sought his own restoration or advancement. But Godwine had one great advantage over both his successors. They had to deal with wicked Kings; he had only to deal with a weak King. They had to deal with evil counsellors, who, however evil, were still EnglishGodwine had simply to deliver King and people from the influence and thraldom of foreigners. He was thus able, while his successors were not able, to deliver England without resorting to the death, deposition, or exile of the reigning King, and, as far as he himself was personally concerned, without shedding a drop of English blood. The narrative of this great deliverance forms one of the most glorious and spirit-stirring tales to be found in any age of our history. It is a tale which may be read with unmixed delight, save for one event, which, whether we count it for a crime or for a misfortune, throws a shadow on the renown, not of Godwine himself, but of his nobler son. Harold and Leofwine, we have seen, had made up their minds from the beginning to resort to force, whenever the opportunity should come. They had spent the winter in Ireland in making preparations for an expedition. They were by this time ready for action, and now that their father had found all attempts at a peaceful reconciliation to be vain, the time for action seemed clearly to have come. It was doubtless in concert with Godwine that Harold and Leofwine2 now set sail from Dublin with nine ships. Their crews probably consisted mainly of adventurers from the Danish havens of Ireland, ready for any enterprise which promised excitement and plunder. But it is quite possible that Englishmen, whether vehement partizans or simply desperate men, may have also taken service under the returning exiles. The part of England which they chose for their enterprise would have been well chosen, if they had been attacking a hostile country. They made for the debateable land forming the

1 See above, p. 99.

1

2 Leofwine is not mentioned in the Chronicles, but his name is given by Flo

rence, and the Biographer (405) speaks of "duo prædicti filii."