had been deprived, and was restored to the place, whatever that place may have been, which she had before held in the court and household of Eadward.1 The restoration of the house of Godwine to its rank and honours was thus complete, so far as the members of that house had appeared in person to claim again that which they had lost. But in the glories of that day the eldest born of Godwine and Gytha had no part. Swegen had shared his father's banishment; he had not shared his father's return. His guilty, but not hardened, soul had been stricken to the earth by the memory of his crimes. The blood of Beorn, the wrongs of Eadgifu, lay heavy upon his spirit. At the bidding of his own remorse, he had left his father and brothers behind in Flanders, and had gone, barefooted, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Tomb. He fulfilled his vow, but he lived not to return to his Earldom or to his native land. While his father and brothers were making their triumphant defence before their assembled countrymen, Swegen was toiling back, slowly and wearily, through the dwelling-places of men of other tongues and of other creeds. The toil was too great for a frame no doubt already bowed down by remorse and penance. Cold, exposure, and weariness were too much for him, and fourteen days after Godwine's solemn restoration in London (September 29, 1052), the eldest son of Godwine breathed his last in some unknown spot of the distant land of Lykia." 3 There is no doubt that the three great decrees, for the restoration of Godwine and his family, for the outlawry of the Archbishop and the other Normans, and for the renewal of the good laws, were all passed in the great Gemôt of this memorable Tuesday. Other measures which naturally followed may well have been dealt with in later, perhaps in less crowded and excited, assemblies. Some of the greatest offices in Church and State had to be disposed of. Godwine and Harold received their old Earldoms back again. The restoration of Harold implied the deposition of Elfgar. It is singular that we 1 Chron. Petrib. 1052. "And se Cyng geaf pære Hlæfdian eall þæt heo ær ahte. Chron. Ab. "And Godwine Eorl and Harold and seo Cwen [this title is unusual, but not quite unique] sæton on heora âre." She had just before come in incidentally in the list of Godwine's family; "his sunum .. and his wife and his dehter." Flor. Wig. "Filiam quoque Ducis, Eadgitham Reginam, digniter Rex recepit et pristinæ dignitati restituit." The Biographer (406) of course waxes eloquent; "Modico exinde interfluente tempore mittitur æque regio, ut par erat, apparatu ad monasterium Wiltunense [on this confusion see p. 101] et [I leave out metaphors about the sun, &c.] reducitur Regina, ejusdem Ducis filia, ad thalamum Regis." This last expression should be noticed, and compared with the account in Roger of Wendover. 2 On the pilgrimage of Swegen see Appendix BB. 3 "On pone Tiwesdag hî gewurdon sehte, swa hit her beforan stent," says the Abingdon Chronicle. PILGRIMAGE AND DEATH OF SWEGEN. 225 find no distinct mention either of him or of his father, nor yet of Siward, through the whole history of the revolution. The only hint which we have on the subject seems to imply that they at least acquiesced in the changes which were made, and even that Ælfgar cheerfully submitted to the loss of his Earldom.1 As Swegen did not return, there was no need to disturb Ralph in his Earldom of the Magesætas. Odda must have given up that portion of Godwine's Earldom which had been entrusted to him,2 but he seems to have been indemnified by Ralph's former Earldom of the Hwiccas, both Ralph and Odda probably holding under the superior authority of Leofric.3 The disposal of the Bishopricks which had become vacant by the flight of their foreign occupants was a more important matter; at least it led to more important consequences in the long run. At the moment of Godwine's restoration, it probably did not occur to any Englishman to doubt that they were vacant both in fact and in law. Robert and Ulf had fled from their sees; they had been declared outlaws by the highest authority of the nation, or rather by the nation itself. Our forefathers most likely thought very little about canonical subtleties. They would hardly argue the point whether the Bishops had resigned or had been deprived, nor would they doubt that the nation had full power to deprive them. In whatever way the vacancies had occurred, the sees were in fact vacant; there was no Archbishop at Canterbury and no Bishop at Dorchester. That the King and his Witan would be stepping beyond their powers in filling those sees was not likely to come into any man's head. We must remember how thoroughly the English nation and the English Church were then identified. No broad line was drawn between ecclesiastical and temporal causes, between ecclesiastical and temporal offices. The immediate personal duties of an Earl were undoubtedly different from those of a Bishop; but the two dignitaries acted within their shire with a joint authority in many matters which, a hundred years later, would have been divided between a distinct civil and a distinct ecclesiastical tribunal. In appointing a Bishop, though we have seen that canonical election was not shut out, we have also seen that the Witan of the land had their share in the matter, and that it was by the King's writ that the Bishoprick was formally bestowed. What the King and his Witan gave, the King and his Witan could doubtless take away, and they accordingly dealt with the sees of the outlawed Bishops exactly as they would have dealt with the Earldoms of outlawed Earls. It might almost seem that the see of the chief offender, 1 See the passage of William of Malmesbury quoted above, p. 104. 2 See above, p. 104. VOL. II. 3 See Appendix G. 4 See above, p. 30, and Appendix I. the Norman Primate, was at once bestowed by the voice of the great Assembly which restored Godwine.' It was at all events bestowed within the year, while the Bishopricks of London and Dorchester were allowed to remain vacant some time longer. It may perhaps be thought that the appointment which was actually made to the see of Canterbury bears signs of being an act of the joyous fervour with which the nation welcomed its deliverance. It might have been expected that the claims of Ælfric to the Primacy would have revived on the expulsion of Robert. Alfric had been canonically elected by the monks of Christ Church; no one seems to have objected to him except the King and his Frenchmen; he possessed all possible virtues, and he was moreover a kinsman of Earl Godwine. But, in the enthusiasm of the moment, there was one name which would attract more suffrages than that of any other Prelate or Priest in England. On that great Holy Cross Day the services of Stigand to the national cause had been second only to those of Godwine himself. As Robert had been the first to make strife, so Stigand had been the first to make peace, between the King and the great Earl. For such a service the highest place in the national Church would not, at the moment, seem too splendid a reward. Elfric was accordingly forgotten, and Stigand was, either in the great Gemót of September or in the regular Gemót of the following Christmas, appointed to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury. With the Primacy, according to a practice vicious enough in itself, but which might have been defended by abundance of precedents, he continued to hold the see of Winchester in plurality. This appointment of Stigand was one of great moment in many ways. Amongst other things, it gave an excellent handle to the wily Duke of the Normans, and thus became one of the collateral causes of the Norman Conquest. The outlawed Robert retired in the end to his own monastery of Jumièges, and there he died and was buried. But he did not die till he had made Europe ring with the tale of his wrongs. The world soon heard how a Norman Primate had been expelled from his see, how an Englishman had been enthroned in his place, by sheer secular violence, without the slightest pretence of canonical form. Robert told his tale at Rome;2 we may be sure that he also told it at Rouen. William treasured it up, and knew how to use it when the time came. In his bill of indictment against England, the expulsion of Archbishop Robert appears as a prominent 1 The Peterborough Chronicle seems to record his appointment in the same breath with the other acts of September 15th. Immediately after the outlawry of Robert and the Frenchmen follow the words, " And Stigand Bisceop feng to pam arcebisceoprice on Cantwarabyrig." The Chronicler then turns to other matters. 2 Will. Malms. Gest. Reg. ii. 199. "Romam profectus et de caussâ suâ sedem apostolicam appellans." In Gest. Pont. 116, he adds that he returned "cum epistolis innocentiæ et restitutionis suæ allegatricibus." POSITION OF STIGAND AS ARCHBISHOP. 227 count.1 It is bracketted with the massacre of Saint Brice, with the murder of Ælfred, and with all the other stories which, though they could not make William's claim to the Crown one whit stronger, yet served admirably to discredit the cause of England in men's minds. No one knew better than William how to make everything of this sort tell. The restoration of Godwine was an immediate check to all his plans; it rendered his hopes of a peaceful succession far less probable. But the expulsion of Robert and the other Normans was a little sweet in the cup of bitterness. The English, with Godwine at their head, had in their insular recklessness of canonical niceties, unwittingly put another weapon into the hands of the foe who was carefully biding his time. Even in England the position of Stigand was a very doubtful one." He was de facto Archbishop; he acted as such in all political matters, and was addressed as such in royal writs. We hear of no opposition to him, of no attempt at his removal, till William himself was King. He was undoubtedly an able and patriotic statesman, and his merits in this way doubtless hindered any direct steps from being taken against him. And yet even Englishmen, and patriotic Englishmen, seem to have been uneasy as to his ecclesiastical position. For six years he was an Archbishop without a pallium; it was one of the charges against him that he used the pallium of his predecessor Robert. At last he obtained the coveted ornament from Rome (1058), but it was from the hands of a Pontiff whose occupation of the Holy See was short, and who, as his cause was unsuccessful, was not looked on by the Church as a canonical Pope. In fact,. in strict ecclesiastical eyes, Stigand's reception of the pallium from Benedict the Tenth seems only to have made matters worse than they were before. At any rate, both before and after this irregular investiture, men seem to have avoided recourse to him for the performance of any great ecclesiastical rite. Most of the Bishops of his province were, during his incumbency, consecrated by other hands. Even Harold himself, politically his firm friend, preferred the ministry of other Prelates in the two great ecclesiastical ceremonies of his life, the consecration of Waltham and his own coronation. One of our Chroniclers, not indeed the most patriotic of their number, distinctly and significantly denies Stigand's right to be called Archbishop. 1 Hen. Hunt. M. H. B. 761 D. Of William's three causes for his invasion two are, "Primo, quia Alfredum cognatum suum Godwinus et filii sui dehonestaverant et peremerant; secundo, quia Robertum episcopum et Odonem consulem [see Appendix G] et omnes Francos Godwinus et filii sui arte suâ ab Angliâ exsulaverant." The third count is of course the perjury of Harold. So, in nearly the same words, 2 On the ecclesiastical position of Stigand see Appendix CC. 3 We shall find many examples as we go on, and the general fact is asserted in the Profession made by Saint Wulfstan to Lanfranc. See Appendix CC. 4 Chron. Ab. 1053. See Appendix CC. One cannot help thinking that all this canonical precision must have arisen among the foreign ecclesiastics who held English preferment, among the Lotharingians who were favoured by Godwine and Harold no less than among the King's own Normans. But at all events the scruple soon became rife among Englishmen of all classes. An ecclesiastical punctilio which led Harold himself, on the occasion of two of the most solemn events of his life, to offer a direct slight to a political friend of the highest rank, must have obtained a very firm possession of the national mind. The case of Stigand is the more remarkable, because no such difficulties are spoken of as arising with regard to the position of another Prelate whose case seems at first sight to have been just the same as his own. If Robert was irregularly deprived, Ulf was equally SO. Yet no objection seems to have been made to the canonical character of Wulfwig, who, in the course of the next year, succeeded Ulf in the see of Dorchester.1 It is possible that the key to the difference may be found in the fact of the long vacancy of Dorchester. That long vacancy may be most naturally explained by supposing that some application was made to Rome, which was successful in the case of Wulfwig and unsuccessful in the case of Stigand. We can well conceive that the deprivation of Ulf may have been confirmed, and that of Robert, as far as the Papal power could annul it, annulled. It must be remembered that Ulf, on account of his utter lack of learning, had found great difficulty in obtaining the Papal approval of his first nomination. The sins of Robert, on the other hand, seem to have been only sins against England, which would pass for very venial errors at Rome. This difference may perhaps account for the different treatment of their two successors. At any rate, Wulfwig seems to have found no opposition in any quarter to his occupancy of the great Mid-English Bishoprick. And he seems to have himself set the example of the scruple which has been just mentioned against recognizing Stigand in any purely spiritual matter. Along with Leofwine, who in the same year became Bishop of Lichfield, he went beyond sea to receive consecration, and the way in which this journey is mentioned seems to imply that their motive was a dislike to be consecrated by the hands of the new Metropolitan.2 The see of London was treated in a different way from those of Canterbury and Dorchester, and in a way which was certainly most honourable to its Norman occupant. We have seen that it is not 1 Unless indeed some such feeling lurks in the words of the Abingdon Chronicler, 1053; "Se Wulfwi feng to dam biscoprice pe Ulf hæfde be him libbendum and of adræfdum." If we may trust a doubtful charter in Cod. Dipl. iv. 102, Wulfwig had been the King's Chancellor, " regiæ dignitatis cancellarius." Perhaps he was succeeded by Regenbald. See below, p. 238. 2 Chron. Ab. 1053. See Appendix CC. |