UNDE POSITION OF THE NORMANS UNDER HAROLD. 239 now freely allowed to witness the royal charters, which implies their acting as members of the national assemblies.1 Their position becomes now one of mere personal favour, not of political influence. They are hardly mentioned in our history; we have to trace them out by the light of their signatures and of entries in Domesday. Once only shall we have any reason to suspect that the course of events was influenced by them. And in that one case their influence is a mere surmise, and if it was exercised at all, it must have been exercised in a purely underhand way. The policy of Eadward's reign is from henceforth a policy thoroughly English. In other words, it is the policy of Harold. It is easy to understand that the feelings of Harold with regard to the foreigners differed somewhat from those of his father. Godwine and Harold belonged to different generations. Godwine's whole education, his whole way of looking at things, must have been purely English. It is hardly needful to make any exception on behalf of influences from Denmark. The rule of Cnut was one under which Danes became Englishmen, not one under which Englishmen became Danes. We can hardly conceive that Godwine understood the French language. Such an accomplishment would in his early days have been quite useless. We can well believe that, along with his really enlightened and patriotic policy, there was in the old Earl a good deal of mere sturdy English prejudice against strangers as strangers. But every act of Harold's life shows that this last was a feeling altogether alien to his nature. His travels of inquiry abroad, his encouragement of deserving foreigners at home, all show him to have been a statesman who, while he maintained a strictly national policy, rose altogether above any narrow insular prejudices. That he understood French well it is impossible to doubt.2 If he erred at all, he was far more likely to err in granting too much indulgence to the foreign fancies of his wayward master. His policy of conciliation would forbid him to be needlessly harsh even to a Norman, and he had every motive for dealing as tenderly as possible with all the wishes 1 I quote, as one example of many, the signatures to the foundation charter of Harold's own church at Waltham (Cod. Dipl. iv. 158). The seemingly Norman names, besides Bishop William, are "Rodbertus Regis consanguineus [no doubt the Staller Robert the son of Wymarc], Hesbernus Regis consanguineus, Regenbaldus Regis cancellarius, Petrus Regis capellanus, Baldewinus Regis capellanus." (Baldwin however, unless he was the future Abbot, may have been Flemish and not Norman.) But the deed is also signed by many English courtiers, as well as Earls, Prelates, and Thegns. 2 I do not ground this belief on the well-known saying of the false Ingulf (Gale, i. 62), how in Eadward's days "Gallicum idioma omnes magnates in suis curiis tamquam magnum gentilitium loqui [cœperunt]." Harold's foreign travels, and his sojourn at the Norman court, necessarily imply a knowledge of French, and I can well believe that at home King Eadward looked more favourably on a counsellor who could frame his lips to the beloved speech. and prejudices of the King. Harold stood towards Eadward in a position wholly different from that in which Godwine had stood. Godwine might claim to dictate as a father to the man to whom he had given a crown and a wife. Harold could at most claim the position of a younger brother. That Harold ruled Eadward there is no doubt, but we may be sure that he ruled by obeying.1 Habit, temper, policy, would all forbid him to thwart the King one jot more than the interests of the Kingdom called for. The position of the strangers during the remaining years of Eadward's reign is a manifest compromise between Eadward's foreign weaknesses and Harold's English policy. They were to be allowed to bask in the sunshine of the court; they were to be carefully shut out from political power. If Harold erred, his error, I repeat, lay in too great a toleration of the dangerous intruders. The remaining events of the year of Godwine's death are some ecclesiastical appointments, which must have been made at the Christmas Gemót (1053-1054), and a Welsh inroad, which seems to have happened about the same time. In the one month of October three Prelates died,2 Wulfsige, Bishop of Lichfield, and the Abbots Godwine of Winchcombe and Ethelweard of Glastonbury. The see of Lichfield was bestowed on Leofwine, Abbot of Earl Leofric's favourite monastery of Coventry. In this appointment we plainly see the hand of the Mercian Earl, of whom, considering his name, the new Bishop is not unlikely to have been a kinsman. At the same time, it would seem, the see of Dorchester was at last filled by the appointment of Wulfwig, and the two Bishops elect, as we have seen, got them beyond sea for consecration. The new Abbot of Glastonbury was Æthelnoth (1053-1082), a monk of the house, who bears an ill name for squandering the revenues of the monastery, but who contrived to weather all storms, and died in possession of his Abbey sixteen years after the Norman invasion. The disposition of Winch 1 This seems implied in the famous poetical panegyric on Eadward and Harold in the Chronicles for 1065. 2 Chron. Wig. 1053. "And þæs ylcan geres, foran to alra halgena mæssan, forðferde Wulsyg bisceop æt Licetfelda, and Godwine abbod on Wincelcumbe, and Ægelward abbod on Glestingabyrig, ealle binnan anum monpe." 3 Chron. Ab. and Flor. Wig. It was probably now that the Abbey of Coventry was given to Leofric of Peterborough. See above, p. 232. If so, it still kept in the family. Leofric, it will be remembered, was the son of an Ealdorman Leofwine. See 6 vol. i. p. 280. 5 See above, p. 343. 6 On Abbot Æthelnoth see William of Malmesbury, Glastonbury History, ap. Gale, ii. 324. Æthelweard spoiled the lands, Æthelnoth the ornaments, of the house. "Ex illo res Glastoniæ retro relabi et in pejus fluere." He has much to tell about the miracles wrought by King Eadgar about this time-Eadgar, it must be remembered, passed at Glastonbury, in defiance of all legends, for a saintspecially in healing a mad German, "furiosus Teutonicus genus." Was he one of the suite of the Ætheling? ECCLESIASTICAL APPOINTMENTS. 241 combe is more remarkable. Ealdred, the Bishop of the diocese, who seems never to have shrunk from any fresh duties, spiritual or temporal, which came in his way, undertook the rule of that great monastery in addition to his episcopal office.1 This may have been mere personal love of power or pelf; but it may also have been a deliberate attempt, such as we shall see made in other cases also, to get rid of a powerful, and no doubt often troublesome, neighbour, by annexing an abbey to the Bishoprick. If such was the design of Ealdred, it did not prove successful. After holding Winchcombe for some time, he next year, willingly or unwillingly, resigned it to one (July 17, 1054), Godric who is described as the son of Godman, the King's Chaplain.2 Of the Welsh inroad, recorded by one Chronicler only, all that is said is that many of the "wardmen" at Westbury were slain. This is doubtless Westbury in Gloucestershire, on the Welsh side of the Severn. The expression seems to imply the maintenance of a permanent force to guard that exposed frontier. The next year was marked by a military and a diplomatic event, both of which were of high importance. The former is no other than the famous Scottish expedition of Earl Siward, an event which has almost passed from the domain of history into that of poetry. Macbeth, it will be remembered, was now reigning in Scotland. Like Siward himself, he had risen to power by a great crime, the murder of his predecessor, the young King Duncan. And, like Siward, he had made what atonement he could by ruling his usurped dominion vigorously and well. We have seen that there is no reason to believe that Macbeth had, since he assumed the Scottish Crown, renewed the fealty which he had paid to Cnut when he was Under-king, or, in more accurate Scottish phrase, Maarmor of Moray. We have also seen that he had been striving, in a remarkable way, to make himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness in the quarter where that mammon was believed to have the greatest influence, namely at the threshold of the Apostles. We may be sure that Earl Siward, the kinsman, probably the guardian, of the young prince whom Macbeth shut out from the Scottish Crown,1 had all along looked on his formidable northern neighbour with no friendly eye. It is not easy to see why the attack on Macbeth, if it was to be made at all, was so long delayed. It may be that the internal troubles of England had hitherto forbidden any movement of the kind, and that Siward took advantage of the first season of domestic quiet to execute a plan which he had long cherished. It may be that the scheme fell in better with the policy of Harold than with the policy of Godwine. Between Godwine and Siward, between the West-Saxon and the Dane, there was doubtless a standing rivalry, partly national, partly personal. But it would fall in with the conciliatory policy of Harold to help, rather than to thwart, any designs of the great Northern Earl which were not manifestly opposed to the public welfare. At all events, in this year the consent of Eadward 2 was given, a consent which certainly implies the decree of a Witenagemót, and which no less certainly implies the good will of Earl Harold. An expedition on a great scale was undertaken against the Scottish usurper. That it was undertaken on behalf of Malcolm, the son of the slain Duncan, can admit of no reasonable doubt. To restore the lawful heir of the Scottish Crown was an honourable pretext for interference in Scottish affairs on which any English statesman would gladly seize. And to Siward it was more than an honourable pretext; it was asserting the rights and avenging the wrongs of a near kinsman. The Earl of the Northumbrians accordingly attacked Scotland at the head of a great force both by land and by sea. The army was largely composed of the Housecarls of the King and of the Earl, picked and tried soldiers, Danish and English. Macbeth was supported by a prince who had now become a neighbour of England, and a neighbour probably quite as dangerous as himself. This was Thorfinn, the famous Earl of the Orkneys, who had established his power over the whole of the Western Islands, and even over the coast of Scotland and Strathclyde as far south as Galloway. With his help the Scottish King ventured to meet the host of Siward in a pitched battle (July 27, 1054). He was encouraged by the presence of a body of the Normans who had been driven out of England at the return of Godwine. They are spoken of as if their number was large enough to form a considerable contingent of the Scottish army. The fight was an obstinate one. The Earl's son Osbeorn and his sister's son Siward were slain, and with them a large number of the Housecarls, both those of the Earl himself and of the King. The slaughter on the Scottish side was more fearful still. 1 See above, p. 34. 2 66 Jussu Regis," says Florence, 1054. 3 On the war with Macbeth see Appendix EE. See Munch, Chron. Regum Manniæ, 46 et seqq.; Burton, History of Scotland, i. 374. SIWARD'S WAR WITH MACBETH. 243 Dolfinn, seemingly a kinsman of the Earl of Orkney, was killed,' and the Norman division, fighting no doubt with all the gallantry of their race, enhanced by all the desperation of exiles, were slaughtered to a man. We thus see that the battle was a most stoutly contested one, and that, as usual, the slaughter fell mainly on the best troops on both sides, the Normans on the Scottish side and the Housecarls on the English. But the fortune of England prevailed; the Scots, deprived of their valiant allies, were utterly routed, and King Macbeth escaped with difficulty from the field. The plunder was of an amount which struck the minds of contemporary writers with wonder.2 Siward was a hero whose history has had a mythical element about it from the beginning;3 it would have been wonderful indeed if this, the last and greatest exploit of so renowned a warrior, had not supplied the materials for song and legend. The tale is told how Siward, hearing of the death of his son, asked whether his wounds were in front or behind. Being told that all were in front, the old warrior rejoiced; he wished for no other end either for his son or for himself. The story is eminently characteristic; but, as it is told us, it is difficult to find a place for it in the authentic narrative of the campaign. But fiction has taken liberties with the facts of Siward's Scottish campaign in far more important points. As we have seen, the English victory was complete, but Macbeth himself escaped. Malcolm was, as King Eadward had commanded, proclaimed King of Scots (1054), and a King of Scots who was put into possession of his Crown by an invading English force most undoubtedly held that Crown as the sworn man of the English Basileus. It took however four years before Malcolm obtained full possession of his Kingdom. Macbeth and his followers maintained their cause in the North, being, it would seem, still supported by help from Thorfinn. Malcolm, on the other hand, was still supported by help from England, and we shall find that he deemed it expedient to enter into a very close relation with Siward's successor in the Northumbrian Earldom. At last Macbeth was finally defeated and slain at Lumfanan in Aberdeenshire. An attempt was made to perpetuate the Moray dynasty in the person of Lulach, a kinsman, or perhaps a step-son, of Macbeth, a son of his wife Gruach by a former marriage. But this prince, who bears the surname of the Fool, could not long resist the power of Malcolm; in a few months' time he was hunted down and slain. The rival dynasty was now crushed; all Scotland came into the hands of Malcolm, who was solemnly crowned at Scone (1058). The power of Thorfinn was broken no less than the power of Macbeth, and 1 Annals of Ulster, 1054. See Appendix bonan micele herehupe, swilce nan man ær ne begeat." 3 See vol. i. pp. 351, 521. EE. 2 Chron. Wig. 1054. "And lædde |