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POPULAR ELECTION OF EADWARD.

§ 1. The Election and Coronation of Eadward.

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1042-1043.

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The general course of events at this time is perfectly plain, but there is a good deal of difficulty as to some of the details.1 The popular election of Eadward took place in June, immediately on the death of Harthacnut, and even before his burial; but it is very remarkable that the Chronicles do not record the coronation of the new King till Easter in the next year. This delay is singular, and needs explanation. The consecration of a King was then no mere pageant, but a rite of the utmost moment, partaking in some sort of a sacramental character. Without it the King was not King at all, or King only in a very imperfect sense. We have seen how impossible it was for the uncrowned Harthacnut to retain his hold upon Wessex.3 The election of the Witan gave to the person chosen the sole right to the Crown, but he was put into actual possession of the royal office only by the ecclesiastical consecration. Eadward then, if he remained uncrowned for nearly ten months after his first election, could not be looked on as "full King," but at most as King-elect. What could be the cause of such a delay? The notion of a general war with the Danes in England, which might otherwise account for it, I have elsewhere shown to be without foundation.5 The circumstances of the time would seem to have been singularly unsuited for any delay. We should have expected that the same burst of popular feeling which carried Eadward's immediate and unanimous election would also have demanded the exclusion of any possible competitor by an immediate coronation. But the fact was otherwise. explanation of so singular a state of things is most likely to be found in certain hints which imply that it was caused, partly by Eadward's absence from England, partly by an unwillingness on his part to accept the Crown. There is strong reason to believe that Eadward was not in England at the moment of his half-brother's death. Harthacnut had indeed recalled him to England, and the English court had become the Etheling's ordinary dwelling-place. But this fact in no way shuts out the possibility that Eadward may have been absent on the Continent at any particular moment, on a visit to some of his French or Norman friends, or on a pilgrimage to some French or Norman sanctuary. Meanwhile the sudden death of Harthacnut left the throne vacant. As in other cases before and after, the citizens

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Harold the son of Godwine, the citizens of London were foremost in choosing the young Eadgar King. Fl. Wig. 1066. The expression of "all folk," and the extreme haste at a time when the Witan seem not to have been sitting, point to an election of this kind, forestalling the next ordinary Gemót.

of London, whose importance grows at every step, together with such of the other Witan as were at hand, met at once and chose Eadward King. As he was absent, as his consent was doubtful, an embassy had to be sent to him, as embassies had been sent to his father Ethelred' and to his brother Harthacnut,2 inviting him to return and receive the Crown. That embassy, we are told, consisted of Bishops and Earls; we can hardly doubt that at the head of their several orders stood two men whom all accounts set before us as the leaders in the promotion of Eadward. These were Lyfing, Bishop of Worcester, Devonshire, and Cornwall, and Godwine, Earl of the West-Saxons.3 A remarkable negotiation now took place between the Earl and the King-elect. Details of private conversations are always suspicious. But the dialogue attributed to the Earl and the Etheling contains nothing but what is thoroughly suited to the circumstances of the case. We can fully understand that Eadward, either from timidity or from his monastic turn, might shrink from the labour and responsibility of reigning at all, and that, with his Norman tastes, he might look forward with very little satisfaction to the prospect of reigning over Englishmen. Such scruples were driven away by the arguments and eloquence of the great Earl. The actual speech put into his mouth may be the composition of the historian, but it contains the arguments which cannot fail to have been used in such a case. It was better to live gloriously as a King than to die ingloriously in exile. Eadward was the son of Ethelred, the grandson of Eadgar; the Crown was therefore his natural inheritance. His personal position and character would form a favourable contrast to those of the two worthless youths who had misgoverned England since the death of Cnut. His years and experience fitted him to rule; he was of an age to act vigorously when severity was needed; he had known the ups and downs of life; he had been purified by poverty and exile, and would therefore know how to show mercy where mercy was called for. If he had any doubts, he, Godwine, was ready to maintain his cause; his power was great enough both to procure the election of a candidate and to secure his throne when elected. Eadward was persuaded; he consented to accept the Crown; he plighted his friendship to the Earl, and it may be that he pro

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WITENAGEMŐT OF GILLINGHAM.

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mised to confer honours on his sons and to take his daughter in marriage. But stories of private stipulations of this kind are always doubtful. It is enough that Godwine had, as all accounts agree, the chief hand in raising Eadward to the throne.

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Eadward now seems to have returned to England, probably in company with Godwine and the other ambassadors. Some expressions of our authorities might lead to the belief that the King-elect was, immediately on his landing in Kent, consecrated in the metropolitan church.1 But if this were so, it is certain that both the civil election and the ecclesiastical consecration had to be repeated. The Witan presently met at Gillingham in Dorsetshire; and it would seem that the acceptance of Eadward's claims was now somewhat less unanimous than it had been during the first burst of enthusiasm which followed the death of Harthacnut. Godwine brought forward Eadward as a candidate, he urged his claims with all his powers of speech, and himself set the example of becoming his man on the spot. Still an opposition arose in the Assembly, which it needed all the eloquence of Godwine and Lyfing to overcome. They had even, as it would seem, to stoop to a judicious employment of the less noble arts of statesmanship. The majority indeed were won over by the authority of the man whom all England looked on as a father. But the votes of some had to be gained by presents, or, in plain words, by bribes. Others, it would seem, stood out against Eadward's election to the last. This opposition, we cannot doubt, came from a Danish party which supported the claims of Swegen Estrithson. That prince, on return from his first unsuccessful war with Magnus, had found his cousin Harthacnut dead, and Eadward already King as far as his first election could make him so. But the absence of the King-elect, the uncertainty of his acceptance of the Crown, might well make the hopes of Swegen and his partizans revive. We can hardly believe the tale, though it seems to rest on the assertion of Swegen himself, that he demanded the Crown, and that Eadward made peace with him, making the usual compromise that Swegen should succeed him on his death, even though he should leave sons.5 Such an agreement would of course be of no strength without the consent of the Witan. That consent may have been given in the Assembly at Gillingham; but such an arrangement seems hardly credible. The English nation no doubt fully intended that the Crown should remain in the House of Cerdic, and Godwine probably already hoped that in the next generation the blood of Cerdic would be united with the blood of Wulfnoth. But it is certain

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1 See Appendix A. 2 Vita Eadw. 394. Quoniam pro patre ab omnibus habebatur, in paterno consultu libenter audiebatur." Will. Malms. ii. 197.

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Quidam auctoritatem ejus secuti."
3 Will. Malms. u. s.
bus flexi."

'Quidam muneri4 See vol. i. p. 354.

5 Adam Brem. ii. 74. See Appendix A.

that Swegen was in some way or other reconciled to Eadward and Godwine, for we shall presently find Swegen acting as the friend of England and Godwine acting as the special champion of the interests of Swegen.1 The son of Ulf was, it will be remembered, the nephew of Gytha, and this family connexion no doubt pleaded for him as far as was consistent with Godwine's higher and nearer objects. One of Swegen's brothers, Beorn, remained in England, where he was soon raised to a great Earldom, and seems to have been counted in all respects as a member of the house of Godwine. But the friends of Swegen in general were set down for future punishment.2 In the end confiscation or banishment fell on the most eminent of them. Among them was Osbeorn, another brother of the Danish King, whom we shall hear of in later times as betraying the claims of his brother, and therewith the hopes of England, into the hand of the Norman Conqueror.

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Eadward was thus raised to the throne mainly through the exertions of the two patriotic leaders, Godwine and Lyfing. It is vain to argue whether Godwine did wisely in pressing his election. There was in truth no other choice. The only other possible candidates were Swegen, and Magnus of Norway, of whose claims we shall hear again presently. But English feeling called for an English King, and there was no English King but Eadward to be had. That Godwine could have procured his own election to the Crown, that the thought of such an election could have occurred to himself or to any one else, is an utterly wild surmise. If Godwine met with some opposition when pressing the claims of Eadward, that opposition would have increased tenfold had he ventured to dream of the Crown for himself. The nomination of the West-Saxon Earl would have been withstood to the death, not only by an handful of Danes, but by Leofric and Siward, and that, in Siward's case at least, at the head of the whole force of their Earldoms. The time was not yet come for the election of a King not of the royal house. There was no manifest objection to the election of Eadward, and, though Godwine was undoubtedly the most powerful man in England, he had not reached that marked and undisputed preeminence which was enjoyed by his son twenty-four years later. No English candidate but Eadward was possible. And men had not yet learned, Godwine himself probably had not fully learned, how little worthy Eadward was to be called an English candidate.* In raising Eadward to the throne, Godwine acted simply as the mouth1 See below under the years 1045 and 1047.

2 Will. Malms. ii. 197. "Et hinc censorie notati et postmodum ab Angliâ expulsi."

3 Thierry, i. 180; St. John, ii. 132. Henry of Huntingdon indeed (M. H. B. 759 A) hints at a suspicion of Ead

ward's Normandizing tendencies, when he makes the English embassy stipulate that he shall bring the smallest possible number of Normans with him (" quod paucissimos Normannorum secum adduceret"). Henry's narrative just here is so very wild that it is not safe to rely on his authority.

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SECOND ELECTION OF EADWARD.

piece of the English people. The opposition, as far as we can see, came wholly from the Danes of what we may call the second importation, those who had come into England with Cnut and Harthacnut. There is nothing to show that the old-settled Danish population of Northumberland acted apart from the rest of the country.

Eadward then was King. He reigned, as every English King before him had reigned, by that union of popular election and royal descent which formed the essence of all ancient Teutonic kingship.1 But it would seem that, even in those days, the two elements in his title, the two principles to whose union he and all other Kings owed their kingly rank, spoke with different degrees of force to different minds. Already, in the eleventh century, we may say that there were Whigs and Tories in England. At any rate there were men in whose eyes the choice of the people was the primary and legitimate source of kingship. There were also men who were inclined to rest the King's claim to his Crown mainly on his descent from those who had been Kings before him. This difference of feeling is plainly shown in the different versions of the Chronicles. One contemporary writer, a devoted partizan of Godwine, grounds the King's right solely on the popular choice-" All folk chose Eadward to King." That the entry was made at the time is plain from the prayer which follows, May he hold it while God grants it to him." Another version, the only one in any degree hostile to the great Earl, seems purposely to avoid the use of any word which might recognize a distinct right of choice in the people. All folk received Eadward to King, as was his right by birth." A third writer, distinctly, though less strongly, Godwinist, seems pointedly to combine both statements; "All folk chose Eadward, and received him to King, as was his right by birth." There can be no doubt that this last is the truest setting forth both of

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plied to young Eadgar. It will be remembered that the Abingdon Chronicle is the only one which charges Godwine with a share in the death of Elfred. See vol. i. P. 512. The Biographer (p. 396) speaks of Eadward as reigning "ex Dei gratiâ et hæreditario jure.' This is of course a courtier's view. "Hæreditario jure" must here mean a right derived from ancestors, not a right to be handed on to descendants, as must be the meaning of the words in the Waltham Charter, Cod. Dipl. iv. 154.

4 Chron. Wig. 1042. "Eall folc geceas þa Eadward, and underfengon hine to kyninge, eallswa him wel gecynde was." This expression is the exact counterpart of that in which Rudolf Glaber describes the election of Lewis in 946. See vol. i. p. 404.

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