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THE GREAT EARLDOMS.

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whole Kingdoms, and seemingly with subordinate Ealdormen in each shire, gradually dies out. Cnut divided the Kingdom as he pleased, appointing Danes or Englishmen, and Englishmen of old or of new families, as he thought good. England was now portioned out among a few Earls, who were distinctly representatives of the King. In Northumberland and Mercia the claims of ancient princely families were to some extent regarded; in Wessex and East-Anglia not at all The rank of Earl is now held by a very few persons, connected either with the royal family or with the men whose personal influence was great at the time. The Earls appointed down to the last year of Eadward are always either the King's own kinsmen or else kinsmen of Godwine or Leofric. Siward keeps his Earldom for life; but, while he lives, his influence hardly extends beyond his own province, and, after his death, Northumberland falls under the same law as the rest of the Kingdom. It is only in the last moment of Eadward's reign, after the great Northumbrian revolt, that Siward's son receives, not the Northumbrian but the Mercian possessions of his father, and that the heir of the old Northumbrian Earls receives a subordinate establishment within the ancestral province.1 No doubt Northumberland still retained more of the character of a distinct state than any other part of England; still the forces of Northumberland march at the command of the King, and the Northumbrian Earldom is at the disposal of the King and his Witan.3 We do not however find the same signs of the constant immediate exercise of the royal power in Northumberland which we find in Wessex, Mercia, and East-Anglia. We find throughout this reign a series of writs addressed to the Bishops and Earls of those districts, which show that an Earl of one of those great Earldoms commonly acted as the local Earl of each shire in his province, with no subordinate Earl or Ealdorman under him. While such writs are exceedingly common in Wessex and East-Anglia, only one such writ exists addressed to a Northumbrian Earl, and that is in the days of Tostig. Those addressed to the Earls of the house of Leofric are also rare. It is clear that the King's power was more fully established under the Earls of Godwine's family than elsewhere. No doubt the royal authority was formally acknowledged in every part of the Kingdom alike, but the memories and

1 See Appendix G. 2 Chron. 1051.

3 Chron. 1055.

4 Cod. Dipl. vi. 203. There is also another writ which, though neither Northhumberland nor any Northumbrian Earl is mentioned in it, is clearly meant to run in Northumberland more than anywhere else. This also comes during the government of Tostig. It is the writ in Cod. Dipl. iv. 230,

VOL. II,

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addressed, according to a form found elsewhere, to the Bishops, Earls, and Thegns of all those shires where Archbishop Ealdred held any lands (" Eadward cyngc grêt mîne biscopas and mîne eorlas and ealle mŷne pegenas on Xâm scyran dær Ealdred ærcebisceop hæfeð land inne fréondlîce"). Among these shires Gloucestershire is doubtless reckoned, but Yorkshire must have stood foremost.

traces of ancient independence in Northumberland and Northern Mercia made its practical exercise more difficult in those districts.

The class of writs of which I have just spoken throw some light on constitutional questions in another way. They come in under Cnut,1 and they become very common under Eadward, being found alongside of documents of the more ancient form. They are announcements which the King makes to the Bishop, Earl, Sheriff, Thegns, and others of some one shire, or sometimes to the Bishops, Earls, and Thegns of the whole Kingdom, which do not, like documents of the ancient form, bear the signatures of any Witan. They are the manifest prototypes of the royal writs of later times. They are, like the other documents, mostly grants of one kind or another; only they seem to proceed from the King's personal authority, without any confirmation from a national Gemót. Now it is hardly possible that all the grants of this sort which are preserved can have been grants out of the King's private estate. And if they are grants of folkland to be turned into bookland on whatever tenure, allodial or feudal, a very important question arises. If the King could make such grants by his own authority, a change must have taken place in the ideas entertained as to folkland. In short, the change which was completed after the Conquest2 must have already begun. Folkland must have been beginning to be looked on as Terra Regis. And in this respect, as in others, the Danish Conquest doubtless did much to prepare the way for the Norman. But if the Witenagemót insensibly lost its authority in a matter in which we may well believe that its voice had long been nearly formal, it retained its general powers undiminished. It still, as of old, elected Kings, outlawed Earls, discussed and determined the foreign relations of the Kingdom. The fame of Eadward as a lawgiver is mythical; but the fame of government carried on in strict conformity to the laws and constitution of the country is one which fairly belongs to him, or rather to the illustrious men by whom his power was practically wielded.

The

I have now to end this sketch by a brief view of the condition of the subordinate Kingdoms and of the relations of England to foreign countries. Scotland was now ruled by the famous Macbeth. He had, as Maarmor or Under-king of Moray, done homage to Cnut3 along with his superior Malcolm. Duncan, the youthful grandson of Malcolm, unsuccessful, as we have seen, in his invasion of England, was equally so in his warfare with the Northmen of Orkney.5 Soon after this last failure (1040), he was murdered by his own subjects, Macbeth being at least the prime mover in the deed. The 1 For the earliest example, one of 1020, see Kemble, Archæological Journal, xiv. 61, 62. 2 See vol. i. p. 64. 8 See vol. i. p. 301. See vol. i. p. 339.

5 Orkneyinga Saga, Ant. Celt. Scand. 172 et seqq.; Robertson, i. 114; Burton, i. 369.

Fordun, iv. 44; Robertson, i. 116.

MACBETH IN SCOTLAND.

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murdered prince had married a kinswoman of the Earl of the Northhumbrians,1 by whom he left two infant sons, Malcolm, afterwards famous as Malcolm Canmore, and Donald Bane. But the Crown was assumed by Macbeth (1040-1058), on some claim, it would seem, of hereditary right, either in himself or in his wife Gruach. Macbeth, and Gruach even more, has been so immortalized in legend that it is not easy to recall either of them to their true historical personality. But from what little can be recovered about them, they certainly seem not to have been so black as they are painted. The crime of Macbeth against Duncan is undoubted; but it was, to say the least, no baser than the crime of Siward against Eadwulf; and Macbeth, like Siward, ruled well and vigorously the dominion which he had won by crime. All genuine Scottish tradition points to the reign of Macbeth as a period of unusual peace and prosperity in that disturbed land. Yet we hear dimly of a temporary driving out of Macbeth from his Kingdom by the hands of Siward, who was in later times to do the work more thoroughly. Macbeth and Gruach were also bountiful to churches in their own land, and Macbeth's munificence to certain unknown persons at Rome was thought worthy of record by chroniclers beyond the bounds of Scotland. One hardly knows whether this was merely by way of alms, like the gifts of Cnut, and it seems uncertain whether Macbeth, like Cnut and Harold, personally made the Roman pilgrimage. The words however in which the gifts of Macbeth are spoken of might almost imply that his bounty had a political object. It is possible that, even at this early time, the Scottish King may have thought it desirable to get the Roman Court on his side, and he may have found, like later princes and prelates, that a liberal distribution of money was the best way of winning the favour of the Apostolic See. The high character of the reigning Pontiff, Leo the Ninth, puts him personally above all suspicion of unlawful gain; but then, as afterwards, subordinates were probably less scrupulous. The few notices which we find of Scottish affairs during the early years of

6

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"Rex

discessum Macbeo recuperavit regnum."
There is nothing of this in the Chronicles.
5 Marianus, ap. Pertz, v. 558.
Scottie Macbethad Romæ argentum pauper-
ibus seminando distribuit." Florence (1050)
leaves out the word "6 'pauperibus," and
changes "seminando" into " spargendo."
The change can hardly be undesigned, and
of the influence of money at Rome we
shall hear presently in the case of Bishop
Ulf. Chron. Petrib. 1047. John of Peter-
borough (48) combines the two readings,
saying, "Machetus Rex Scotorum Romæ
argentum spargendo pauperibus distribuit."
See Robertson, i, 122; Burton, i. 373.

Eadward might suggest that Macbeth felt his position precarious with regard to his English over-lord. He had done homage to Cnut, but there is no record of his having renewed it to Eadward. There is however no sign of open enmity for many years.

In Wales a remarkable power was growing up, which will often call for notice throughout the whole of the reign of Eadward (1039– 1063). The year before the death of Harold, Gruffydd the son of Llywelyn became King of Gwynedd or North Wales, a description which now begins to be used in its modern sense. He ruled with great vigour and ability. He gradually extended his dominion over the whole of Wales, not scrupling to avail himself of Saxon help against enemies of his own race. On the other hand, he more than once, sometimes alone, sometimes in concert with English traitors, proved himself a really formidable enemy to England. He was the last prince under whom any portion of the Welsh nation played a really important part in the history of Britain.' He was, for Wales in the narrower sense, pretty well what Cadwalla had been, ages before, for Strathclyde. In the very first year of his reign he had made an inroad into Mercia, and had won the victory of Rhyd-y-Groes.3 At the time of Eadward's accession he was busily engaged in various conflicts with the princes of South Wales, who did not scruple to call in the help of the heathen Danes of Ireland against him. In the year of Eadward's election he had just won a great victory over a combined host of this kind at Aberteifi or Cardigan.5

The relations of King Eadward to foreign powers were, for the most part, friendly. With Normandy and other French states they were, as we have seen and shall see, only too friendly. But this was a time of growing intercourse, not with France only, but with Continental nations generally. Pilgrimages to Rome, and other foreign journeys and embassies, were becoming far more usual than before among eminent Englishmen, both clergy and laity. Earl Harold's travels, undertaken in order to study the condition and resources of foreign countries on the spot, form a memorable example. The connexion between England and Germany was now very close; the

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1 It is curious to see Gruffydd from the other side, as he may be seen in some of the charters printed in Mr. Haddan's Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents. He appears there (i. 292) as "invictus Rex Grifidus, Monarcha Britonum præpollens," as (i. 294) rex Britanniæ et (ut sic dicam) totius Gualiæ de fine ad finem." We then hear of his exploits; "Non degenerans a prædecessorum nobilitate, pietate, et largitate, immo imitans et præcellens rigore et fortitudine, tum contra barbaros Anglos ex und parte semper fugitivos visà facie suâ in acie belli, tum contra Hibernienses occidentales

et semper fugaces, tum contra indigenas
solito more bellicosos, tum contra Danaos
marinos, tum contra insularum Orcadum
habitatores, et semper versis dorsis in fugam
et firmato fœdere ad libitum suum paci-
ficatos."
2 See vol. i. p. 24.
3 See vol. i. p. 339.
4 Brut, 1040, 1042; Ann. Camb.
1039-1047. In one battle in 1040
Gruffydd seems to have been taken pri-
soner by the Danes of Dublin. But the
whole narrative is very confused. See the
entries under 1041 and 1042.

5 Brut, 1042; Ann. Camb. 1045?

RELATIONS WITH GERMANY AND THE NORTH.

37 great Emperor Henry the Third sedulously sought the friendship of his English brother-in-law; and there is, as we have seen, little doubt that the German connexion was cultivated by the patriotic party as a counterpoise to the French tendencies of the King. The promotion of German churchmen began early in Eadward's reign, when it could hardly have taken place except with the sanction of Godwine. The only danger that seemed to threaten England lay in the North. Magnus of Norway conceived himself to have acquired, by virtue of his agreement with Harthacnut, a claim on the English Crown; but his wars with Swegen hindered him from putting it forward for some years to come.

The reign of Eadward was, on the whole, a reign of peace. His admirers use somewhat exaggerated language on this head, as his reign was certainly more disturbed than those of either Eadgar or Cnut. Still, compared with most periods of the same length in those troubled times, the twenty-four years of Eadward form a period of unusual tranquillity. Foreign war, strictly so called, there was none. England was threatened by Norway, and she herself interfered in the affairs of Flanders; but no actual fighting seems to have taken place on either occasion. Within the island matters were somewhat less quiet. Scotland was successfully invaded, and the old royal line was restored. A few incursions of Scandinavian pirates are recorded, and Gruffydd of Wales remained for many years a thorn in the side of his English neighbours. But the main interest of this reign gathers round domestic affairs, round the revolts, the banishments, and the reconciliations of the great Earls, and, still more, round that great national movement against French influence in Church and State of which Godwine and his family were the representatives and leaders.

§ 3. From the Coronation of Eadward to the Remission of the War-Tax. 1043-1051.

This first period of the reign of Eadward is not marked by any very striking events till we draw near to its close. At home we have

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Quoniam diu Rege pacifico regnante in uno vinculo pacis omnia convenirent, ut nihil pestilentiosum esset in aere, nihil in mari tempestuosum, in terrâ nihil infecundum, nihil inordinatum in clero, nihil in plebe tumultuosum." It would be endless to contrast all these details with those found in the Chronicles and the Biographer. Even William of Malmesbury, comparatively sober as he is, goes too far when he says (ii. 196), Denique eo regnante, nullus tumultus domesticus qui non cito comprimeretur, nullum bellum forinsecus, omnia domi forisque quieta, omnia tranquilla.'

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