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to mark the gradual expulsion of those who had been conspicuous in opposing Eadward's election, and, what is of far more importance, the gradually increasing influence of the foreign favourites. This is most easily traced in the disposal of ecclesiastical preferments. The foreign relations of England at this time lay mainly with the Kingdoms of the North, where the contending princes had not yet wholly bidden farewell to the hope of uniting all the crowns of the Great Cnut on a single brow. But the relations between England and the Empire were also of importance, and the affairs of Flanders under its celebrated Count Baldwin the Fifth form a connecting link between those of England, Germany, and Scandinavia. The usual border warfare with Wales continues; with the renowned usurper of Scotland there was most likely a sort of armed truce. These various streams of events seem for some years to flow, as it were, side by side, without commingling in any marked way. But towards the end of our first period they all unite in that tale of crime and misfortune which led to the disgrace and downfall of the eldest son of Godwine, but which thereby paved the way for the elevation of the second.

The first act of the new King was one which was perhaps neither unjust nor impolitic, but which, at first sight, seems strangely incongruous with his character for sanctity and gentleness. With all his fondness for Normans, there was one person of Norman birth for whom he felt little love, and to whom indeed he seems to have owed but little gratitude. This was no other than his own mother. It is not very easy to understand the exact relations between Emma and her son. We are told that she had been very hard upon him, and that she had done less for him than he would-that she had contributed too little, it would seem, from her accumulated hoards— both before he became King and since. Now it is not clear what opportunities Emma had had of being hard upon her son since the days of his childhood. During the greater part of their joint lives, Eadward had been an exile in Normandy, while Emma had shared the throne of England as the wife of Cnut. Her fault must have been neglect to do anything for his interests, refusal, it may be, to give anything of her wealth for the relief of his comparative poverty,

1 "Forðam heo hit heold ær to fæste wið hine," say the Abingdon, Peterborough, and Canterbury Chronicles. Worcester is more explicit; "Forpan þe heo wæs æror þam cynge hire suna swide heard, þæt heo him læsse dyde ponne he wolde, ær bam be he cyng were, and eac sydan." This is translated by Florence; "Vel quia priusquam Rex esset effectus, vel post,

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minus quam volebat illi dederat, et ei valde dura exstiterat ;" and by Roger of Wendover, eo quod priusquam Rex fuerat, nihil illi contulerat quod petebat" (i. 482). William of Malmesbury says (ii. 196), "Mater angustos filii jamdudum riserat annos,' nihil umquam de suo largita." He then gives the reason, namely her preference for Cnut over Ethelred.

RELATIONS BETWEEN EADWARD AND EMMA.

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rather than any actual hardships which she could have inflicted on him. She had, as we have seen, altogether thrown in her lot with her second husband, and she had seemingly wished her first marriage to be wholly forgotten.' But there seems to be no ground for the scandal which represented her as having acted in any way a hostile part to her sons after the death of Cnut. All the more probable versions of the death of Ælfred represent Emma as distinctly favourable to his enterprise.3 She had herself suffered spoliation and exile in the days of Harold; she had returned with Harthacnut, and, in his days, she seems almost to have been looked on as a sharer in the royal authority. That authority she had at least not used to keep back her favourite son from the recall of his banished half-brother. Still it is not wonderful if, under all circumstances, there was little love between mother and son. But there does not, up to the death of Harthacnut, seem to have been any unpardonable offence committed on the part of Emma. But the charge that she had done less for Eadward than he would, since he came to the Crown, seems to have a more definite meaning. It doubtless means that she had refused to contribute of her treasures to the lawful needs of the State. It may also mean that she had been, to say the least, not specially zealous in supporting Eadward's claims to the Crown. She is described as dwelling at Winchester in the possession, not only of great landed possessions, the morning-gifts of her two marriages, but of immense hoarded wealth of every kind. Harthacnut had doubtless restored, and probably increased, all that had been taken from her by Harold. Of her mode of employing her wealth we find different accounts; putting the two statements together, we may perhaps infer that she was bountiful to churches and monasteries, but niggardly to the poor. But neither this bounty nor this niggardliness was a legal crime, and it is clear that some more definite offence must have lurked behind. Her treasures, or part of them, may have been gained by illegal grants from Harthacnut; it is almost certain, from the language of our authorities, that they had been illegally refused to the public service. But what happened seems

1 See vol. i. p. 486.

2 See vol. i. pp. 333, 517.
3 See vol. i. p. 328 et seqq.
* See vol. i. pp. 322, 336.

5 See the writ quoted at vol. i. p. 507, which cannot belong to the first reign of Harthacnut in Wessex only.

Besides land, the Abingdon Chronicle speaks of her wealth "on golde and on seolfre and on una secgendlicum þingum." So that of Worcester says of her treasures, "ba wæron unatellendlice." So Florence; 'quicquid in auro, argento, gemmis, la

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pidibus, aliisve rebus pretiosum habuerat."

7 Will. Malms. ii. 196. "Congestis undecumque talentis crumenas infecerat, pauperum oblita; quibus non patiebatur dari nummum ne diminueret numerum. Itaque quod injuste coacervârat non inhoneste ablatum, ut egenorum proficeret compendio et fisco sufficeret regio." Though accepting this account ("hæc referentibus etsi plurimum fides haberi debeat"), he goes on, as he does elsewhere (ii. 181; see vol. i. p. 295), to speak of her bounty to monasteries, especially at Winchester.

to imply some still deeper offence. The conduct of Emma became the subject of debate at a meeting of the Witan; her punishment was the result of a decree of that body, and all that was done to her was done with the active approval of the three great Earls, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward.1 În the month of November after Eadward's coronation, a Gemót-perhaps a forestalling of the usual Midwinter Gemót-was held at Gloucester. That town seems now to take the place which was held by Oxford a little earlier2 as the scene of courts and councils. It became during this reign, what it remained during the reign of the Conqueror, the place where the King wore his Crown at the Christmas festival, as he wore it at Winchester at Easter. It was convenient for such purposes as lying near at once to the borders of two of the great Earldoms and to the borders of the dangerous Welsh. Their motions, under princes like the two Gruffydds, it was doubtless often expedient to watch with the whole wisdom and the whole force of the realm. The result of the deliberations of the Wise Men was that the King in person, accompanied by the three great Earls, rode from Gloucester to Winchester, came unawares upon the Lady, occupied her lands, and seized all that she had in gold, silver, jewels, and precious stones. They left her, however, we are told, enough for her maintenance, and bade her live quietly at Winchester." She now sinks into utter insignificance for the remainder of her days.8

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Now the last order, to live quietly at Winchester, seems to imply some scheme or intrigue on the part of Emma more serious than even an illegal refusal to contribute of her wealth to the exigencies of the State. Is it possible that she had been one of the opponents

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2 See vol. i. p. 325. 8 See vol. i. p. 352.

So says the Worcester Chronicle, followed by Florence; "He râd of Gleawcestre, and Leofric eorl and Godwine eorl and Sigward eorl mid heora genge, to Wincestre ;" "Festinato Rex cum comitibus Leofrico, Godwino, et Siwardo de civitate Glawornâ Wintoniam venit." The other Chronicles do not imply the King's personal presence; 66 se cyng let geridan," &c. 5 Chron. Wig. "On unwær on pa hlæfdian." Flor. Wig. "Venit improvise." 6 Chronn. Ab. Petrib. Cant. "Se cyng

let geridan calle ba land þe his modor ahte him to handa." The Worcester Chronicler says nothing of the land.

7 Flor. Wig. "Verumtamen sufficienter ei ministrari necessaria præcepit et illam ibidem quietam manere jussit.'

8 Emma signs a charter of her son during this year 1043 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 74), which therefore belongs to an earlier Gemót than this of November, probably to the one held at Winchester at the time of the coronation. From this time we find her signing only a few private documents (Cod. Dipl. iv. 86, 116) and documents connected with the Church of Winchester (iv. 90, 93). After her son's marriage she seems not to sign his charters at all. The documents at iv. 80, 99 are doubtful or spurious. On the Legend of Emma see Appendix H.

BANISHMENT OF SWEGEN'S PARTIZANS.

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of her son's election? A woman who had so completely transferred her affection to her second husband and his children may, even though she had no hand in actual conspiracies against the offspring of her first marriage, have very possibly preferred the nephew of Cnut to her own son by Ethelred. If so, her punishment was only the first act of a sort of persecution which during the next three or four years seems to have fallen upon all who had supported the claims of Swegen to the Crown. The whole party became marked men, and they were gradually sent out of the Kingdom as occasion served.1 A few of their names may probably be recovered. We have records of several cases of banishment and confiscation during the early years of Eadward, which are doubtless those of the partizans of Eadward's Danish opponent. First and foremost was a brother of Swegen himself, Osbeorn, who, like his brother Beorn, seems to have held the rank of Earl in England. The brothers must have taken different sides in the politics of the time, as Osbeorn was banished, while Beorn retained his Earldom." The banishment of Osbeorn did not stand alone. The great Danish Thegn Osgod Clapa was banished a few years later, and it was probably on the same account that Æthelstan the son of Tofig lost his estate at Waltham, and that Gunhild, the niece of Cnut and daughter of Wyrtgeorn, was banished together with her two sons Heming and Thurkill. She was then a widow for the second time through the death of her husband Earl Harold. He had gone on a pilgrimage to Rome, and was on his way back to Denmark, when he was treacherously murdered by Ordulf, the brother-in-law of Magnus of Norway." That Harold was bound for Denmark, and not for England, where his wife and children or stepchildren were, may perhaps tend to show that he was already an exile from England. It is not impossible that Godescalc the Wend ought to be added to the list.

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8

Whether the fall of Emma was or was not connected with the penalties which thus fell on the relics of the Danish party, it certainly carried with it the momentary fall of one eminent Englishman.

1 See above, p. 6.

1045,

de

2 Adam of Bremen, iii. 13. 3 Chron. and Flor. Wig. 1044, 1046, 1047. All dates are given. 4 De Inv. 14. "Adelstanus generans a patris astutiâ et sapientiâ multa ex his perdidit, et inter cetera Waltham." This may however only mean that he squandered his estate. His son Esegar was Staller two years later. See Professor Stubbs' note, and vol. i. p. 354.

5 Chron. Wig. 1045; Flor. Wig. 1044. If Gunhild's sons were old enough to be dangerous, they must have been the children of

The

Hakon who died in 1030. The names Heming and Thurkill have already appeared as those of a pair of brothers See vol. i. pp. 231, 444. Cf. Knytlinga Saga, ap. Johnstone, Ant. Celt. Scand. 105.

6 On this Harold see vol. i. p. 298. The signature to a charter of Bishop Lyfing in 1042 (Cod. Dipl. iv. 69), must be his.

7 Adam Brem. ii. 75. "Caussa mortis ea fuit quod de regali stirpe Danorum genitus, propior sceptro videbatur quam Magnus."

8 See vol. i. p. 492.

disgrace of the Lady was accompanied by the disgrace of the remarkable-we might almost say the great-churchman by whose counsels she was said to be governed. We have already seen Stigand, once the priest of Assandun,1 appointed to a Bishoprick and almost immediately deprived of it.2 The like fate now happened to him a second time. He was, it would seem, still unconsecrated; but, seemingly about the time of Eadward's coronation, he was named and consecrated to the East-Anglian Bishoprick of Elmham. But the spoliation of Emma was accompanied by the deposition of Stigand from the dignity to which he had just been raised. He was deprived of his Bishoprick, and his goods were seized into the King's hands, evidently by a sentence of the same Gemót which decreed the proceedings against the Lady. Whatever Emma's fault was, Stigand was held to be a sharer in it. The ground assigned for his deposition was that he had been partaker of the counsels of the Lady, and that she had acted in all things by his advice. That Stigand should have supported the claims of Swegen is in itself not improbable. He had risen wholly through the favour of Cnut, his wife, and his sons. The strange thing is that so wary a statesman should not have seen how irresistibly the tide was setting in favour of Eadward. One thing is certain, that, if Stigand mistook his interest this time, he knew how in the long run to recover his lost place and to rise to places far higher.

During the whole of this period ecclesiastical appointments claim special notice. They are at all times important witnesses to the state of things at any particular moment, and in a period of this kind they are the best indications of the direction in which popular and royal favour is setting. The patrons or electors of an ecclesiastical office can choose far more freely, they can set themselves much more free from the control of local and family influences, than those who are called on to appoint to temporal offices. For King Eadward to appoint a French Earl would prove much more than his appointment of a French Bishop. It would prove much more as to his own inclinations; it would prove much more again as to the temper of the people by whom such an appointment was endured. To appoint a French or German Earl as the successor of Godwine or Leofric would doubtless have been impossible. But Eadward found means

1 See vol. i. p. 287. 2 See vol. i. p. 338.

3 A private document in Cod. Dipl. iv. 116 is signed by "Stigand p." It is assigned to the year 1049, but this date must be wrong, as it is signed by Elfweard Bishop of London, who died in 1044. As it is signed by Eadward and Emma, it must belong to the early Gemót of 1043, that at

which Stigand received his appointment as Bishop and Swegen as Earl.

Chron. Ab. 1043; Chronn. Petrib.

and Cant. 1042.

5 Chron. Ab. "And rade þæs man sette Stigant of his bisceoprice, and nam eal þæt he ahte pam cinge to handa; forðam he wæs nehst his modor ræde, and heo for swa swâ he hire rædde; þæs de men wendon."

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