BUILDING OF RICHARD'S CASTLE. hardly second to the wrong which had been done at Dover. Alike in Kent and in Herefordshire men had felt the sort of treatment which they were to expect if the King's foreign favourites were to be any longer tolerated. The time was now come for Englishmen to make a stand. The Earl of the West-Saxons was not a man to be wanting to his country at such a moment. He, with his sons Swegen and Harold, gathered together the force of their three Earldoms at Beverstone in Gloucestershire. This is a point on the Cotswolds, not far from the Abbey of Malmesbury, which is still marked by a castle of far later date, the remaining fragments of which form one of the most remarkable antiquities of the district. At this time it seems to have been a royal possession, and it may not unlikely have contained a royal house, which would probably be at the disposal of Swegen as Earl of the shire.1 At Beverstone then assembled the men of Wessex, of East-Anglia, and of that part of Mercia which was under the jurisdiction of Swegen. They came, it would seem, ready either for debate or for battle, as might happen. We must here again remember what the ancient constitution of our National Assemblies really was. If all actually came who had a strict right to come, the Gemót was a ready-made army. On the other hand we have seen that an army, gathered together as an army, sometimes took on itself the functions of a Gemót.2 Meanwhile, while Godwine assembled his men at Beverstone, the forces of the Earldoms of Siward, Leofric, and Ralph were assembling round the King at Gloucester. Each of the two gatherings might pass for the local Witenagemót of one half of England. At the head of the men of three Earldoms Godwine was still bolder than he had been when he had stood alone in the royal presence. He then had only refused to punish the innocent; he now demanded the punishment of the guilty. His first steps however were conciliatory. He first demanded an audience for himself and his sons, as Earls of the three Earldoms; they were ready and anxious to take counsel with the King and his Witan on all matters touching the honour of the King and his people.3 He even offered to renew his compurgation on "ut Walenses compescerent qui, tyrannidem in Regem meditantes, oppidum in pago Herefordensi obfirmaverant, ubi tunc Swanus, unus ex filiis Godwini, militiæ prætendebat excubias." This last is simply a misunderstanding of the words "on Swegenes eorles folgore," which seems merely to mean "within Swegen's government." 1 Beverstone appears in Domesday (163) only as an appendage to the royal lordship of Berkeley, and is not mentioned as a possession of Godwine. Otherwise one would have expected to find one of the Earl's many houses chosen as the place of meeting. But perhaps the suggestion in the text may explain matters. On the other hand the mysterious connexion between Godwine and Berkeley (see Appendix E) must not be forgotten. 2 See above, p. 67. 3 Chron. Petrib. 1048. "Da com Godwine eorl and Swegen eorl and Harold eorl the old charge of the death of Ælfred.1 But the Frenchmen swarmed around the King; they filled his ears with the usual charges against Godwine and his sons; they assured him that the only object of the Earls was to betray him.2 Eadward therefore refused the audience, and declined to receive the compurgation.3 Godwine then took a higher tone; messages were sent in his name and in the name of the men of the three Earldoms, demanding the surrender of Eustace and his men and of the Frenchmen at Richard's Castle.1 The demand was a bold one; Godwine asked for the surrender of the person of a foreign prince, the King's own favourite and brotherin-law. But the demand, if bold, was perfectly justifiable. The two parties of Frenchmen had been guilty of outrageous crimes within the jurisdictions of Godwine and Swegen respectively. The King, instead of bringing them to justice, was sheltering them, and was even listening to their charges against innocent men. Their lawful judges, the Earls of the two districts, were ready, at the head of the Witan of their Earldoms, to do that justice which the King had refused. The demand was seemingly backed by threats of an appeal to that last argument by which unrighteous rulers must be brought to reason. Godwine and his followers threatened war against Eadward, as the later Barons of England threatened war against John. The King was frightened and perplexed. He sent to hasten the coming of Siward, Leofric, and Ralph, and bade them bring a force strong enough to keep Godwine and his party in check. It would seem that they had at first brought or sent only a small body of men; when they heard the full state of the case, they hastened to the King with the whole force of their Earldoms, and restored 5 togædere æt Byferesstane and manig mann 2 Chron. Petrib. "Da wæron pa Walisce menn ætforan mid þam cynge, and forwregdon pa eorlas þæt hi ne moston cuman on his eagon gesihde, forðan hi sædon þæt hi woldon cuman þider for þes cynges swicdome." 3 Vita Eadw. p. 401. “Nam adeo super hujus sceleris fide animum Rex induxerat ut nec verbum aliquod oblatæ purgationis audire posset." "Ealle gearwe to 4 Chron. Wig. 1052. wige ongean pone cyng, buton man ageafe Eustatsius and his men heom to handsceofe, and eac pa Frencyscan þe on pan castelle waron." "The castle" undoubtedly means Richard's Castle, as it must mean in the entry of the next year in the same Chronicle. The Frenchmen in the castle are distinguished from Eustace and his men. Lappenberg, 508. Florence (1051) clearly misunderstood the passage when he translated it "insuper et Nortmannos et Bononienses qui castellum in Doruverniæ clivo tenuerant." See Appendix S. So 5 Rog. Wend. iii. 294. "Juraverunt super majus altare, quod, si Rex leges et libertates jam dictas concedere diffugeret, ipsi ei guerram tamdiu moverent et ab ejus fidelitate se subtraherent." GODWINE DEMANDS THE SURRENDER OF EUSTACE. 93 confidence to his timid mind. This was the sort of occasion which was sure to awaken those provincial jealousies which in that age were often lulled to sleep, but which were never completely got rid of. The northern and southern parts of England were again arrayedagainst each other, just as they had been in the great Gemót of Oxford sixteen years before.2 The French followers of Ralph and the French friends of Eadward were doubtless glad of any excuse to shed the blood or to seize the lands of Englishmen. Siward and his Danes were seemingly not displeased with a state of things in which jealousy of the West-Saxon Earl could be so honourably cloked under the guise of loyalty to the West-Saxon King. They were therefore quite ready to play into the hands of the strangers. They were still on their march, but seemingly close to the town, when Eadward gave his final answer to the messengers of Godwine; Eustace and the other accused persons should not be given up. The messengers had hardly left Gloucester, when the Northern host entered the city, eager to be led to battle against the men of Wessex and East-Anglia.* Godwine and his followers saw by this time that there was little hope of bringing the King to reason by peaceful means. Every offer tending to reconciliation had been spurned; every demand of the Earls and their people had been refused. punishment of the innocent had been commanded; the punishment of the guilty had been withheld; the old charges, of which Godwine had been so solemnly acquitted eleven years before, were again raked up against him by the slanderous tongue of a foreign priest. Loath as the Earl and his followers were to fight against their Lord the King, they saw no hope but in an appeal to arms, and the men of the three Earldoms made themselves ready for battle. From the heights of the Cotswolds on which they had been gathered, they marched down the hill-side which overlooks the fairest and most fertile of English valleys. The broad Severn wound through the 5 6 1 Flor. Wig. 1051. "Ob id autem ad tempus Rex perterritus, et in angore magno constitutus, quid ageret ignorabat penitus. Sed ubi exercitum Comitum Leofrici, Siwardi, et Radulfi adventare comperit, se nullatenus Eustatium aliosque requisitos traditurum constanter respondit." 2 See vol. i. p. 325 et seqq. 3 It is perhaps owing to some trace of this local Northumbrian feeling that the Durham Annals say, under the year 1050, "Godwinus comes et filii ejus propter insolentiam exilio damnantur." This is quite another tone from that of our West-Saxon and Mercian Chronicles. * Chron. Wig. 1052. "Wurdan þa ealle The swa anræde mid þam cynge, þæt hy woldon Godwines fyrde gesecan, gif se cyng þæt wolde." 5 Chron. Petrib. 1048. "And was bam eorle Godwine and his sunan gecydd, þæt se cyng and ba menn þe mid him wæron woldon rædon on hi. And hi trymedon gefæstlice ongean, þæh him lad wære þæt hi ongean heora cyne-hlaford standan sceoldon." • See the splendid panegyric of William of Malmesbury on this region in the Gesta Pontificum, 291. He especially speaks of the abundance of the vineyards and the excellence of the wine, which was not sour, as seemingly other English wine was, but plain beneath them; beyond its sandy flood rose, range beyond range, the hills which guarded the land of the still unconquered Briton. Far away, like a glimpse of another world, opened the deep vale of the Welsh Axe,' the mountain land of Brecheiniog, where, in the furthest distance, the giant Beacons soar, vast and dim, the mightiest natural fortress of the southern Cymry. Even then some glimpses of days to come may have kindled the soul of Harold, as he looked forth on the land which was before many years to ring with his renown, and to see his name engraved as conqueror on the trophies of so many battle-fields. They passed by relics of unrecorded antiquity, by fortresses and tombs reared by the hands of men who had been forgotten before the days of Ceawlin, some perhaps even before the days of Cæsar. They passed by the vast hill-fort of Uleybury, where the Briton had bid defiance to the Roman invader. They passed by the huge mound, the Giants'-Chamber of the dead, covering the remains of men whose name and race had passed away, perhaps before even the Briton had fixed himself in the islands of the West.2 Straight in their path rose the towers, in that day no doubt tall and slender, of the great minster of the city which was their goal, where their King sat a willing captive in the hands of the enemies of his people. And still far beyond rose other hills, the heights of Herefordshire and Shropshire, the blue range of Malvern and the far distant Titterstone, bringing the host as it were into the actual presence of the evil deeds with which the stranger was defiling that lovely region. Godwine had kept his watch on the heights of Beverstone, as Thrasyboulos had kept his on the heights of Phylê, and he now came down, with the truest sons of England at his bidding, ready, as need might be, to strive for her freedom either in the debates of the Witan or in the actual storm of battle. But there were now men in the King's train at Gloucester who were not prepared to shed the blood of their countrymen in the cause of strangers. Eadward had now counsellors at his side who had no mind to push personal or provincial jealousy to the extent, of treason to their common country. Earl Leofric had obeyed the command of the King, and had brought the force of Mercia to the royal muster at Gloucester. Some jealousies of Godwine may well have rankled in his breast, but love 3 Dr. Thurnam and Professor C. C. Babing- · 3 Childe Harold, ii. 84; "Spirit of Freedom, when on Phyle's brow Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train," &c. LEOFRIC BRINGS ABOUT A COMPROMISE. 95 of his country was a stronger feeling still. He was not ready to sacrifice the champion of England to men who had trampled on every rule of English law and of natural right, men who seemed to deem it a crime if Englishmen refused to lie still and be butchered on their hearth-stones. The good old Earl of the Mercians now, as ever,1 stood forth as the representative of peace and compromise between extreme parties. The best men of England were arrayed in one host or the other. It were madness indeed for Englishmen to destroy one another, simply in order to hand over the defenceless land to its enemies.2 But, while two armed hosts stood ready for battle, there was no room for peaceful debate. Let both sides depart; let hostages be given on both sides, and let the Meeting of the Witan-stand adjourned, to assemble again, after a few weeks, in another place. Meanwhile all enmities on either side should cease, and both sides should be held to be in full possession of the King's peace and friendship. The proposal of Leofric was accepted by both parties, and the Gemót was accordingly adjourned, to meet in London at Michaelmas. The objects of Leofric in this momentary compromise were undoubtedly honourable and patriotic. But King Eadward and his foreign advisers seem to have been determined to employ the breathing-space thus given them as best they might for the damage of the national cause. The King made use of the time in collecting an army still more powerful than that which had surrounded him at Gloucester. He seems to have got together the whole force of Northhumberland and Mercia, and to have summoned his own immediate following, the royal Housecarls, and perhaps the King's immediate Thegns, even within Godwine's own Earldom.1 The King's quarters were probably at his favourite palace of Westminster. Godwine came, accompanied by a large force of the men of his Earldom, to his own house in Southwark. Several messages passed to and fro between him and the King. But it soon became clear that, though the King's full peace and friendship had been assured to Godwine, there was no intention in the royal councils of showing him any favour, or even of treating him with common justice. The two parties had separated at Gloucester on equal terms. Each had been declared to be alike the King's friends; each alike had given hostages to the other; the matters at issue between them were to be fairly discussed in the ad 1 See vol. i. p. 326. 5 66 2 Chron. Wig. 1052. 'þæt mycel unræd wære þæt hy togedere comon [see vol. i. p. 467], forpam þær was mæst þæt rotoste pet was on Englalande on pam twam gefylcum; and leton þæt hi urum feondum rymdon to lande, and betwyx us sylfum to mycclum forwyrde." |