NOTE HH. Vol. ii. p. 115.

Godwine of Winchester and his son Robert.

I gave a short note to the history of Robert son of Godwine in N. C. vol. v. p. 819. On going again more minutely through the story, I am even more struck than before by the singular way in which different notices of Robert and Godwine hang together. It is one of the best cases that I know of the argument from undesigned coincidences. Besides the interest of the story in itself, it teaches us, like many other stories, how, if we work with a proper caution, we may dig truth out of quarters where we should hardly have looked for it, and it may specially suggest matter for thought as to the value of those pieces of Scottish history which one hardly knows whether to call the writings of Turgot or Fordun, or of any one else. I suspect that, if we simply read the story of Godwine and Robert as it stands in Fordun, we should be inclined to cast it aside altogether. The story undoubtedly has a legendary air, and the details of the single combat are likely enough to have received some legendary colouring even at the time. Some might even be a little startled at the appearance of Englishmen of knightly rank at the court of William Rufus. But we see from Domesday on the one hand, and from William of Malmesbury on the other, that Godwine and Robert were real men, and we see that the part which they play in Fordun’s story is exactly in accordance with their real position.

I have mentioned elsewhere (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 571; vol. v. p. 819) that there was a Godwine holding lands in Hertfordshire of the Ætheling Eadgar. We also have in two places in William of Malmesbury (iii. 251; iv. 384) notices of “Robertus Anglus,” “Robertus filius Godwini miles audacissimus,” who goes to the crusade with the Ætheling, and who does the exploits which I have spoken of in p. 122. Now if circumstantial evidence is ever good for anything, one can hardly doubt that the Godwine of Domesday is the same as the Godwine of William of Malmesbury and as the Godwine of Fordun, and that the Robert son of Godwine in Fordun is the same as the Robert son of Godwine in William of Malmesbury. The three accounts are wholly independent, but all bring Godwine and Robert into connexion with Eadgar. It is almost inconceivable that Fordun’s story should be mere invention, when it makes men of whom so little is known act exactly in character with the little that is known of them.

In the account in Fordun (ii. 22, Surtees Simeon 263), Ordgar, “Orgarus,” is described in the one text as “miles degener Anglicus,” in the other as “miles de genere Anglico,” which is clearly the better reading.

The name of Ordgar appears only twice in Domesday. In Oxfordshire, 161, Ordgar, a king’s thegn, holds two hides of the worth of forty shillings. He had two slaves on his domain, and half a carucate was held by two villains or churls. We then read, “Godwinus libere tenuit.” This is pretty sure to be our Ordgar, and it may very well be our Godwine, though we can say nothing for certain about so common a name. If they are the same, here is great likelihood, though no proof, that Godwine may have had other ground for willingness to fight Ordgar, besides his loyalty to the Ætheling. Ordgar, on the other hand, appears in Somerset, 93, as holding a hide which had passed to Robert of Courcelles, and which, with a good deal more, was held by Anschitil. Ordgar was not the only Englishman who, among the endless forfeitures and grants—​to say nothing of ordinary sales, bequests, and exchanges, which went on T. R. W. as well as T. R. E.—​lost in one part of England and gained in another.

In Fordun’s story Eadgar is described as “clito Eadgarus, viz. genere gloriosus, nam sic ipsum nominabant.” “De genere gloriosus,” it will be marked, is a more literal translation of “Clito” than it is of “Ætheling.” William is inclined to hearken to Ordgar, “quia Eadgarus de regia stirpe fuerat progenitus, et regno, jure Anglico, proximus.” We then read, “nec incerta de Eadgaro jam poterat esse sententia, si crimen impositum probari potuisset.” Eadgar is in great trouble for fear of not finding a champion, when Godwine steps forward; “Miles de Wintonia, Anglicus natione, genere non ignobilis, nomine Godwinus, veteris parentelæ ipsius non immemor, opem se præstiturum in hac re tam difficili compromisit.”

The two knights now go forth, as I have described in the text, and we have a significant comment on the lack of English patriotism shown by Ordgar;

“Hinc etiam calumniatorem cum justa animadversione increpat, qui Anglicus genere existens naturæ videretur impugnator, quem enim ut dominum venerari debuerat, utpote de jure generis existens cui se et omnia sua debuisset.”

Then come the details of the combat. We hear no more of Godwine after his victory and reward, which last is thus told; “Superati hostis terras et possessiones hereditario jure rex ei concederet possidendas.” “Hereditario jure” most likely simply means, as usual, that the land was to go on to Godwine’s heirs. It need not refer to the probable fact that part at least of Ordgar’s lands had once belonged to Godwine.

Robert first appears in Fordun, v. 25, on the march to Scotland (see p. 119). He is introduced as “quidam miles, Anglicus genere, Robertus nomine, filius antedicti Godwini, paternæ probitatis imitator et hæres.” Then come his exploits and adventures in Britain, as I have told them in the text. Afterwards must come his crusading exploits as described by William of Malmesbury. In the earlier of his two accounts (see p. 122) one might almost have thought that King Baldwin had no companion except Robert. The second passage, which gives them four other companions, has therefore the force of a correction; “Rex … quinque militibus comitatus, in montana rependo, insidiantes elusit. Militum fuit unus Robertus Anglus, ut superius dixi; cæteros notitiæ nostræ fama tam longinqua occubuit. Ille cum tribus comprehensus est; unus evasit cum rege.” Another point which is worth notice is that the period of the crusade at which Robert is brought in exactly agrees with the story of his doings in Scotland and Northumberland. A man who had difficulties with Flambard after he became bishop in 1099 could not have been with the first crusaders at Antioch and Jerusalem; he might have been quite in time to help Baldwin at Rama.

It would be worth the while of some Hertfordshire antiquary to see whether anything can be made out as to the descent of the lands held by Godwine, or as to any descendants of him and Robert. But I saw a little time back a newly published history of that county, which was eloquent about the grandmothers of various obscure persons of our own time, but which had not a word to say about the champion of Eadgar or the comrade of Baldwin.