The mention of these great Earls suggests several considerations as to the constitutional and administrative systems of the time. It is quite a mistake to think, as often has been thought, that the position of these powerful viceroys at all proves that England was at this time tending to separation. It was in truth tending to closer union, and the position of the great Earls is really one of the |Comparison with Frankish history.| signs of that tendency. A mistaken parallel has sometimes been drawn between the condition of England under Eadward and the condition of France under the later Karlings. The transfer of the English sceptre to the house of Godwine is of course likened to the transfer of the French sceptre to the house of Hugh of Paris. But, if we are to look for a parallel in the history of Gaul, we shall find one, by no means exact but certainly the closer of the two, in the state of things under the later Merwings, and in the transfer of the Frankish sceptre to the Carolingian dynasty. The position of Godwine and Harold is, of the two, more akin to the position of Charles Martel and Pippin than it is to that of Hugh the Great and Hugh Capet. |Nature of the Earldom as affected by the Danish Conquest.| The Earls of Eadward’s reign were, as I have already explained,[125] not territorial princes, gradually withdrawing themselves from the authority of their nominal overlord, but great magistrates, wielding indeed a power well nigh royal within their several governments, but wielding it only by delegation from the common sovereign. The Danish Conquest, and the fearful slaughter of the ancient nobility in the wars of Swend and Cnut, had done much to break up the force of ancient local associations and the influence of the ancient local families. Many of these families, the East-Anglian Earls for instance, doubtless became extinct. From the accession of Cnut we find a new state of things. The rule of the old half-kingly families, holding an almost hereditary sway over whole kingdoms, and apparently 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 divided 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.[126] The Earls of Eadward’s reign are always either his own kinsmen or else |Position of Northumberland.| kinsmen of Godwine or Leofric. Siward alone 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. 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,[127] and the Northumbrian Earldom is at the disposal of the King and his Witan.[128] 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 have throughout this reign a series of writs |Evidence of the King’s 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, one such writ only exists addressed to a Northumbrian Earl, and that is in the days of Tostig.[129] In Siward’s days possibly the King’s writ hardly ran in Northumberland. 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 the same in every part of the Kingdom, but the memories and 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,[130] 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 the mass of grants of this sort which are preserved can all of them 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 Conquest[131] must have already been in progress. The Folkland must have been beginning to be looked on as Terra Regis. In short, strictly feudal ideas were gradually coming in on this as on other matters. And doubtless, in this respect, as in others, the Danish Conquest did much to prepare the way for the |General powers of the Witan not lessened.| 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.
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 Cnut[132] along with his |Reign and death of Duncan. 1040.| superior Malcolm. Duncan, the youthful grandson of Malcolm, unsuccessful, as we have seen, in his invasion of England,[133] was equally so in his warfare with the Northmen of Orkney.[134] Soon after this last failure, he was murdered by his own subjects, Macbeth being at least the prime mover in the deed.[135] The murdered prince had married a kinswoman of the Earl of the Northumbrians,[136] by whom he left two infant sons, Malcolm, afterwards famous as Malcolm Canmore, and Donald Bane. But the |Reign of Macbeth. 1040–1058.| Crown was assumed by Macbeth, on some claim, it would seem, of hereditary right, either in himself or in his wife Gruach.[137] Macbeth, and still more Gruach, have been so immortalized in legend that it is not easy to recall 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 |Macbeth distributes money at Rome. 1050.| land.[138] 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.[139] 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.[140] 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 Eadward might suggest that Macbeth felt his position precarious with regard to his English overlord. 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. 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.[141] In the |633.| very first year of his reign, he made an inroad into Mercia, |His victory at Rhyd-y-Groes. 1039.| which has been already spoken of.[142] He penetrated as far as Rhyd-y-Groes, near Upton-on-Severn, a spot still retaining its British name,[143] and there he fought the battle in which Eadwine, the brother of Earl Leofric, was killed. |His wars in South Wales.| 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.[144] In the year of |1042.| Eadward’s election, he had just won a great victory over a combined host of this kind at Aberteifi or Cardigan.[145]
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 |Connexion with Germany.| the spot, form a memorable example.[146] The connexion between England and Germany was now very close; the 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.[147] 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 |Relations with the North; claims of Magnus.| lay in the North. Magnus of Norway conceived himself to have acquired, by virtue of his agreement with Harthacnut, a claim on the Crown of England;[148] but his wars with Swend 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 the subject,[149] 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 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.
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 to mark the gradual expulsion, already spoken of, 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 disposition 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 period they all in a manner unite in the 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—contributed too little, it would seem, from her accumulated hoards—both before he became King and since.[150] 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 rather 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, 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 had seemingly wished her first marriage to be wholly forgotten.[151] But there seems not to be the slightest ground for the scandal which represented her as having acted in any way a hostile part to her sons after the death of Cnut.[152] All the more probable versions of the death of Ælfred represent her as distinctly favourable to his enterprise.[153] She had herself suffered spoliation and exile in the days of Harold;[154] she had returned with Harthacnut, and, in his days, she seems almost to have been looked on as a sharer in the royal authority.[155] That authority she had at least not used to keep back her favourite son from the recall of his banished half-brother. It is not wonderful if, under these circumstances, there was little love between mother and son. Still there does not, up to the death of Harthacnut, seem to have been any unpardonable offence |Probable offence of Emma.| 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.[156] 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.[157] 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 to imply some still deeper offence. |Witenagemót of Gloucester. November, 1043.| The conduct of Emma became the subject of debate in 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.[158] In 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 earlier[159] as the scene of courts and councils.[160] 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. It lay also near to the borders of the dangerous Welsh, whose 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 |Eadward and the Earls despoil Emma of her treasures. November 16, 1043.| three great Earls,[161] rode from Gloucester to Winchester, came unawares[162] upon the Lady, occupied her lands,[163] 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.[164] She now sinks into utter insignificance for the remainder of her days.[165]
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 of her son’s election? A woman who had so completely transferred her affection to her second husband and his children, even though she had no hand in actual conspiracies against the offspring of her first marriage, may conceivably have preferred the nephew of Cnut to her own son by Æthelred. 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 Swend to the Crown. The whole party became marked men, and were gradually sent out of the Kingdom as occasion served.[166] 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 partisans of Eadward’s Danish opponent. First and foremost was a brother of Swend himself, Osbeorn, who, like his brother Beorn, seems to have |Banishments of Swend’s partisans. 1043–1046.| 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.[167] The banishment of Osbeorn did not stand alone. The great |1046.| Danish Thegn Osgod Clapa was banished a few years later,[168] and it was probably on the same account that Æthelstan the son of Tofig lost his estate at Waltham,[169] |1044.| and that Gunhild, the niece of Cnut and daughter of Wyrtgeorn, was banished together with her two sons Heming and Thurkill.[170] She was then a widow for the second time through the death of her husband Earl Harold.[171] 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.[172] 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.[173]
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 |Stigand, appointed Bishop of Elmham, and deposed. April-November, 1043.| fall of one eminent Englishman. The 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,[174] appointed to a Bishoprick and almost immediately deprived of it.[175] The like fate now happened to him a second time. He was, it would seem, still unconsecrated;[176] but, seemingly about the time of Eadward’s coronation, he was named and consecrated to the East-Anglian Bishoprick of Elmham.[177] 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.[178] That Stigand should have supported the claims of Swend is in itself not improbable. He had risen wholly by 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 to fill the sees of Canterbury, London, and Dorchester with French Prelates. In those matters he had a freer choice, because, in the case of an ecclesiastical office, no hereditary claim or preference could possibly be put forward. The same freedom of choice still remains to the dispensers of church patronage in our own times. The Lord Lieutenant, the Sheriff, the ordinary magistrates, of any county are necessarily chosen from among men belonging to that county. But the Bishop, the Dean, the ordinary clergy, may never have set foot in the diocese till they are called on to exercise their functions within it. Then, as now, various influences limited the choice of temporal functionaries which did not limit the choice of spiritual functionaries. It is therefore of special moment to mark the course of ecclesiastical appointments at this time, as supplying our best means of tracing the growth of the foreign influence and the course of the resistance made to it.
It is not very clear what the exact process of appointing a Bishop at this time was. It is clear that the royal will was the chief power in the appointment. It is clear that the official document which gave the Bishop-elect a claim to consecration was a royal writ, to which now, under the French influences of Eadward’s court, a royal seal, in imitation of continental practice, was beginning to be attached.[179] It is also clear that the appointment was regularly made in full Witenagemót.[180] This of course implies that the Witan had at least the formal right of saying Yea or Nay to the King’s nomination. But we hear at the same time of capitular elections,[181] which clearly were not a mere form, though it rested with the King to accept or reject the selected candidate. No doubt some process was in use, in which the Chapter, the Witan, and the King all took their parts,[182] but in ordinary speech the appointment is always said to rest with the King, who is constantly described as giving a Bishoprick to such and such a man. The King too at this time exercised the right, which afterwards became the subject of so much controversy, of investing the Bishop-elect with the ring and staff.[183] It is clear also, from the case of Stigand just recorded, that the King and his Witan had full power of |Increased connexion with Rome.| deposing a Bishop. On the other hand, probably owing to the number of foreign ecclesiastics now in the Kingdom, references to the Court of Rome become from this time far more frequent. For an Archbishop to go to Rome for his pallium was nothing new; but now we hear of Bishops going to Rome for consecration or confirmation, and of the Roman Court claiming at least a veto on the nomination of the English King.[184]
It is perhaps more startling to find that the court of Saint Eadward was no more free from the suspicion of simony than the courts of ruffians like Harold and Harthacnut.[185] It is clear however that it was neither on the King personally nor on the Earl of the West-Saxons that this disgraceful imputation rested. One can hardly help suspecting that it was the itching palms of the King’s foreign favourites which proved the most frequent resting-place for the gold of those who sought for ecclesiastical dignities by corrupt means. In the year after Eadward’s coronation we meet with a story which brings out all |Siward appointed coadjutor to Archbishop Eadsige. 1044.| these points very strongly. Archbishop Eadsige found himself incapacitated by illness from discharging his functions, and wished either to resign his see or, as it would rather seem, to appoint a coadjutor. But he feared lest, if his intentions were made publicly known, some man whom he did not approve of might beg or buy the office.[186] He therefore took into his counsels none but the two first men in the realm, Earl Godwine and King Eadward himself. Godwine would naturally be glad of the opportunity to put some check on the growing foreign influences, and Eadward, easily as he was led astray, would doubtless be anxious, when the case was fairly placed before him, to follow any course which tended to preserve the purity of ecclesiastical rule. By the authority then of Eadward and Godwine, but with the knowledge of very few other persons,[187] Siward, Abbot of Abingdon, was consecrated as Coadjutor-Archbishop.[188] He acted on behalf of the Primate |He returns to Abingdon and dies. 1048–50.| for about six years, till illness caused him in his turn to resign his office and return to Abingdon, where he died.[189] On this Eadsige again assumed the administration of the Archbishoprick,[190] for a short time before his own death.
But a more memorable appointment was made in the course of the same year. Ælfweard, Bishop of London and Abbot of Evesham, a Prelate whose name has already occurred in our history,[191] fell sick of leprosy. He returned to his Abbey, but the brotherhood with one consent refused him admission. They met, we are told, with the just reward of their churlishness. Ælfweard turned away to the distant Abbey of Ramsey, where he had spent his early years, and where he was gladly received. He soon after died, leaving great gifts to the hospitable monks of Ramsey.[192] Rumour however added that they largely consisted of his own former gifts to Evesham, and that he even did not scruple to remove from that undutiful house some precious things which had been the gifts of other benefactors.[193] Two great spiritual preferments were thus vacated, one of them, the see of London, one of the most important in the Kingdom. The lesser office at Evesham was conferred on an Englishman, Wulfmær or Mannig, a monk of the house;[194] but in the nomination to the great East-Saxon Bishoprick, the foreigners obtained one of their |He is succeeded by Robert of Jumièges. August 10?| most memorable triumphs. In a full Witenagemót, holden in London in the month of August, the Bishoprick of the city in which the Assembly was held was bestowed on one Robert, a Norman monk, who had first been Prior of Saint Ouen’s at Rouen, and afterwards Abbot of the great house of Jumièges.[195] He has there left behind him a noble memorial in the stately minster which still survives in ruins, |Baneful influence of Robert.| but in England it is not too much to say, that he became, in this high post and in the still higher post which he afterwards reached, the pest of the Kingdom. His influence over the mind of the feeble King was unbounded.[196] We are ludicrously told that, if Robert said that a black crow was white, King Eadward would at once believe him.[197] He is described at all hands as being the chief stirrer up of strife between Eadward and his native subjects. He it was who separated the husband from the wife, and |His calumnies against Godwine.| the King from his most faithful counsellors. He it was whose slanderous tongue again brought up against the great Earl[198] that charge of complicity in the death of Ælfred of which he had been solemnly pronounced guiltless by the |His connexion with the Norman invasion.| highest Court in the realm.[199] And the career of Robert is one of great historical importance. It is closely connected with the immediate causes—it may even be reckoned among the immediate causes—of the Norman invasion.[200] Robert’s appointment to the see of London may be fairly set down as marking a distinct stage in the progress of Norman influence in England. He was the first man of utterly alien speech who had held an English Bishoprick since the days of Roman, Scottish, or Cilician missionaries. |[1052.]| His overthrow at a later time was one of the first-fruits of the great national reaction against the strangers, and its supposed uncanonical character was one of the many pretences put forth by William to justify his invasion of England.
This appointment of Robert shows the great advance of the Norman influence. But it had not as yet reached its height. Godwine and the popular party seem to have been able to make a kind of compromise with the King. It was necessary to yield to the King’s strong personal inclination in the case of Robert; but the other vacant preferments were secured for Englishmen. We have seen that Ælfweard’s Abbey was not allowed to be held in plurality by his successor in the Bishoprick, but was bestowed |Stigand Bishop of Elmham.| on an Englishman of high character. Stigand too had by this time made his peace with Eadward and Godwine, and now began to climb the ladder of preferment afresh. He now again received the Bishoprick of |Banishment of Gunhild and her sons.| Elmham or of the East-Angles.[201] And it was in the same year, and seemingly at the same Gemót, that Gunhild, “the noble wife,” the widow of the Earls Hakon and Harold, the mother of Heming and Thurkill, was banished together with her sons.[202]
This last event was one of that series of banishments which have been already spoken of as gradually falling on all who had made themselves in any way prominent in opposition to the election of Eadward. But it was most likely not unconnected with the present threatening state |Condition of Northern Europe.| of affairs in Northern Europe. The early years of Eadward in England were contemporary with the great struggle between Swend and Magnus for the Crown of Denmark. |War of Swend and Magnus. 1044–1047.| The details of that warfare are told in our Scandinavian authorities with the usual amount of confusion and contradiction, and it seems hopeless to think of altogether reconciling their conflicting statements. Our own Chronicles, as usual, supply the most promising means of harmonizing them in some small degree. We have seen that Magnus was in actual possession of both Norway and Denmark at the time of Eadward’s coronation.[203] Swend, after several battles, had found himself forsaken |Connexion of Godescalc with Swend and Magnus.| by every one, and had taken refuge in Sweden.[204] Godescalc the Wend, who had accompanied him from England, had forsaken him with the rest,[205] and had entered on that mingled career as missionary and warrior among his heathen countrymen of which I have already spoken.[206] In this warfare he most likely acted as an ally of Magnus, who was also renowned for victories over the same enemy.[207] |Triumphant position of Magnus.| Magnus, now at the height of his power, King of Denmark and Norway, conqueror of his heathen neighbours, enjoying, as it would seem, the respect and attachment of the people of both his Kingdoms, regretted and retracted the engagements of fidelity, perhaps even of submission, which he had made to Eadward when his own |He claims the English Crown. 1045.| position seemed less secure. He now fell back on the claim by virtue of which he had possessed himself of Denmark, and which, in his eyes, gave him an equal right to the possession of England. Magnus sent an embassy to England, claiming the Crown, and setting forth his right.[208] He and Harthacnut had agreed that whichever of them outlived the other should succeed to his dominions. Harthacnut was dead; Magnus had, by virtue of that agreement, succeeded to the Crown of Denmark; he now demanded Harthacnut’s other Kingdom of England. |Eadward’s answer.| Eadward, we are told, answered in a magnanimous strain, in which he directly rested his right to the English Crown on the choice of the English people.[209] While his brother lived, he had served him faithfully as a private man, and had put forward no claim by virtue of his birth. On his brother’s death, he had been chosen King by the whole nation and solemnly consecrated to the kingly office. Lawful King of the English, he would never lay aside the Crown which his fathers had worn before him. Let Magnus come; he would raise no army against him, but Magnus should never mount the throne of England till he had taken the life of Eadward.[210] Magnus, so the Norwegian Saga tells us, was so struck with this answer, that he gave up all thoughts of attacking England, and acknowledged Eadward’s right to the English Crown. This account, as perhaps Eadward’s answer also, savours somewhat of romance. But that Magnus did contemplate an invasion of England is certain, and, as England had given him no cause for war, an invasion of England would seem to imply a |Preparations against Magnus. 1044–5.| claim on the English Crown. The Norwegian King was looked on as dangerous in the year after Eadward’s coronation, and in the next year he was kept back from an invasion of England only by a renewal of the war in the North. In both these years Eadward found it necessary to gather a fleet together at Sandwich.[211] In the first year the fleet amounted to thirty-five ships only; in the second year we are told that it was a fleet such as no man had ever seen before.[212] In this last case we are distinctly told that its object was to repel an expected invasion on the part of Magnus.