History of the Norman Conquest, Vol 2

ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

p. 14, note 4, for “manude” read “monude.”

p. 46, note 1, for “men” read “man.”

p. 50, side-note, for “Earldom” read “Earldoms.”

p. 52, l. 7. There is another writ which, though neither Northumberland nor any Northumbrian Earl is distinctly mentioned, is clearly meant to run in Northumberland more than anywhere else. This is the writ in Cod. Dipl. iv. 230, addressed, according to a form found elsewhere, to the Bishops, Earls, and Thegns of all those shires in which Archbishop Ealdred had any lands “Eadward cyngc grét míne biscopas and míne eorlas and ealle mýne þegenas on ðam scýran ðær Ealdred ærcebisceop hæfeð land inne freóndlíce”). Among these shires Gloucestershire is doubtless included, but Yorkshire must have stood foremost.

p. 70, note 1. See p. 438.

p. 82, l. 5. There is an odd notice of Lyfing’s plurality of Bishopricks in a deed in Cod. Dipl. vi. 195. It is a conveyance of lands to Sherborne made in a Scirgemót of Devonshire held at Exeter under the presidency of Earl Godwine. Lyfing is one of the witnesses, and he is described as “Lyfing bisceop be norðan,” as if a Devonshire man’s notions of Worcester were not very clear. Worcester was clearly the see which Lyfing loved best.

p. 89, note 3. I ought here to have added another entry in the same folio of Domesday, which I knew perfectly well, but which did not catch my eye when I wrote this note. In the second column of fol. 180 are the words “Abbatissa tenet Fencote, et ipsa tenuit T. R. E.” This, and the entry about “victus monialium,” are the whole account of the monastery. This entry however may well agree with my view of the case. Fencote is but a small dependency of Leominster, and it was probably a portion set aside for Eadgifu’s personal maintenance. If so, she survived her error forty years.

p. 108, l. 14. Perhaps more accurately, in the Earldom of Ralph, under the superior authority of Leofric. See p. 563.

p. 115, note 5. On seeming anachronisms of this kind see p. 634. Cf. p. 111, note 1.

p. 134, note 2. On the bare possibility that Tostig may have held some subordinate government as early as this time, see p. 567.

p. 165, l. 3. To prevent misconception, it may be needful to explain to some readers that there was a Napoleon Buonaparte, who was crowned at Paris (see vol. i. p. 268) and who died at Saint Helena, and who slew more men in unjust wars than probably any one man in Europe since Caius Julius Cæsar.

xxxp. 180, l. 11, for “so perilous an enterprise” read “the same perilous enterprise.”

p. 209, l. 2, for “Princes” read “Prince.”

p. 248, l. 15, after “half dressed” read “himself.”

p. 249, note 3, for “of the Monasticon” read “in the Monasticon.”

p. 278, note 1, for “contigerât” read “contigerat.”

p. 284, note 2. I have to thank my friend Mr. Dimock for the explanation that “accipiter” is the goshawk, while the sparrow-hawk is “nisus.” From the point of view of the small birds the difference is perhaps not very important.

p. 287, note 2, for “than that at Alençon” read “than he was at Alençon.”

p. 322, l. 24, after “from Kent” read “from Surrey.”

P· 337, l. 17. See p. 602.

p. 342, note 2, for “filli” read “filii.”

p. 347, note 3. Of Ralph the Staller I shall have to speak more at large in my next volume. I suspect him to be the Ralph mentioned in the Chronicles under the year 1075.

p. 349, note 2. On Leofric’s plurality of abbeys see also the Peterborough Chronicle, 1066.

p. 359, note 1. “Bundinus,” that is Bondig, was an Englishman. I shall have to speak of him again.

p. 368, l. 8, for “around” read “beneath.”

p. 373, l. 3, for “West-Frankish” read “East-Frankish.”

p. 418, l. 4 from bottom, for “whenever” read “wherever.”

p. 423, l. 8 from bottom, dele “indeed.”

p. 433, l. 15, for “fell vacant in the course of the year” read “were now vacant.” It seems uncertain whether Heaca died in 1057 or in 1058 (see p. 414): if the former year is right, the see of Selsey must have remained vacant a year. As this is not likely, the expression in the text is probably true, but it is better to leave the matter uncertain.

Ib. note 1, for “disposition” read “disposal.”

p. 436, l. 10. The three Wulfstans—Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, Archbishop of York, and founder of Gloucester Abbey—Wulfstan, monk of Worcester and Abbot of Gloucester—and Saint Wulfstan, Prior and Bishop of Worcester,—must be carefully distinguished from each other. All were alive at once, and the last two were strictly contemporary, and all had more or less to do with Worcester and Gloucester.

p. 441, l. 8. I shall discuss in my third volume the possibility of this Esegar being the “Ansgardus” of Guy of Amiens. The idea had not occurred to me when I wrote this part of the text.

p. 448, l. 18, for “two” read “four” = 1056–1060.

p. 451, note 6. On this Azor and others of the name, see p. 642.

p. 461, note 5, for “436” read “438.”

p. 465, note 5, for “1262” read “1062.”

p. 467, note 3. This charge against Ealdred is confirmed by the entries in Domesday, 164 b. “Eldred archiepiscopus tenuit Stanedis. De dominio Sancti Petri de Glouuecestre fuit.” “Sanctus Petrus de Glouuecestre tenuit xxxiLecce, et Eldred archiepiscopus tenuit cum abbatiâ.” Both these are lordships in Gloucestershire, which were still held by the see of York at the time of the Survey. It is not so clear when we read of a third lordship in the same list; “Eldredus archiepiscopus tenuit Otintune.... Thomas archiepiscopus tenet. Sanctus Petrus de Glouuecestre habuit in dominio donec Rex Willelmus in Angliam venit.” Does this mean that Ealdred, who was, for some time at least, in William’s favour, continued his spoliations of the monks of Gloucester after his accession?

p. 479, l. 12, for “seem well” read “well seem.” See p. 651.

p. 487, l. 9, and 497, l. 19. See p. 651.

p. 511, l. 16. The Bishop meant would doubtless be Stigand as Bishop of the diocese; by the same showing the Abbot would most likely be Harold’s uncle Ælfwig, the Abbot of the neighbouring house of New Minster.

p. 531, l. 24. Cf. Ovid, Metamorph. x. 467;

p. 541, l. 10, for “this” read “his.”

p. 545, l. 7, for “againt” read “against.”

p. 553, l. 14. The list in the Knytlirga Saga, c. 11, is no less strange; Harold, Tostig, “Maurakaare,” Waltheof, and Swend.

p. 598, l. 9 from bottom, for “late” read “later,” and in last line but one dele “than.”

p. 607, l. 11 from bottom, for “præsente” read “præsentem.”

p. 611, l. 13 from bottom, for “minded” read “reminded.”

CHAPTER VII. FROM THE ELECTION OF EADWARD TO THE BANISHMENT OF GODWINE. [1] 1042–1051. — § 1. The Election and Coronation of Eadward. 1042–1043. — § 2. Condition of England during the early years of Eadward. — § 3. From the Coronation of Eadward to the Remission of the War-Tax. 1043–1051. — § 4. The Banishment of Earl Godwine. 1051.

We have thus far gone through the course of those events which acted as the more distant causes of the Norman Conquest; with the accession of Eadward we 4|The struggle between Normans and Englishmen begins with the accession of Eadward.| stand on the threshold of the Conquest itself. The actual subjugation of England by force of arms is still twenty-four years distant; but the struggle between Norman and Englishman for dominion in England has already begun. That such would be the result of Eadward’s accession was certainly not looked for by those who raised him to the throne. Never was any prince called to assume a crown by a more distinct expression of the national will. “All folk chose Eadward to King.” The |Import of Eadward’s election; resolve of the English people to have none but an English King.| choice expressed the full purpose of the English nation to endure no King but one who was their bone and their flesh. No attachment to the memory of the great Cnut could survive the utter misgovernment of his sons. The thought of another Danish King was now hateful. Yet the royal house of Denmark contained at least one prince who was in every way worthy to reign. Could the 5|Other possible candidates; Swend Estrithson;| national feeling have endured another Danish ruler, Swend Estrithson might have governed England as prudently and as prosperously as he afterwards governed Denmark. But the great qualities of Swend had as yet hardly shown themselves. He could have been known at this time only as a young adventurer, who had signally failed in the only great exploit which he had attempted.^[2] And, above all things, the feeling of the moment called for an Englishman, for an Ætheling of the blood of Cerdic. One |Eadward the son of Eadmund.| such Ætheling only was at hand. One son of Eadmund Ironside was now grown up to manhood, but he had been from his infancy an exile in a distant land. Most likely no one thought of him as a possible candidate for the Crown; it may well be that his very existence was |Position of Eadward.| generally forgotten. In the eyes of Englishmen there was now only one representative of the ancient royal house. Eadward, the son of Æthelred and Emma, the brother of the murdered and half-canonized Ælfred, had long been familiar to English imaginations, and, since the accession of his half-brother Harthacnut, the English Court had been his usual dwelling-place. Eadward, and Eadward alone, stood forth as the heir of English royalty, the representative of English nationality. In his behalf the popular voice spoke out at once and unmistakeably. “Before the King buried were, all folk chose Eadward to King at London.”

The general course of events at this time is perfectly plain, but there is a good deal of difficulty as to some of the details.^[3] The popular election of Eadward took place in June, immediately on the death of Harthacnut, 6and even before his burial; but it is very remarkable that |His coronation delayed till the next year.| the coronation of the new King did not take place till Easter in the next year.^[4] This delay is singular, and needs explanation. The consecration of a King was then not |Importance of the coronation-rite.| a mere pageant, but a rite of the utmost moment, partaking almost of a sacramental character. Without it the King was not King at all, or King only in a very imperfect sense. We have seen how impossible it was for the uncrowned Harthacnut to retain his hold upon Wessex.^[5] The election of the Witan gave to the person chosen the sole right to the Crown, but he was put into actual possession of the royal office only by the ecclesiastical consecration. Eadward then, for nearly ten months after his first election, could not be looked on as “full King,”^[6] but as at most King-elect. What could be the cause of such a delay? The notion of a general war with the Danes in England, which might otherwise account for it, I have elsewhere shown to be without foundation.^[7] The circumstances of the time would seem to have been singularly unsuited for any delay. We should have expected that the same burst of popular feeling which carried Eadward’s immediate and unanimous election would also have demanded the exclusion of any possible competitor by an immediate |Probable causes of the delay; Eadward most likely absent from England, and unwilling to accept the Crown.| coronation. But the fact was otherwise. The explanation of so singular a state of things is most likely to be found in certain hints which imply that it was caused, partly by Eadward’s absence from England, partly by an unwillingness on his part to accept the Crown. There is strong reason to believe that Eadward was not in England at the moment of his half-brother’s death. Harthacnut had indeed recalled him to England, and his court had become the English Ætheling’s ordinary dwelling-place. But this fact in no way shuts out the possibility that Eadward 7may have been absent on the Continent at any particular moment, on a visit to some of his French or Norman friends, or on a pilgrimage to some French or Norman sanctuary. Meanwhile the sudden death of Harthacnut left the throne vacant. As in other cases before and after,^[8] the citizens of London, whose importance grows at every step, together with such of the other Witan as were at hand, met at once and chose Eadward King. As he was absent, and his consent was doubtful, an embassy |Embassy to Eadward.| had to be sent to him, as embassies had been sent to his father Æthelred^[9] and to his brother Harthacnut,^[10] inviting him to return and receive the Crown. That embassy, we are told, consisted of Bishops and Earls; we can hardly doubt that at the head of their several orders stood two men whom all accounts set before us as the leaders in the promotion of Eadward. These were Lyfing, Bishop of |Negotiations between Eadward and Godwine.| Worcester, and Godwine, Earl of the West-Saxons.^[11] A remarkable negotiation now took place between the Earl and the King-elect. Details of private conversations are always suspicious, but the dialogue attributed to the Earl and the Ætheling contains nothing but what is thoroughly suited to the circumstances of the case. We can fully understand that Eadward, either from timidity or from his monastic turn, might shrink from the labour and responsibility of reigning at all, and that, with his Norman tastes, he might look forward with very little satisfaction to the prospect of reigning over Englishmen. Such scruples 8|Speech of Godwine.| were driven away by the arguments and eloquence of the great Earl. The actual speech put into his mouth may be the composition of the historian, but it contains the arguments which cannot fail to have been used in such a case. It was better to live gloriously as a King than to die ingloriously in exile. Eadward was the son of Æthelred, the grandson of Eadgar; the Crown was therefore his natural inheritance. His personal position and character would form a favourable contrast to those of the two worthless youths who had misgoverned England since the death of Cnut.^[12] His years and experience fitted him to rule; he was of an age to act vigorously when severity was needed; he had known the ups and downs of life; he had been purified by poverty and exile, and would therefore know how to show mercy when mercy was called for.^[13] If he had any doubts, he, Godwine, was ready to maintain his cause; his power was great enough both to procure the election of a candidate, and to secure |Eadward accepts the Crown.| his throne when elected.^[14] Eadward was persuaded; he consented to accept the Crown; he plighted his friendship to the Earl, and it may be that he promised to confer honours on his sons and to take his daughter in marriage. But stories of private stipulations of this kind are always doubtful. It is enough that Godwine had, as all accounts agree, the chief hand in raising Eadward to the throne.

Eadward now seems to have returned to England, probably in company with Godwine and the other am|Witenagemót 9of Gillingham. 1042–3.| *bassadors. The Witan presently met at Gillingham in Wiltshire; and it would seem that the acceptance of Eadward’s claims was now somewhat less unanimous than it had been during the first burst of enthusiasm which followed the death of Harthacnut. Godwine brought forward Eadward as a candidate, he urged his claims with all his powers of speech, and himself set the example of |Opposition to Eadward’s election;| becoming his man on the spot. Still an opposition arose in the Assembly, which it needed all the eloquence of Godwine and Lyfing to overcome. They had even, as it would seem, to stoop to a judicious employment of the less noble arts of statesmanship. The majority indeed were won over by the authority of the man whom all England looked on as a father.^[15] But the votes of some had to be gained by presents, or, in plain words, by bribes.^[16] Others, it would seem, stood out against Eadward’s |apparently in the interest of Swend.| election to the last. This opposition, we cannot doubt, came from a Danish party which supported the claims of Swend Estrithson. That prince, on return from his first unsuccessful war with Magnus, had found his cousin Harthacnut dead, and Eadward already King as far as his first election could make him so.^[17] But the delay of the coronation, the uncertainty of Eadward’s acceptance of the Crown, might well make the hopes of |Alleged negotiations between Eadward and Swend.| Swend and his partisans revive. We can hardly believe the tale, though it rests apparently on the assertion of Swend himself, that he demanded the Crown, and that Eadward made peace with him, making the usual compromise that Swend should succeed him on his death, even though he should leave sons.^[18] Such an agreement would of course be of no force without the consent of 10the Witan. That consent may have been given in the Assembly at Gillingham; but such an arrangement seems hardly credible. The English nation no doubt fully intended that the Crown should remain in the House of Cerdic, and Godwine probably already hoped that in the next generation the blood of Cerdic would be united with the blood of Wulfnoth. But it is certain that Swend was in some way or other reconciled to Eadward and Godwine, for we shall presently find Swend acting as the friend of England, and Godwine acting as the special champion of the interests of Swend.^[19] The son of Ulf was, it will be remembered, the nephew of Gytha, and this family connexion no doubt pleaded for him as far as was consistent with Godwine’s higher and nearer objects. One of Swend’s brothers, Beorn, remained in England, where he was soon raised to a great Earldom, and seems to have been counted in all respects as a member of the house of Godwine. But the friends of Swend in general were set down for future punishment.^[20] In the end confiscation or banishment fell on the most eminent of them. Among them was Osbeorn, another brother of the Danish King, whom we shall hear of in later times as betraying the claims of his brother, and therewith the hopes of England, into the hand of the Norman Conqueror.

Eadward was thus raised to the throne mainly through the exertions of the two patriotic leaders, Godwine and Lyfing. It is vain to argue whether Godwine did wisely in pressing his election. There was in truth no other choice. The only other possible candidates were Swend, and Magnus of Norway, of whose claims we shall hear again presently. But English feeling called for an English King, and there was no English King but Eadward 11to be had. That Godwine could have procured his own election to the Crown, that the thought of such an election could have occurred to himself or to any one else, is an utterly wild surmise.^[21] If Godwine met with some opposition when pressing the claims of Eadward, that opposition would have increased tenfold had he ventured to dream of the Crown for himself. The nomination of the West-Saxon Earl would have been withstood to the death, not only by a handful of Danes, but by Leofric and Siward, probably, in Siward’s case at least, at the head of the whole force of their Earldoms. The time was not yet come for the election of a King not of the royal house. There was no manifest objection to the election of Eadward, and, though Godwine was undoubtedly the most powerful man in England, he had not reached that marked and undisputed preeminence which was enjoyed by his son twenty-four years later. No English candidate but Eadward was possible. And men had not yet learned, Godwine himself probably had not fully learned, how little worthy Eadward was to be called an English candidate.^[22] And when in after years they learned the unhappy truth, still there does not seem to have been at any time the least thought of displacing Eadward in favour of either of his Scandinavian competitors, or even of calling in Swend to succeed him. In raising Eadward to the throne, Godwine acted simply as the mouthpiece of the English people. The opposition, as far as we can see, came wholly from the Danes of what we may call the second importation, those who had come 12into England with Cnut and Harthacnut. There is nothing to show that the old-settled Danish population of Northumberland acted apart from the rest of the country.

Eadward then was King. He reigned, as every English King before him had reigned, by that union of popular election and royal descent which formed the essence of all ancient Teutonic kingship.^[23] But it would seem that, even in those days, the two elements in his title, the two principles to whose union he and all other Kings owed their kingly rank, spoke with different degrees of force to different minds. Already, in the eleventh century, we may say that there were Whigs and Tories in England. At any rate there were men in whose eyes the choice of the people was the primary and legitimate source of kingship. There were also men who were inclined to rest the King’s claim to his Crown mainly on his descent from those who had been Kings before him. The difference is plainly shown in the different versions of the Chronicles. One contemporary winter, a devoted partisan of Godwine, grounds the King’s right solely on the popular choice—“All folk chose Eadward to King.” That the entry was made at the time is plain from the prayer which follows, “May he hold it while God grants it to him.”^[24] Another version, the only one in any degree hostile to the great Earl, seems purposely to avoid the use of any word recognizing a distinct right of choice in the people. “All folk received Eadward to King, as was his right by birth.”^[25] 13A third writer, distinctly, though less strongly, Godwinist, seems pointedly to combine both statements; “All folk chose Eadward, and received him to King, as was his right by birth.”^[26] There can be no doubt that this last is the truest setting forth both of the law and of the facts of the case. The people chose Eadward, and without the choice of |Union of elective and hereditary right.| the people he would have had no right to reign. But they chose him because he was the one available descendant of the old kingly stock, because he was the one man at hand who enjoyed that preference by right of birth, which required that, in all ordinary cases, the choice of the electors should be confined to the descendants of former Kings. It might therefore be said with perfect truth that Eadward was chosen because the Kingdom was his by right |Eadward not next in succession according to modern notions.| of birth. But it must not be forgotten, what is absolutely necessary for the true understanding of the case, that this right by birth does not imply that Eadward would have been, according to modern ideas, the next in succession to the Crown. Eadward’s right by birth would have been no right by birth at all in the eyes of a modern lawyer. The younger son of Æthelred could, according to our present ideas, have no right to succeed while any representative of his elder brother survived. The heir, in our sense of the word, was not the Eadward who was close at hand in England or Normandy, but the Eadward 14who was far away in exile in Hungary or Russia. Modern writers constantly speak of this last Eadward and of his son Eadgar as the lawful heirs of the Confessor. On the contrary, according to modern notions, the Confessor was their lawful heir, and, according to modern notions, the Confessor must be pronounced to have usurped a throne |The right of the elder branch not thought of.| which of right belonged to his nephew. In his own time such subtleties were unknown. Any son of Æthelred, any descendant of the old stock, satisfied the sentiment of royal birth, which was all that was needed.^[27] To search over the world for the son of an elder brother, while the younger brother was close at hand, was an idea which would never have entered the mind of any Englishman of the eleventh century.

The coronation ceremony probably followed soon after the meeting at Gillingham. It was performed on Easter Day at Winchester,^[28] the usual place for an Easter Gemót, by Archbishop Eadsige, assisted by Ælfric of York and most of the other Prelates of England.^[29] We are expressly |Exhortation of Eadsige; condition of the Kingdom.| told that the Metropolitan gave much good exhortation both to the newly made King and to his people.^[30] The peculiar circumstances of the time might well suggest such a special admonition. There was a King, well nigh the last of his race, a King chosen by the distinct expression of the will of the people, as the representative of 15English nationality in opposition to foreign rule. But the King so chosen as the embodiment of English feeling was himself an Englishman in little more than in the accident of being born on English ground^[31] as the son of a father who was a disgrace to the English name. There was a Kingdom to be guarded against foreign claimants, and there were the wounds inflicted by two unfortunate, though happily short, reigns to be healed at home. The duties which were laid upon the shoulders |Relations between Eadward and Godwine.| of the new King were neither few nor easy. He had indeed at hand the mightiest and wisest of guardians to help him in his task. But we can well understand that the feelings of Eadward towards the man to whom he owed his Crown were feelings of awe rather than of love. There could be little real sympathy between the stout Englishman and the nursling of the Norman court, between the chieftain great alike in battle and in council and the timid devotee who shrank from the toils and responsibilities of an earthly Kingdom. And we can well believe that, notwithstanding Godwine’s solemn acquittal, there still lingered in the mind of Eadward some prejudice against the man who had once been charged with his |Relations of the three great Earls.| brother’s death. And again, though it was to Godwine and his West-Saxons that Eadward mainly owed his Crown, yet Godwine and his West-Saxons did not make up the whole of England. Their counsels and interests had to be reconciled with the possibly opposing counsels and interests of the other Earldoms and of their rulers. Eadward could not afford to despise the strong arm of the mighty Dane who ruled his countrymen north of the Humber. He could not afford to despise the possible prejudices of the great Earl of central England, who, descendant of ancient Ealdormen, perhaps of ancient Kings, 16may well have looked with some degree of ill-will on the upstarts North and South of him. Eadward, called to the throne by the unanimous voice of the whole nation, was bound to be King of the English and not merely King of the West-Saxons. He was bound yet more strongly to be King of the English in a still higher sense, to cast off the trammels of his Norman education, and to reign as became the heir of Ælfred and Æthelstan. We have now to see how far the good exhortations of Eadsige were effectual; how far the King chosen to the Crown which was his right by birth discharged the duties which were laid upon him alike by his birth and by his election.

It was perhaps ominous of the character of Eadward’s future reign that his coronation was attended by an apparently unusual assemblage of the Ambassadors of foreign princes.^[32] It was natural that Eadward should be better known, and that his election should awaken a greater interest, in other lands than could usually be the case with an English King. He was connected by birth or marriage with several continental sovereigns, and his long residence in Normandy must have brought him more nearly within |Eadward’s foreign connexions.| the circle of ordinary continental princeship than could commonly be the case with the Lord of the island Empire, the Cæsar as it were of another world. The revolutions of England also, and the great career of Cnut, had evidently fixed the attention of Europe on English affairs to an unusual degree. Add to this that, when a King was chosen and crowned immediately on the death of his predecessor, the presence of congratulatory embassies from other princes was hardly possible. But the delay in Eadward’s consecration allowed that great Easter-feast at Winchester to be adorned with the presence of the representatives of all the chief sovereigns of Western 17Christendom. Some there were whom England was, then as ever, bound to welcome as friends and brethren, and some whose presence, however friendly was the guise of the moment, might to an eye which could scan the future |Ambassadors from King Henry.| have seemed a foreboding of the evil to come. First came the ambassadors of the prince who at once held the highest place on earth and adorned it with the noblest display of every kingly virtue. King Henry of Germany, soon to appear before the world as the illustrious Emperor,^[33] the great reformer of a corrupted Church, sent an embassy to congratulate his brother-in-law^[34] on the happy change in his fortunes, to exchange promises of peace and friendship, and to present gifts such as Imperial splendour and liberality might deem worthy of the one prince whom |from the King of the French;| a future Emperor could look on as his peer.^[35] The King of the French too, a prince bearing the same name as the mighty Frank,^[36] but far indeed from being a partaker in his glory, sent his representatives to congratulate one whom he too claimed as a kinsman,^[37] and to exchange pledges of mutual good-will between the two realms. |from other German and French princes;| And, along with the representatives of Imperial and royal majesty, came the humbler envoys of the chief Dukes and princes of their two kingdoms, charged with the like 18professions of friendship—our flattering historian would fain have us believe, of homage.^[38] Among these we can hardly doubt that a mission from the Court of Rouen held a distinguished place. It may be that, even then, the keen eye of the youthful Norman was beginning to look with more than a neighbour’s interest upon the land to which he had in some sort given her newly-chosen King. We |from Magnus of Denmark.| are even told that an embassy of a still humbler kind was received from a potentate who soon after appeared on the stage in a widely different character. Magnus of Norway had received the submission of Denmark on the death of Harthacnut, by virtue of the treaty by which each of those princes was to succeed to the other’s dominions.^[39] He now, we are told, sent an embassy to Eadward, chose him as his father,^[40] promised to him the obedience of a son, and strengthened the promise with oaths and hostages. Now in the language used with regard both to Magnus and to the German and French princes, there is doubtless much of the exaggeration of a panegyrist, anxious to raise his 19hero’s reputation to the highest point. But it is possible that Magnus might just now take some pains to conciliate Eadward, in order to hinder English help from being continued to his competitor Swend. In the reception of the Imperial and the Danish envoys there is nothing which has any special meaning; but it is specially characteristic of this reign that the congratulations of the French princes |Eadward’s gifts to the French princes.| were acknowledged by gifts from the King personally, and that some of them were continued in the form of annual pensions.^[41] These were undoubtedly, even if the Norman Duke himself was among the pensioners, the gifts of a superior to inferiors; the point is that the connexion between England and the different French states, Normandy above them all, was constantly increasing in amount, and receiving new shapes at every turn.

Besides the gifts of foreign princes, the new King also received many splendid presents from his own nobles. First among them all shone forth the magnificent offering |Godwine presents a ship to the King.| of the Earl of the West-Saxons.^[42] Godwine had given a ship to Harthacnut as the price of his acquittal on his memorable trial;^[43] he now made the like offering to Eadward as a token of the friendship which was to reign between the newly-chosen King and his greatest subject. Two hundred rowers impelled the floating castle. A golden lion adorned the stern; at the prow the national ensign, 20the West-Saxon Dragon, shone also in gold, spreading his wings, the poet tells us, over the awe-struck waves.^[44] A rich piece of tapestry, wrought on a purple ground with the naval exploits of former English Kings,^[45] the sea-fights, no doubt, of Ælfred, the peaceful triumphs of Eadgar, |[992.]| perhaps that noblest fight of all when the fleets of Denmark gave way before the sea-faring men of the merchant-city,^[46] formed an appropriate adornment of the offering of the English Earl to the first—men did not then deem that he was to be the last—prince of the newly-restored English dynasty.

Before we go on to the events of the reign of Eadward, it will be well to endeavour to gain a distinct idea of the King himself and of the men who were to be the chief actors in English affairs during his reign. In estimating the character of Eadward, we must never forget that we |His position as a Saint.| are dealing with a canonized saint. In such cases it is more needful than ever to look closely to a man’s recorded acts, and to his character as described by those who wrote before his formal canonization. Otherwise we shall be in danger of mistaking hagiology for history. 21When a man is once canonized, his acts and character immediately pass out of the reach of ordinary criticism. Religious edification, and not historical truth, becomes the aim of all who speak or write of one who has been formally enrolled as an object of religious reverence.^[47] We must also be on our guard even in dealing with authors who wrote before his formal canonization, but after that popular canonization which was so often the first step towards it. It was of course the general reverence in which a man was held, the general belief in his holiness and miraculous powers, which formed the grounds of the demand for his formal canonization. But, while we must be specially on our guard in weighing the character of particular acts and the value of particular panegyrics, we must remember that the popular esteem which thus led to canonization proves a great deal as to |Nature of his claims to sanctity.| a man’s general character. It proves still more when, as in the case of Eadward, there was no one special act, no one marked deed of Christian heroism or Christian endurance, which formed the holy man’s claim to popular reverence. Eadward was not like one of those who died for their faith or for their country, and who, on the strength of such death, were at once revered as martyrs, without much inquiry into their actions and characters in other respects. He was not even like one of those, his sainted uncle and namesake for instance,^[48] who gained the honours of martyrdom on still easier terms, by simply dying an unjust death, even though no religious or political principle was at stake. The popular reverence in which Eadward was held could rest on no ground except the genuine popular estimate of his general character. There were indeed strong political reasons which attached men to his memory. He was the one prominent man of 22|Eadward’s memory acceptable both to Englishmen and to Normans on political grounds.| the days immediately before the Conquest whom Normans and Englishmen could agree to reverence. The English naturally cherished the memory of the last prince of the ancient stock. They dwelt on his real or supposed virtues as a bright contrast to the crimes and vices of his Norman successors. Under the yoke of foreign masters they looked back to the peace and happiness of the days of their native King. The King who reigned on the English throne without a spark of English feeling became the popular embodiment of English nationality, and men called for the Laws of King Eadward as in earlier times they had called for the Laws of Cnut or of Eadgar.^[49] On the other hand, it suited the policy of the Normans to show all respect to the kinsman of their own Duke, the King by whose pretended bequest their Duke claimed the English Crown, and whose lawful successor he professed himself to be. In English eyes Eadward stood out in contrast to the invader William; in Norman eyes he stood out in contrast to the usurper Harold. A King whom two hostile races thus agreed in respecting could not fail to obtain both popular and formal canonization on somewhat easy |Popular reverence for him grounded also on personal qualities.| terms. Still he could hardly have obtained either the one or the other only on grounds like these. He must have displayed some personal qualities which really won him popular affection during life and maintained him in popular reverence after death. It is worth while to study a little more at length the character of a man who obtained in his own age a degree of respect which in our eyes seems justified neither by several of his particular actions nor by the general tenour of his government.

That Eadward was in any sense a great man, that he displayed any of the higher qualities of a ruler of those days, no one probably will assert. He was doubtless in 23some respects a better man than Cnut, than Harold, or than William; as a King of the eleventh century no one will venture to compare him with those three mighty ones. His wars were waged by deputy, and his civil government |Eadward’s personal character.| was carried on largely by deputy also. Of his many personal virtues, his earnest piety, his good intentions in every way, his sincere desire for the welfare of his people, there can be no doubt. Vice of every kind, injustice, wanton cruelty, were hateful to him. But in all kingly qualities he was utterly lacking. In fact, so far as a really good man can reproduce the character of a thoroughly bad one, Eadward reproduced the character of his father Æthelred. Writers who lived before his canonization, or who did not come within the magic halo of his sanctity, do not scruple to charge him, as his father is |Points of likeness to his father.| charged, with utter sloth and incapacity.^[50] Like his father, he was quite incapable of any steady attention to the duties of royalty;^[51] but, like his father, he had occasional fits of energy, which, like those of his father, often came at the wrong time.^[52] His contemporary panegyrist allows that he gave way to occasional fits of wrath, but he pleads that his anger never hurried him into unbecoming language.^[53] It hurried him however, more than once, into very unbecoming intentions. We shall find 24that, on two memorable occasions, it needed the intervention of his better genius, in the form first of Godwine and then of Harold, to keep back the saintly King from massacre and civil war.^[54] Here we see the exact parallels to Æthelred’s mad expeditions against Normandy, Cumberland, and Saint David’s.^[55] But Eadward was not only free from the personal vices and cruelties of his father; there can be no doubt that, except when carried away by ebullitions of this kind, he sincerely endeavoured, according to the measure of his ability, to establish a good administration of justice throughout his dominions. But the duties of secular government, although doubtless discharged conscientiously and to the best of his ability, were with Eadward always something which went against the |His virtues wholly monastic.| grain. His natural place was, not on the throne of England, but at the head of a Norman Abbey. Nothing, one would think, could have hindered him from entering on the religious life in the days of his exile, unless it were a vague kind of feeling that other duties were thrown upon him by his birth. For all his virtues were those of a monk; all the real man came out in his zeal for collecting relics, in his visions, in his religious exercises, in his gifts to churches and monasteries, in his desire to mark his reign, as its chief result, by the foundation of his great Abbey of Saint Peter at Westminster. In a prince of the manly piety of Ælfred things of this sort form only a part, a pleasing and harmonious part, of the general character. In Eadward they formed the whole man. His time was oddly divided between his prayers and the pastime which seems least suited to the character of 25|His love of hunting.| a saint. The devotion to the pleasures of the chase was so universal among the princes and nobles of that age that it is needless to speak of it as a feature in any man’s character, unless when some special circumstance forces it into special notice. We remark it in the two Williams, because it was their love of hunting which led them into their worst acts of oppression; we remark it in Eadward, because it seems so utterly incongruous with the other features of his character.^[56] There were men even in those times who could feel pity for animal suffering and who |Contrast with the humanity of Anselm.| found no pleasure in the wanton infliction of pain. Tenderness for animals is no unusual feature in either the real or the legendary portraits of holy men. Anselm, the true saint, like Ceadda in earlier times, saved the life of the hunted beast which sought his protection, and made the incident the text of a religious exhortation to his companions. He saw a worthy object for prayer in the sufferings of a bird tortured by a thoughtless child, and his gentle heart found matter for pious rejoicing in the escape of the feathered captive.^[57] Humanity like this met with very little response in the breast of the saintly monarch. The piercing cry, the look of mute agony, of the frightened, 26wearied, tortured beast awakened no more pity in the heart of the saintly King than in that of the rudest Danish Thegn who shared his savage pastime. The sufferings of the hart panting for the water-brooks, the pangs of the timid hare falling helpless into the jaws of her pursuers, the struggles of the helpless bird grasped in the talons of the resistless hawk, afforded as keen a delight to the prince who had never seen steel flash in earnest, as ever they did to men whom a life of constant warfare in a rude age had taught to look lightly on the sufferings and death even of their own kind.^[58] Once, we are told, a churl, resisting, it well may be, some trespass of the King and his foreign courtiers on an Englishman’s freehold, put some hindrance in the way of the royal sport. An unsaintly oath and an unkingly threat at once rose to the lips of Eadward; “By God and his Mother, I will hurt you some day if I can.”^[59] Had Anselm, in the might of his true holiness, thus crossed the path of his brother saint, he too, as the defender of the oppressed, might have become the object of a like outburst of impotent wrath. A delight in amusements of this kind is hardly a fair subject of blame in men of any age to whom the rights of the lower animals have perhaps never been presented as matter for serious thought. But in a man laying claim to special holiness, to special meekness and gentleness 27of character, we naturally look for a higher standard, a standard which a contemporary example shows not to have been unattainable even in that age.

In person Eadward is described as being handsome, of moderate height, his face full and rosy, his hair and beard white as snow.^[60] His beard he wore long, according to what seems to have been the older fashion both of England and of Normandy.^[61] Among his younger contemporaries this fashion went out of use in both countries, and the Normans shaved the whole face, while the English left the hair on the upper lip only. He was remarkable for the length and whiteness of his hands. When not excited by passion, he was gentle and affable to all men; he was liberal both to the poor and to his friends; but he had also the special art of giving a graceful refusal, so that the rejection of a suit by him was almost as pleasing as its acceptance by another.^[62] In public he preserved his kingly dignity intact; but he took little pleasure in the pomp of royalty or in wearing the gorgeous robes which were wrought for him by the industry and affection of his Lady.^[63] In private company, though he never forgot his rank, he could unbend, and treat his familiar friends as an equal.^[64] He avoided however one bad habit of his 28age, that of choosing the time of divine service as the time for private conversation. It is mentioned as a special mark of his devotion that he scarcely ever spoke during mass, except when he was interrupted by others.^[65] The |His favourites at different periods of his reign.| mention of his friends and familiar companions leads us directly to his best and worst aspects as an English King. Like his father, he was constantly under the dominion of favourites. It was to the evil choice of his favourites during the early part of his reign that most of the misfortunes of his time were owing, and that a still more direct path was opened for the ambition of his Norman kinsman. In the latter part of his reign either happy accident, or returning good sense, or perhaps the sheer necessity of the case, led him to a better choice. Without a guide he could not reign, but the good fortune of his later years gave him the wisest and noblest of all guides. The most honourable feature in the whole life of Eadward is that the last thirteen years of his reign were virtually the reign of Harold.

But in the days before that great national reaction, in the period embraced in the present Chapter, it is the peculiar character of the favourites to whose influence Eadward was given up which sets its special mark on the time. The reign of Eadward in many respects forestalls 29the reign of Henry the Third. The part played by Earl Godwine in many respects forestalls the part played |His connexion with Normandy.| by Earl Simon of Montfort. Eadward was by birth an Englishman; but he was the son of a Norman mother; he had been carried to Normandy in his childhood; he had there spent the days of his youth and early manhood; England might be the land of his duty, but Normandy was ever the land of his affection. With the habits, the feelings, the language, of the people over whom he was called to rule he had absolutely no sympathy. His heart was French. His delight was to surround himself with companions who came from the beloved land and who spoke the beloved tongue, to enrich them with English estates, to invest them with the highest offices of the English Kingdom. Policy might make him the political ally of his Imperial brother-in-law, but a personal sentiment made him the personal friend of his Norman cousin. The needs of his royal position made him accept Godwine as his counsellor and the daughter of Godwine as his |Promotion of Normans to high office.| wife. But his real affections were lavished on the Norman priests^[66] and gentlemen who flocked to his Court as to the land of promise. These strangers were placed in important offices about the royal person,^[67] and before long they were set to rule as Earls and Bishops over the already half-conquered soil of England. Even when he came over as a private man in the days of Harthacnut, Eadward 30had brought with him his French nephew,^[68] and Ralph the Timid Earl was but the precursor of the gang of foreigners who were soon to be quartered upon the country, as these were again only the first instalment of the larger gang who were to win for themselves a more lasting |The Norman Conquest begins under Eadward.| settlement four and twenty years later. In all this the seeds of the Conquest were sowing, or rather, as I once before put it,^[69] it is now that the Conquest actually begins. The reign of Eadward is a period of struggle between natives and foreigners for dominion in England. The foreigners gradually win the upper hand, and for a time they are actually dominant. Then a national reaction overthrows their influence, and the noblest of living Englishmen becomes the virtual ruler. But this happy change did not take place till the strangers had become accustomed to look on English estates and honours as their right, a right which they soon learned to think they might one day assert by force of arms. The foreign favourites of Eadward were in truth the advanced guard of William. The conquests of England by Swend and Cnut, the wonderful exploits of his own countrymen in the South of Europe, no doubt helped to suggest to the Norman Duke that it was not impossible to win England for himself with his sword. But it must have been the feeling, on the part both of himself and of his subjects, that England was a land already half won over to Norman rule, which made the succession to the English Crown the cherished aim of the life of the mighty ruler who was now growing up to manhood and to greatness on the other side of the sea.

The elevation of Eadward to the throne of course involved the establishment in still greater honour and 31authority of the man to whom his elevation was mainly owing, the great Earl of the West-Saxons. I have already thrown out some hints as to what the real relations between |Norman calumnies against Godwine and his sons.| Eadward and Godwine probably were.^[70] There is not a shadow of evidence for the calumnies of the Norman writers which represent Godwine and his sons as holding the King in a sort of bondage, as abusing his simplicity and confidence, sometimes as behaving to him with great personal insolence, sometimes, they even venture to add, practising all kinds of injustice and oppression throughout the Kingdom. The English writers tell a widely different tale. The contrast between the two accounts is well set forth by a writer whose sympathies lie wholly on the Norman side, but who makes at least an effort to deal fairly between the two. In the English version Godwine and his sons appear as high-minded and faithful counsellors of the King, who stood forward as the leaders of the national feeling against his foreign favourites, but who were never guilty of any undutiful word or deed towards the prince whom they had themselves raised to power.^[71] Eadward probably both feared and suspected Godwine. But there is nothing to show that, up to the final outbreak between Godwine and the foreigners, the great Earl had ever deviated from even formal loyalty to his sovereign. There is distinct evidence that more than one of his sons had gained Eadward’s warmest personal affection. From |Character of Godwine.| all that we can see, Godwine was not a man likely to win the same sort of personal affection from Eadward, perhaps not even from the nation at large, which was afterwards won by Harold. That Godwine was the representative of all English feeling, that he was the leader of every national movement, that he was the object of the deepest admiration on the part of the men at least of his own Earldom, 32is proved by the clearest of evidence. But it is equally clear that Godwine was essentially a wary statesman, and in no sense a chivalrous hero. We have seen that, mighty as was the power of his eloquence, he did not trust to his eloquence only.^[72] He knew how to practise the baser as well as the nobler arts of statesmanship. He knew how to win over political adversaries by bribes, threats, and promises, and how to find means of chastisement for those who remained to the last immoveable by the voice of the charmer. When we think of the vast extent of his possessions,^[73] most or all of which must have been acquired by royal grant, it is almost impossible to acquit him of |His relation to ecclesiastical bodies.| a grasping disposition. It is also laid to his charge that, in the acquisition of wealth, he did not always regard the rights of ecclesiastical bodies.^[74] This last charge, it must be remembered, is one which he shares with almost every powerful man of his time, even with those who, if they took with one hand, gave lavishly with the other. And accusations of this sort must always be taken with certain deductions. Monastic and other ecclesiastical writers were apt to make little or no distinction between acts of real sacrilege, committed by fraud or violence, and the most legal transactions by which the Church happened to be |Godwine’s lack of bounty to the Church.| a loser. Still it should be noticed that Godwine stands perhaps alone among the great men of his own age in having no ecclesiastical foundation connected with his 33name. As far as I am aware, he is nowhere enrolled among the founders or benefactors of any church, religious or secular.^[75] Such a peculiarity is most remarkable. How far it may have arisen from enlightenment beyond his age, how far it was the result of mere illiberality or want of religious feeling, it is utterly impossible to say. But it is clear that Godwine is, in this respect, distinguished in a marked way from his son, whose liberality, guided as it was by a wise discretion, was conspicuous among his other great qualities. Again, it is hardly impossible to acquit Godwine of being, like most fathers who have the |Godwine’s over care for his own household.| opportunity, too anxious for the advancement of his own family. He promoted his sons, both worthy and unworthy, to the greatest offices in the Kingdom, at an age when they could have had but little personal claim to such high distinctions. In so doing, he seems to have overstepped the bounds of policy as well as those of fairness and good feeling. Such an accumulation of power in one family could not but raise envy, and higher feelings than envy, in the breasts of rivals, some of whom may have had as good or better claims to promotion. That Godwine sacrificed his daughter to a political object is a charge common to him with princes and statesmen in all ages. Few men in any time or place would have thrown away the opportunity of having a King for a son-in-law, and, as Godwine doubtless hoped, of becoming, at least in the female line, the ancestor of a line of princes.

The faults of the great Earl then are manifest. But his virtues are equally manifest. In the eyes of contemporary Englishmen such faults as I have mentioned must have seemed little more than a few specks on a burnished mirror. His good government of his Earldom 34is witnessed, not only by the rhetoric of his panegyrist, which however may at least be set against the rhetoric of his accusers, but by the plain facts of the welcome which greeted him on his return from banishment, and the zeal |His strict administration of justice.| in his behalf displayed by all classes.^[76] As a ruler, Godwine is especially praised for what in those days was looked on as the first virtue of a ruler, merciless severity towards all disturbers of the public peace. In our settled times we hardly understand how rigour, often barbarous rigour, against thieves and murderers, should have been looked on as the first merit of a governor, one which was always enough to cover a multitude of sins. Public feeling went along with the prince or magistrate who thus preserved the peace of his dominions, however great might be his own offences in other ways, and however cruel in our eyes might be the means by which he compassed this first end of government. To have discharged this great duty stands foremost in the panegyrics of Godwine and of Harold.^[77] It was accepted at the hands of the Norman Conqueror as almost an equivalent for the horrors of the Conquest.^[78] It won for his son Henry a splendid burst of admiration at the hands of a native writer who certainly was not blind to the oppression of which that prince himself was guilty.^[79] A certain amount of tyranny was willingly endured at the hands of a man who so effectually rid the world of smaller tyrants. And, in opposition to the praise thus bestowed on Godwine, Harold, William, and Henry, we find the neglect of this paramount duty standing foremost in the dark indictments against the ruffian Rufus^[80] and the heedless Robert.^[81] Godwine is set forth to us, in set phrases, 35it may be, but in phrases which do not the less express the conviction of the country, as a ruler mild and affable to the good, but stern and merciless to the evil |Godwine never reached the same power as Harold afterwards.| and unruly.^[82] But with all his vigour, all his eloquence, it is clear that Godwine never reached to the same complete dominion over King and Kingdom which, in later years, fell to the lot of his nobler son. He always remained an object of jealousy, not only to the French favourites of Eadward, but to the Earls of the other parts of England. We shall find that his eloquent tongue could not always command a majority in the Meeting of the Wise.^[83] |Importance of eloquence.| But the importance attributed to his oratory, the fluctuations of success and defeat which he underwent in the great deliberative Assembly, show clearly how advanced our constitution already was in an age when free debate was so well understood, and when free speech was so powerful.^[84] In this respect the Norman Conquest undoubtedly threw things back. We shall have to pass over several centuries before we come to another chief whose influence clearly rested to so great a degree on his power of swaying great assemblies of men, on the personal affection or personal awe with which he had learned to inspire the Legislature of his country.

The marriage of Godwine with his Danish wife Gytha had given him a numerous and flourishing offspring. Six sons and three daughters surrounded the table of the Earl of the West-Saxons. In the names which several of them bore we may discern the influence of their Danish mother.^[85] 36The sons of Godwin were Swegen,^[86] Harold, Tostig, Gyrth, Leofwine, and Wulfnoth. His daughters were Eadgyth, Gunhild, and perhaps a third, Ælfgifu.^[87] As twenty-three years had now passed since Godwine’s marriage, we may assume that all of them were already born, though some of the younger ones may still have been children. The elder sons had reached manhood, and we shall find two at least of them filling the rank of Earl during the period |Swegen Earl, 1043.| with which we are now dealing. Swegen, the eldest son, seems to have been invested with an Earldom from the very beginning of Eadward’s reign, as he signs a charter with that rank in the King’s second year.^[88] Gytha’s |Beorn Earl, 1045?| nephew, Beorn, also remained in England, while his brother Osbeorn was banished, and while his other brother Swend was putting forth his claims to the Crown of Denmark. He had doubtless attached himself firmly to the interests of his uncle. He was also, probably at a somewhat later time, raised to an Earldom, apparently the Earldom of the Middle-Angles, lately held by Thored.^[89] The Earldom held by Swegen was geographically most anomalous. It took in the Mercian shires of Hereford, Gloucester, and Oxford, and the West-Saxon shires of Berkshire and Somerset.^[90]

37But, along with the comparatively obscure names of Swegen and Beorn, a greater actor now steps upon the field. We have now reached the first appearance of the illustrious man round whom the main interest of this history will henceforth centre. The second son of Godwine lived to be the last of our native Kings, the hero and the martyr of our native freedom. We have indeed as yet to deal with him only in a subordinate capacity, and in some sort in a less honourable character. The few recorded actions of Harold, Earl of the East-Angles, could hardly have enabled men to look forward to the glorious career of Harold, Earl of the West-Saxons, and of Harold, King of the English. To his first great government, a trying elevation indeed for one in the full vigour of youth and passion, he was apparently raised about three years after the election of Eadward, when he himself could not have passed his twenty-fourth year. While still young, he experienced somewhat of the fluctuations of human affairs, and he seems to have learned wisdom by experience. Still there must have been in him from the beginning the germs of those great qualities which shone forth so conspicuously in his later career. |His character.| It is not hard to paint his portraiture, alike from his recorded actions, and from the elaborate descriptions of |Contemporary testimonies.| him which we possess from contemporary hands. The praises of the great Earl sound forth in the latest specimen of the native minstrelsy of Teutonic England. And they sound forth with a truer ring than the half conventional praises of the saintly monarch, whose greatest glory, after all, was that he had called Harold to the |Evidence of the Biographer.| government of his realm.^[91] The biographer of Eadward, the panegyrist of Godwine, is indeed the common laureate of Godwine’s whole family; but it is not in the special interest of Harold that he writes. He sets forth the 38merits of Harold with no sparing hand; he approves of him as a ruler and he admires him as a man; but his own personal affection plainly clings more closely to the rival brother Tostig. His description of Harold is therefore the more trustworthy, and it fully agrees with the evidence of his recorded actions. Harold then, the second son of Godwine, is set before us as a man uniting every gift of mind and body which could attract to him the admiration and affection of the age in which he lived.^[92] Tall in stature, beautiful in countenance, of a bodily strength whose memory still lives in the rude pictorial art of his time,^[93] he was foremost alike in the active courage and in the passive endurance of the warrior. |His military genius.| In hunger and watchfulness, in the wearing labours of a campaign no less than in the passing excitement of the day of battle, he stood forth as the leader and the model of the English people.^[94] Alike ready and vigorous in action, he knew when to strike and how to strike; he knew how to measure himself against enemies of every kind, and to adapt his tactics to every position in which the accidents of warfare might place him. He knew how to chase the light-armed Briton from fastness to fastness, how to charge, axe in hand, on the bristling lines of his Norwegian namesake, and how to bear up, hour after hour, against the repeated onslaughts of the Norman horsemen and the more terrible thundershower of the Norman arrows. It is plain that in him, no less than in his more successful, and therefore more 39famous, rival, we have to admire, not only the mere animal courage of the soldier, but that true skill of the leader of armies which would have placed both Harold and William high among the captains of any age.

But the son of Godwine, the heir of his greatness, was not merely a soldier, not merely a general. If he inherited from his father those military qualities which first drew on Godwine the notice alike of the English Ætheling^[95] and of the Danish King, he inherited also that eloquence of speech, that wisdom in council, that knowledge of the laws of the land,^[96] which made him the true leader and father of the English people. Great as Harold was in war, his character as a civil ruler is still more remarkable, still more worthy of admiration. One or two actions of his earlier life show indeed that the spirit of those days |His singular forbearance.| of violence had laid its hand even on him. But, from the time when he appears in his full maturity as the acknowledged chief of the English nation, the most prominent feature in his character is his singular gentleness and mercy. Never, either in warfare or in civil strife, do we find Harold bearing hardly upon an enemy. From the time of his advancement to the practical government of the Kingdom, there is not a single harsh or cruel action with which he can be charged. His policy was ever a policy of conciliation. His panegyrist indeed confines his readiness to forgive, his unwillingness to avenge, to his dealings with his own countrymen only.^[97] But the same 40magnanimous spirit is shown in cases where his conduct was less capable of being guided by mere policy than in his dealings with Mercian rivals and with Northumbrian revolters. We see the same generous temper in his treatment of the conquered Princes of Wales and of the defeated invaders of Stamfordbridge. As a ruler, he is described as walking in the steps of his father, as the terror of evildoers |His championship of England against strangers.| and the rewarder of those who did well. Devoted, heart and soul, to the service of his country, he was no less loyal in personal attention and service to her wayward and half-foreign King.^[98] Throughout his career he was the champion of the independence of England against the dominion of strangers. To keep the court of England free from the shoals of foreigners who came to fatten on English estates and honours, and to meet the same enemies in open arms upon the heights of Senlac, were only two different ways of discharging the great duty to which his whole energies were devoted. And yet no man was ever more free from narrow insular prejudices, from any unworthy |His foreign travels.| jealousy of foreigners as such. His own mind was enlarged and enriched by foreign travel, by the study of the politics and institutions of other nations on their own soil. He not only made the pilgrimage to Rome, a practice which the example of Cnut seems to have made fashionable among English nobles and prelates, but he went on a journey through various parts of Gaul, carefully examining into the condition of the country and the policy of its rulers, among whom we may be sure that the renowned Duke of Rouen was not forgotten.^[99] And Harold 41was ever ready to welcome and to reward real merit in men of foreign birth. He did not scruple to confer high offices on strangers, and to call men of worth from foreign lands to help him in his most cherished undertakings. |Harold’s patronage of Germans as opposed to Frenchmen.| But, while the bounty of Eadward was squandered on Normans and Frenchmen, men utterly alien in language and feeling, it was the policy of Harold to strengthen the connexion of England with the continental nations nearest to us in blood and speech.^[100] All the foreigners promoted by Harold, or in the days of his influence, were natives of those kindred Teutonic lands whose sons might still almost be looked upon as fellow-countrymen.

Such was Harold as a leader of Englishmen in war and in peace. As for his personal character, we can discern that in the received piety of the age he surpassed his |His alleged spoliation of monasteries.| father. The charge of invasion of the rights of ecclesiastical bodies is brought against him no less than against Godwine; but the instance which has brought most discredit upon his name can be easily shown to be a mere tissue of misconceptions and exaggerations.^[101] But it is far |His friendship with Saint Wulfstan.| more certain that Harold was the intimate friend of the best and holiest man of his time. Wulfstan, the sainted Bishop of Worcester, was the object of his deepest affection and reverence; he would at any time go far out of his way for the benefit of his exhortations and prayers; and the Saint repaid his devotion by loyal and vigorous |His foundation of the College at Waltham. [1060–2.]| service in the day of need.^[102] Of his liberality his great foundation at Waltham is an everlasting monument, and it is a monument not more of his liberality than of his wisdom. To the monastic orders Harold seems not to 42have been specially liberal;^[103] his bounty took another and a better chosen direction. The foundation of a great secular College, in days when all the world seemed mad after monks, when King Eadward and Earl Leofric vied with each other in lavish gifts to religious houses at home and abroad, was in itself an act displaying no small vigour and independence of mind. The details too of the foundation were such as showed that the creation of Waltham was not the act of a moment of superstitious dread or of reckless bounty, but the deliberate deed of a man who felt the responsibilities of lofty rank and boundless wealth, and who earnestly sought the welfare of his Church and nation |His personal demeanour frank and open.| in all things. As to his personal demeanour, he was frank and open in his general bearing, to a degree which was sometimes thought to be prejudicial to his interests.^[104] Yet he could on occasion dissemble and conceal his purpose, a gift which seems sometimes to have been misconstrued,^[105] and which apparently led him to the one great error of his life. He appears not to have been wholly free from 43|Charges of rashness.| the common fault of noble and generous dispositions. The charge of occasional rashness was brought against him by others, and it is denied by his panegyrist in terms which seem to imply that the charge was not wholly groundless.^[106] And we must add that, in his private life, he did not, at least in his early days, imitate either the monastic asceticism of the King or the stern domestic purity of his rival |His connexion with Eadgyth Swanneshals.| the Conqueror. The most pathetic incident connected with his name, tells us of a love of his early days, the days apparently of his East-Anglian government, unrecognized by the laws of the Church, but perhaps not wholly condemned by the standard of his own age, which shows, perhaps above every other tale in English history or legend, how much the love of woman can do and suffer.^[107]

Such was the man who, seemingly in the fourth year of Eadward, in the twenty-third or twenty-fourth of his own age, was invested with the rule of one of the great divisions of England; who, seven years later, became the virtual ruler of the Kingdom; who, at last, twenty-one years from his first elevation, received, alone among English Kings, the Crown of England as the free gift of her people, and, alone among English Kings, died, axe in hand, on her own soil, in the defence of England against foreign invaders. One prince alone in the later history of Europe rivals the peculiar glory which attaches to the name of Harold. For him we must seek in a distant 44age and in a distant land, but in a land connected with our own by a strangely abiding tie. English warriors, soldiers of Harold, chafing under the yoke of the Norman Conqueror, sought service at the court of the Eastern Cæsar, and there retained for ages their national tongue, their national weapon,^[108] and the proud inheritance of their |Comparison of Harold with Constantine Palaiologos.| stainless loyalty. The memory of England and of Harold becomes thus strangely interwoven with the memory of the one prince of later times who died in a still nobler cause than that of the freedom of England. The King who died upon the hill of Senlac finds his only worthy peer in the Emperor who died before the Gate of Saint Rômanos. The champion of England against the Southern invader must own a nobler martyr still in the champion of the faith and liberty of Christendom against the misbelieving horde who have ever since defiled the fairest and most historic regions of the world. The blood of Harold and his faithful followers has indeed proved the most fertile seed of English freedom, and the warning signs of the times seem to tell us that the day is fast coming when the blood of Constantine shall no longer send up its cry for vengeance unheeded from the earth.

The second son of Godwine was no doubt raised to greatness in the first instance mainly because he was a son of Godwine; but his great qualities gradually showed that the rank to which he was raised by his father’s favour was one which he was fully entitled to retain by his own merits. The earlier elevation of the great Earl’s eldest born was less fortunate. Swegen lived to show that he had a soul of real nobleness within him; but his crimes were great, he was cut off just as he was beginning to amend his ways, and he has left a dark and sad memory behind him. A youth, evidently of no 45common powers, but wayward, violent, and incapable of self-control, he was hurried first into a flagrant violation of the sentiment of the age, and next into a still fouler breach of the eternal laws of right. His end may well arouse our pity, but his life, as a whole, is a dark blot on the otherwise chequered escutcheon of the house of Godwine. It was clearly felt to be so; the panegyrist of the family never once brings himself to utter the |Of the Lady Eadgyth. 1045.| name of Swegen. Only one other child of Godwine calls for personal notice at this stage of our history. Eadgyth, his eldest daughter, became, nearly two years after Eadward’s coronation,^[109] the willing or unwilling bride of the saintly monarch. She is described as being no less highly gifted among women than her brothers were among men; as lovely in person and adorned with every female accomplishment, as endowed with a learning and refinement unusual in her age, as in point of piety and liberality a fitting help-meet for Eadward himself.^[110] But there are some strange inconsistencies in the facts which are recorded of her. Her zeal and piety did not hinder her from receiving rewards, perhaps, in plain words, from taking bribes. Undoubtedly this is a subject on which the feelings of past times differed widely from those 46of our own; but we are a little staggered when we find the saintly King and his pious Lady receiving money from religious houses to support claims which, if just, should have been supported for nothing, and, if unjust, should not have been supported at all.^[111] But Eadgyth has been charged with far heavier offences than this. She |Suspicions of her loyalty to England.| seems to have become in some degree infected with her husband’s love of foreigners, perhaps even in some sort to have withdrawn her sympathies from the national cause. She has won the doubtful honour of having her name extolled by Norman flatterers as one whose heart was |Her alleged share in the murder of Gospatric.| rather Norman than English.^[112] And all her reputation for gentleness and piety has not kept her from being branded in the pages of one of our best chroniclers as an accomplice in a base and treacherous murder.^[113] Her character thus |Her relation to her husband.| becomes in some sort an ænigma, and her relation to her husband is not the least ænigmatical part of her position. One of Eadward’s claims to be looked on as a saint was the general belief, at least of the next generation, that the husband of the beautiful Eadgyth lived with her only |Eadward’s alleged chastity.| as a brother with a sister.^[114] If this story be true, a more enlightened standard of morality can see no virtue, but rather a crime, in his conduct. We can see nothing to 47admire in a King who, in such a crisis of his country, himself well nigh the last of his race, and without any available member of the royal family to succeed him, shrank, from whatever motive, from the obvious duty of raising up |Evidence of the earliest writers.| direct heirs to his Crown. But it seems probable that this report is merely part of the legend of the saint and not part of the history of the King. His contemporary panegyrists undoubtedly praise Eadward’s chastity. But it is not necessary to construe their words as meaning more than might be asserted of Ælfred, of William, of Saint Lewis, or of Edward the First. The conjugal faith of all those great monarchs remained, as far as we know, unbroken; but not one of them thought it any part of his duty to observe continence towards his own wife. Still, from whatever cause, the marriage of Eadward and Eadgyth was undoubtedly childless; and the relations of the royal pair to each other in other respects are hardly more intelligible. Eadgyth is described as the partaker of all her husband’s good works, and as nursing him with the most affectionate care during his last illness.^[115] Yet, at the moment of his reign when he could most freely exercise a will of his own, if he did not absolutely of his own accord banish her from his court, he consented, seemingly without any reluctance, to her removal from him by the enemies of her family and her country.^[116] The anxiety of Eadward’s Norman favourites to separate Eadgyth from her husband is, after all, the most honourable record of her to be found among the singularly contradictory descriptions of her character and actions.

We thus find, within a few years after the accession of Eadward, the whole of the ancient Kingdoms of Wessex, Sussex, Kent, Essex, East-Anglia, and part of Mercia, under the government of Godwine, his two elder sons, and his 48nephew. His daughter meanwhile shared the throne of England with a King whom he had himself placed upon it. Such greatness could hardly be lasting. It rested wholly on Godwine’s own personal character and influence, for the fame of Harold was yet to be won. The |The other Earldoms;| part of Mercia which was not otherwise occupied remained, |Mercia under Leofric;| as before, in the hands of Leofric the son of Leofwine. This Earl and his famous wife Godgifu, the Lady Godiva of legend,^[117] were chiefly celebrated for their boundless liberality to ecclesiastical foundations.^[118] Worcester, Leominster, Evesham, Chester, Wenlock, Stow in Lindesey, and, above all, Coventry, were special objects of their bounty. They seem not to have been satisfied with mere grants of lands and privileges, but to have taken a special interest in the buildings and ornaments of the houses which they favoured. The minster of Coventry, rebuilt and raised to cathedral rank after their time, has utterly vanished from the earth, and recent changes have abolished even the titular position of the city as a see of a Bishop. But at Stow, the ancient Sidnacester, a place even then of infinitely less consideration than Coventry, portions of the church enriched by Leofric still remain.^[119] Leofric, 49his son Ælfgar, his grandsons and his granddaughter, play an important part in the history of this period down to the complete establishment of the Norman power in |Relations between Leofric and Godwine.| England. It is clear that Leofric must have been more personally annoyed by the rise of Godwine and his house than any other of the great men of England. A race whom he could not fail to look down upon as upstarts hemmed him in on every side except towards the North. Later in the reign of Eadward, we shall find the rivalries and the reconciliations of the two houses of Godwine and Leofric forming a considerable portion of the history. But, while Leofric himself lived, he continued to play the part which we have already seen him playing,^[120] that part of a mediator between two extreme parties, which was dictated to him by the geographical position of his Earldom.

North of the Humber, the great Dane, Siward the Strong, still ruled over the Earldom which he had won by the murder of his wife’s uncle.^[121] The manners of the Northumbrians were so savage, murders and hereditary deadly feuds were so rife among them, that it is quite possible that the slaughter of Eadwulf may, by a party at least, have been looked on as a praiseworthy act of vigour. Perhaps however, as we go on, we may discern signs that Siward and his house were not specially popular in Northumberland, and that men looked back with regret to the more regular line of their native Earls. At any rate, Siward remained for the rest of his days in undisturbed possession of both the Northumbrian governments, and along with these he seems to have held the Earldoms of Northampton 50and Huntingdon within the proper limits of Mercia.^[122] He ruled, we are told, with great firmness and severity, labouring hard to bring his troublesome province into something like order.^[123] Nor was he lacking in that bounty to the Church, which might seem specially needful as an atonement for the crime by which he rose to power.^[124]

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 51Conquest, 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 52|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 53they 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 54prime 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 55Roman 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.| 56very 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 57|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 59Normans, 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] 60She 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] 61But 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 62|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 63which 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 64murdered 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 65consecrated 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 66the 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 67were 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 68personally 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 69|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 70was 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 71Earl^[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 72|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] 73|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 74England, 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.

The war was now renewed by Swend, seemingly in partnership with an actor of greater, though perhaps less |Early life and exploits of Harold. 1030–1044.| merited, renown than himself.^[213] Harold the son of Sigurd, the half-brother of Saint Olaf, had escaped as a stripling from the field of Stikkelstad, where his brother, according to one view, received the crown of martyrdom, while, according to another, he received only the just reward of hasty and violent, however well-meant, interference with the ancient institutions of his country. Harold, surnamed Hardrada—the stern in council—lived to become the most renowned warrior of the North, the last Scandinavian King who ever set foot as an enemy on purely 75English ground, the last invader who was to feel the might of Englishmen fighting on their own soil for their own freedom, and who was, in his fall, to pave the way for the victory of an invader yet mightier than himself. The fight of Stamfordbridge, the fight of the two Harolds, will form one of the most striking scenes in a later stage of our history. As yet, Harold was known only as the hero of a series of adventures as wild and wonderful as any that have ever been recounted in poetry or romance. |Escape of Harold from Stikkelstad.| Wounded at Stikkelstad, the young prince was saved by a faithful companion, and was cherished during the following winter by a yeoman ignorant of his rank. He passed through Sweden into Russia, where he formed a |He goes to Constantinople.| friendship with King Jaroslaf of Novgorod. Thence, after a few years, he betook himself, with a small train |State of the Empire.| of companions, to the Byzantine Court. He found the Eastern Empire in one of those periods of decay which so strangely alternate in its history with periods of regeneration at home and victory abroad. The great Macedonian dynasty was still on the throne; but the mighty Basil was in his grave, and the steel-clad lancers of the New Rome were no longer the terror of Saracen, Bulgarian, |Reign of Zôê. 1028–1050.| and Russian. The Empire which he had saved, and which he had raised to the highest pitch of glory, had now become the plaything of a worthless woman, and the diadem of the Cæsars was passed on at every caprice of her fancy from one husband or lover to another. The Norwegian prince reached the Great City, the Mickelgard of Northern story, in the period of Byzantine history known as the Reigns of the Husbands of Zôê.^[214] The Eastern Cæsars had already begun to gather the Northern adventurers who appeared at their doors as friends or as |The Warangians.| enemies into that famous Warangian body-guard, the counterpart of the Housecarls of Cnut, which as yet 76seems to have been recruited wholly from Scandinavia, but which was afterwards to be reinforced by so large a body of exiles from our own land.^[215] Harold apparently received the command of this force, and at their head he is said to have performed a series of amazing exploits.^[216] It would almost seem as if the arrival of these Northern auxiliaries had inspired the Empire with a new life. Certain |Their services under Harold in Sicily. 1038–1040.| it is that, just about this time, we find the Byzantine armies, after an interval of torpor, once more in vigorous action, and that in the very region in which the Norwegian Saga places the most memorable exploits of Harold. He waged war, we are told, against the Saracens both in Sicily and in Africa; he fought eight pitched battles, and took castle after castle from the misbelievers. That is, there can be little doubt, Harold and his followers served in the Sicilian expedition of Maniakês, who was at this time waging a vigorous war against the Saracens of Sicily, and who recovered many of their towns to the Empire.^[217] It does not appear that Maniakês actually ventured on an African campaign, but, as the Saracens of Africa undoubtedly aided their Sicilian brethren,^[218] a landing of Imperial troops on their coast is quite possible. At all events, warfare with African Saracens anywhere might easily, in the half-legendary language of the Sagas, grow |His Crusade or Pilgrimage.| into a tale of an actual invasion of Africa. Harold is next represented as entering on another series of adventures for which it is more difficult to find a place in authentic history. He set out, we are told, on a premature Crusade; he marched with his followers to Jerusalem, clearing the way of robbers, and winning back countless towns and castles to the allegiance of Christ 77and Cæsar. Here we have of course the mere reflexion of the age of the writer, who could not conceive so famous a warrior as entering the Holy City in any character but that of a conqueror. But that Harold, as a peaceful pilgrim, the brother of a canonized Saint, visited Jerusalem, prayed and gave gifts at the Holy Sepulchre, and bathed in the hallowed stream of Jordan, is quite in the spirit of the age and of the man.^[219] He shared in the penitential devotion of Robert the father of Norman William and of Swegen the brother of English Harold; and, more fortunate than either, he returned in safety and glory to his own land. He came back to Constantinople to find himself maligned at the Imperial Court, and to be refused the hand of a niece of the Empress.^[220] Scandal went so far as to say that the cause of this refusal was that Zôê, a woman whose passions survived to an unusually late period of life, herself cast an eye of love on the valiant |Harold escapes from Constantinople.| Northman. Harold now made his escape from Constantinople, after—so his Northern admirers ventured to say—putting out the eyes of the Emperor Constantine Monomachos. This of course is pure fiction. The historical truth of Harold’s warlike exploits is in no way impugned by the silence of the Byzantine writers; but so striking an event as the blinding of an Emperor could hardly fail to have found a native chronicler. But we may believe, if we please, that Harold carried off the princess by force, that the Scandinavian galleys burst the chain which guarded 78the Bosporos, that Harold then left his fair prize on shore, bidding her tell her Imperial kinswoman how little her power availed against either the might or the craft of the |He returns to Russia,| Northman. Harold now returned to Russia. He had carried off the Byzantine princess only as a bravado; his heart was fixed on Elizabeth, the daughter of his former host Jaroslaf of Novgorod. He now hastened to her father’s court, obtained her in marriage, and passed over with |and finds Swend in Sweden.| her into Sweden. He there found Swend, defeated and in banishment. With him he concerted measures for a joint expedition against Magnus, now in possession of |Swend and Harold attack Magnus, and save England from invasion. 1045.| Denmark.^[221] There can be little doubt that it was this joint expedition of Swend and Harold which saved England from a Norwegian invasion. King Eadward watched at Sandwich with his great fleet during the whole summer, expecting the approach of the enemy. But Magnus came not. Harold and Swend together, by their invasion of Denmark, gave him full occupation throughout the year.^[222]

It was apparently early in this year of expected invasion that Eadward at last married Eadgyth the daughter of Godwine.^[223] It is not easy to see why the marriage had been 79so long delayed; but, if the Norman influence was advancing, the wary Earl might well deem that no time was to be lost in bringing about the full completion of a promise which the King was probably not very eager to fulfil. Godwine’s power however was not as yet seriously shaken. |Earldoms given to Harold and Beorn.| It was also probably in this year, as we have seen, that his son Harold and his wife’s nephew Beorn received their Earldoms.^[224] The ecclesiastical appointments of the year seem also to point to the predominance of the patriotic |Death of Bishop Brihtwold.| party. In this year died Brihtwold, Bishop of Wilton or Ramsbury, a Prelate who had in past times been honoured with a vision portending Eadward’s accession to the Crown, and who had had the good luck of living to |Hermann of Lotharingia succeeds. 1045.| see his prophecy fulfilled.^[225] The appointment of his successor should be carefully noticed. He was Hermann of Lotharingia, a chaplain of the King’s, the first of the series of German or other Imperialist Prelates of whom |Promotion of German Prelates.| I have already spoken.^[226] The promotion of Germans in England was not wholly new. It seems to have begun under Cnut, and it was probably a fruit of his friendship |Duduc Bishop of Wells. 1033–1060.| with the Emperor Conrad. In his time the Saxon Duduc had obtained the see of Wells,^[227] and another German, |Wythmann Abbot of Ramsey.| Wythmann by name, had held the great abbey of Ramsey.^[228] Had the appointment of Hermann stood alone, 80we might have simply looked on it as the result of Eadward’s connexion with King Henry. Or we might even have looked on it in a worse light, as a sign that Eadward preferred foreigners of any sort to his own countrymen. But several considerations may lead us to |The German appointments probably favoured by Godwine.| look on the matter in another way. These German appointments are clearly part of a system; the system is continued after the death of Henry the Third, when the close connexion between Germany and England ceases; Harold himself, in the height of his power, appears as a special promoter of German churchmen. We can therefore hardly fail to see in these appointments, as I have already hinted, an attempt of Godwine and the patriotic party to counterbalance the merely French |Policy of Lotharingian appointments.| tendencies of Eadward himself. We must observe that most of these Prelates were natives of Lotharingia, a term which, in the geography of that age, includes—and indeed most commonly means—the Southern Netherlands. That is to say, they came from the border land of Germany and France, where the languages of both kingdoms were already familiar to every educated man.^[229] We can well understand that, in those cases in which the patriots found it impossible to procure the King’s consent to the appointment of an Englishman, they might well be content to accept the appointment of a German of Lotharingia as a compromise. One whose blood, speech, and manners had not wholly lost the traces of ancient brotherhood would be more acceptable to Godwine and to England than a mere Frenchman. And one to whom the beloved speech of Gaul was as familiar as his mother-tongue would be more acceptable to the denationalized Eadward than one of his own subjects. This policy was probably as sound as any that could be hit upon in such 81a wretched state of things. But its results were not wholly satisfactory. I know of no reason to believe that any of these Lotharingian Prelates actually proved traitors to England; but they certainly did not, as a class, offer the same steady resistance to French influences as the men who had been born in the land. And, if they were not Normannizers, they were at least Romanizers. They brought with them habits of constant reference to the Papal See, and a variety of scruples on points of small canonical regularity, to which Englishmen had hitherto been strangers. Still something was gained, if Godwine, on the death of Brihtwold, could procure the appointment of a Lotharingian, instead of a French, successor.^[230] A slight counterpoise was thus gained to the influence of the Norman Bishop of London. But, at the next great ecclesiastical |Death of Bishop Lyfing. March 23 1046.| vacancy, the patriotic party were more successful. In the course of the next year England lost one of her truest worthies; the great Earl lost one who had been his right hand man in so many crises of his life, in so |His career and character.| many labours for the welfare of his country. Lyfing, the patriot Bishop of Worcester, died in March in the following year. Originally a monk of Winchester, he was first raised to the Abbacy of Tavistock. While still holding |1027.| that office, he had been the companion of Cnut in his Roman pilgrimage, and had been the bearer of the great King’s famous letter to his English subjects.^[231] The consummate prudence which he had displayed in that and in other commissions,^[232] had procured his appointment to the 82Bishoprick of Crediton or Devonshire. With that see the Bishoprick of Cornwall had been finally united during his episcopate.^[233] With that double see he had held, according |1038.| to a vicious use not uncommon at the time, the Bishoprick of Worcester in plurality.^[234] In that office, he had steadily adhered to the cause of the great Earl through all the storms of the days of Harold and Harthacnut, and he had had a share second only to that of Godwine himself in the work of placing Eadward upon the throne.^[235] Either his plurality of benefices had given, as it reasonably might, offence to strict assertors of ecclesiastical rule,^[236] or, what is at least as likely, the patriotic career of Lyfing had made him, like Godwine himself, a mark for Norman slander, whether alive or dead. His death, we are told, was accompanied by strange portents, which were however quite as capable of a favourable as of an unfavourable interpretation.^[237] But his memory was loved and cherished in the places where he was best known. Long after the Norman Conquest, the name of the Prelate whose body rested in their minster still lived in the hearts and on the mouths of the monks of Tavistock.^[238] And the simple entry of a Chronicler who had doubtless heard him with his own ears bears witness to that power of speech in the exercise of which he had so often stood side by side with his illustrious friend. The other Chronicles merely record his death; the Worcester writer adds the speaking title, “Lyfing the eloquent.”^[239]

83The great mass of preferment held by Lyfing did not pass undivided to a single successor. The Bishopricks of Devonshire and Cornwall remained united, as they have done ever since. They were conferred on the King’s Chancellor, Leofric, who is described as a Briton, that is, doubtless, a native of the Cornish portion of his diocese.^[240] His name however shows that he was of English, or at least of Anglicized, descent. But in feeling he was neither British nor English; as Hermann was a Lotharingian by birth, Leofric was equally a Lotharingian by education.^[241] Four years after his appointment, he followed |He removes the see to Exeter. 1050.| the example of Ealdhun of Durham in removing his episcopal see to a new site.^[242] He did not however, like Ealdhun, create at once a church and a city;^[243] he rather forestalled the practice of Prelates later in the century by transferring his throne to the greatest town of his diocese. The humbler Crediton had to yield its episcopal rank to the great city of the West, the city which Æthelstan had fortified as a cherished bulwark of his realm,^[244] the city whose valiant burghers had beaten back the Dane in his full might, and which had fallen into his hands only when the Norman traitor was set to guard its walls.^[245] She 84whose fatal presence had caused that great misfortune still |1003–1050.| lived. The first years of Emma in England beheld the capture and desolation of her noble morning-gift. Her last years saw the restored city become the spiritual capital of the great western peninsula. And, within the lifetime |1067.| of many who saw that day, Exeter was again to stand a siege at the hands of a foreign King, and again to show forth the contrast between citizens as valiant as those who drove Swend from before their walls and captains as incompetent or as treacherous as Hugh the Churl. The church of Saint Peter in Exeter now became the cathedral church of the western diocese, and there Leofric was solemnly enthroned in his episcopal chair by the saintly King and his virgin wife.^[246] Hitherto the church had been occupied by nuns. They were now removed, and the chapter of the Bishop was formed of secular Canons. Leofric however required them to conform to the stricter |He subjects his Canons to the rule of Chrodegang.| discipline which he had learned in Lotharingia. The rule of Chrodegang of Metz, the model rule of secular Canons, though it did not impose monastic vows, yet imposed on those who conformed to it much of the strictness of monastic discipline.^[247] The clerks who submitted to it were severed, hardly less than actual monks, from all the ordinary habits of domestic life. They were condemned to the common table and the common dormitory; every detail of their life was regulated by a series of minute ordinances; they were cut off from lay, and especially from female, society, and bound to a strict obedience to their Bishop or other 85ecclesiastical superior. Still they were not monks; they were even strictly forbidden to wear the monastic garb,^[248] and the pastoral duties of baptism, preaching, and hearing confession were strictly enforced upon them. In accordance with the precepts of Chrodegang, the Canons of Exeter were required to eat in a common hall and to sleep in a common dormitory. Their temporal concerns were managed by an officer, who provided them with daily food, and with a yearly change of raiment. This sort of discipline never found favour in England. All who were not actual monks clave earnestly to the usage of separate houses, in which they were often solaced by the company of wives and children. Every earlier and later attempt to introduce the Lotharingian rule in England utterly failed.^[249] Leofric’s discipline seems to have lasted somewhat longer than commonly happened in the like cases. Vestiges of the severer rule still remained at Exeter in the next century, but even then the purity of ancient discipline had greatly fallen off.^[250]

One of the sees vacated by the death of Lyfing thus fell to the lot of a zealous ecclesiastical reformer, but a man who plays no important part in the general history of the time. The fate of Lyfing’s other Bishoprick was widely different. It was bestowed on a Prelate who, without ever displaying any very great qualities, played a prominent, and on the whole not a dishonourable, part for many years to come. The early career of the famous Ealdred, who now succeeded Lyfing in the see of Worcester, had led him 86through nearly the same stages as that of his predecessor. Like him, he had been a monk at Winchester; like him, he had been thence called to the government of one of the great monasteries of the West. The Abbey of Tavistock, |997.| destroyed by Danish invaders in the reign of Æthelred,^[251] had risen from its ashes, and it now proved a nursery of |Character of Ealdred.| Prelates like Lyfing and Ealdred.^[252] The new Bishop was a man of ability and energy. He exhibits, like Harold, the better form of the increasing connexion between England and the continent. As an ambassador at the Imperial court, as a pilgrim at Rome and Jerusalem, he probably saw more of the world than any contemporary Englishman. He was renowned as a peacemaker, one who could reconcile the bitterest enemies.^[253] But he was also somewhat of a time-server, and, in common with so many other Prelates of his time, he did not escape the charge of simony. This charge is one which it is easy to bring and often hard to answer, but the frequency with which it is brought shows that the crime itself was a familiar one. Like many other churchmen of his time, Ealdred did not scruple to bear arms both in domestic and in foreign warfare, but his campaigns were, to say the least, not specially glorious. His most enduring title to remembrance is that it fell to his lot to place, within a single year, the Crown of England on the brow, first of Harold and then of William, and to die of sorrow at the sight of his church and city brought to ruin by the mutual contentions of Normans, Englishmen, and Danes.

87We shall find the new Bishop of Worcester appearing a few years later in arms against the Welsh, to whose incursions the southern part of his diocese lay open. But as yet it was only his powers of persuasion and peacemaking which he was called upon to exercise in that quarter. It was probably by Ealdred’s intervention that a reconciliation was now brought about between the famous King of North Wales, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn,^[254] and his English overlord.

Gruffydd’s immediate neighbour to the east was Swegen, whose anomalous Earldom took in the border shires of Gloucester and Hereford. Gruffydd accordingly gave hostages, and accompanied Swegen in an expedition against the other Gruffydd, the son of Rhydderch, the King of South Wales.^[255] On his triumphant return Swegen was guilty of an act which embittered the remainder of his days, a breach of the laws of morality which the ecclesiastical feelings of the time clothed with tenfold guilt. He sent for Eadgifu, Abbess of Leominster, kept her 88|Swegen seduces Eadgifu, Abbess of Leominster.| awhile with him, and then sent her home.^[256] Like the Hamor of patriarchal story, he next sought, with a generosity as characteristic of his wayward temper as any |He seeks in vain to marry her.| of his worst deeds, to make reparation by marriage.^[257] But the law of the Church stood in his way. Richard of Normandy, as we have seen, found it easy to raise his mistress to all the honours due to a matron and the wife of a sovereign. The Lady Emma herself, wife and mother of so many Kings, was the offspring of an union which the Church had thus hallowed only after the fact.^[258] But no such means of reparation were open to the seducer of a consecrated virgin. The marriage was of course forbidden, |He throws up his Earldom, and goes to Denmark.| and Swegen, in his disappointment, threw up his Earldom, left his country, and betook himself, first to Flanders, the usual place of refuge for English exiles, and thence to the seat of war in the North.^[259] A formal sentence of outlawry seems to have followed, as the lordships 89of Swegen were confiscated, and divided between his brother Harold and his cousin Beorn.^[260] On Eadgifu and her monastery the hand of ecclesiastical discipline seems |Fate of Leominster monastery.| to have fallen heavily. The nunnery of Leominster, one of the objects of the bounty of Earl Leofric,^[261] now vanishes from history. The natural inference is that the misconduct of Eadgifu led, not only to her own disgrace, but to the dissolution of the sisterhood over which she had so unworthily presided.^[262] We hear of no later marriage on the part of Swegen, but in after years we shall meet with |Hakon son of Swegen.| a son of his, probably a child of the frail Abbess of Leominster. Born under other circumstances, he might have been head of the house of Godwine. As it was, the son of Swegen and Eadgifu was the child of shame and sacrilege, and the career to which he was doomed was short and gloomy.

The banishment of the Staller Osgod Clapa, at the bridal of whose daughter King Harthacnut had come to his untimely end, took place this year.^[263] Like the banishment of Gunhild, this measure was evidently connected 90with the movements in the North of Europe. Osgod was doubtless one of those who had been marked men ever since the election of Eadward,^[264] and who, in the present state of Scandinavian affairs, were felt to be dangerous. The immediate peril came from Magnus; but there could be little doubt that, of the three princes who were disputing the superiority of Scandinavia, the successful one, whether Magnus, Harold, or Swend, would assert some sort of claim to the possession of England. Magnus had |1066.| done so already. Harold lived to invade England and to perish in the attempt. It was only the singular prudence of Swend which kept him back from any such enterprise till he was able to interfere in English affairs in the guise |1069.| of a deliverer. Partisans of any one of the contending princes were clearly dangerous in England. Osgod was driven out, seemingly by a decree of the Christmas Gemót,^[265] and he presently, after the usual sojourn in Flanders, betook himself to the seat of war in Denmark.^[266]

Osgod and Swegen most probably took service with Swend Estrithson. The presence of Swegen would doubtless be welcome indeed to that prince’s partisans. The nephew of Ulf, the cousin of their own leader, the son of the great English Earl, renowned in the North as the conqueror of the Wends,^[267] was a recruit richly to be prized. And the cause of Swend Estrithson just then greatly needed recruits. His hopes, lately so flourishing, had been |Harold Hardrada joins Magnus and receives a share of the Kingdom of Norway. 1047.| again dashed to the ground. Magnus had contrived to gain over his uncle Harold to his side, by the costly bribe of a share in the Kingdom of Norway. The gift indeed 91was not quite gratuitous. Besides cooperating in the war with Swend, Harold was to share with Magnus the treasures which he had gathered in his Southern warfare.^[268] The two Kings now joined their forces, and drove Swend out of Jütland and the Danish Isles. He retained only Scania, that part of the old Danish realm which lies on the Swedish side of the Sound, and which is now politically part of Sweden.^[269] In the next year Swend was |Swend asks for English help.| again aiming at the recovery of his Kingdom. It was probably the presence of English exiles in his camp, which suggested to him the idea of obtaining regular help from England as an ally of the English King. He |His request is discussed by the Witan;| sent and asked for the help of an English fleet. In those days questions of peace and war were not decided either by the Sovereign only, or by the Sovereign and a few secret counsellors; they were debated openly by the Witan of the whole land. The demand of Swend was discussed in full Gemót. Swend had certainly acted, whether of set purpose or not, as a friend of England; the diversion caused by him had saved England from a Norwegian invasion. But, setting aside any feelings of gratitude on this account, any feelings of attachment to the kinsman of Cnut and of Godwine, it does not appear that England had any direct interest in embracing the cause of Swend. A party which sought only the immediate interest of England might argue that the sound policy was to stand aloof, and to leave the contending Kings of the North to wear out each other’s power and their own. Such however |Godwine supports the claim of Swend;| was not the view taken by Godwine. In the Gemót in which the question was debated, the Earl of the West-Saxons supported the petition of his nephew, and proposed that fifty ships should be sent to his help. It is clear that such a course might be supported by plausible arguments. 92It is clear that equally plausible arguments might be brought forward on the other side. And if, as is possible, this question was discussed in the same Gemót in which sentence of outlawry was pronounced against Swegen the son of Godwine, it is clear that the father of the culprit would stand at a great disadvantage in supporting the request of the prince with whom that culprit had taken service. It marks the still abiding influence of Godwine that he was able to preserve the confiscated lordships of Swegen for Harold and Beorn. But in his recommendation of giving armed support to Swend Estrithson all his |but his demand is opposed by Leofric, and rejected. 1047.| eloquence utterly failed. The cause of non-intervention was pleaded by Earl Leofric, and his arguments prevailed. All the people, we are told—the popular character of the Assembly still impresses itself on the language of history—agreed with Leofric and determined the proposal of Godwine to be unwise. The naval force of Magnus, it was said, was too great to be withstood.^[270] Swend Estrithson had therefore to carry on the struggle with his own unaided forces. Against the combined powers of Magnus |Magnus defeats Swend and occupies Denmark.| and Harold those forces were utterly unavailing. Swend was defeated in a great sea-fight; Magnus took possession of all Denmark, and laid a heavy contribution upon the realm.^[271] Swend again took refuge in Sweden, and now began to meditate a complete surrender of his claims upon Denmark. Just at this moment, we are told, a messenger appeared, bringing the news of the sudden death of 93|Sudden death of Magnus. 1047.| Magnus.^[272] The victorious King had perished by an accident not unlike that which had caused the death of Lewis of France.^[273] His horse, suddenly startled by a hare, dashed his rider against the trunk of a tree.^[274] On his death-bed he bequeathed the crown of Norway to his uncle Harold |Harold succeeds in Norway, Swend in Denmark.| and that of Denmark to his adversary Swend. Such a bequest is quite in harmony with the spirit of the correspondence between Magnus and Eadward.^[275] Swend returned |Their long warfare. 1048–1061.| and took possession of his Kingdom, and though he was for years engaged in constant warfare with Harold, he |Their embassies to England.| never wholly lost his hold upon the country. The first act of both the new Kings was to send embassies to England. Harold offered peace and friendship; Swend again asked for armed help against Harold.^[276] The debate of the |Help again refused to Swend, and peace concluded with Harold. 1048.| year before was again reopened. Godwine again supported the request of his nephew, and again proposed that fifty ships should be sent to his help. Leofric again opposed the motion, and the people again with one voice supported Leofric. Help was refused to Swend and peace was concluded with Harold.^[277] Swend, despairing of English aid, seems to have sought for protection in another quarter, and to have acknowledged himself a vassal of the Empire.^[278]

These two years seem to have been marked by several physical phænomena. In the former we hear of the 94|May 1, 1048.| unusual severity of the winter, accompanied by an extraordinary fall of snow.^[279] In the latter several of the midland shires were visited by an earthquake.^[280] We read also of epidemics both among men and beasts, and of the appearance called wild fire.^[281] A few ecclesiastical appointments are also recorded; but one only calls for notice. |Death of Ælfwine of Winchester, Aug. 29, 1047. Stigand succeeds.| Ælfwine, Bishop of Winchester, died, and his Bishoprick fell neither to Frenchmen nor to Lotharingian. Stigand rose another step in the ladder of promotion by his translation from the humbler see of Elmham to the Bishoprick of the Imperial city.^[282]

As far as we can make out through the confused chronology of these years, it was in the year of the peace with Norway that England underwent, what we have not now heard of for many years, an incursion of Scandinavian pirates.^[283] Two chiefs, named Lothen and Yrling, came with twenty-five ships, and harried various parts of the coast. This event must have been in some way connected with the course of the war between Harold and Swend. Probably some enterprising Wikings in the service of one or other of those princes found a moment of idleness just as the two Kings were taking possession of their crowns, 95and thought the opportunity a good one for an attack on England. Such an attack was doubtless unexpected, especially as such good care had been taken to keep on good terms with both the contending Kings. But possibly the more daring policy of Godwine would really have been the safer.^[284] Had fifty English ships, whatever their errand, been afloat in the Northern seas, Lothen and Yrling could hardly have come to plunder the shores of England. Anyhow the story shows us the sort of spirit which still reigned in the North. There were still plenty of men ready to seek their fortunes in any part of the world as soon as a moment of unwelcome quiet appeared at home. Harold and Swend at least did the world some service by finding employment for such men in warfare with one another. The Wikings harried far and wide. From Sandwich they carried off a vast booty in men, gold, and silver.^[285] In the Isle of Wight they must have met with more resistance, as many of the best men of the island are said to have been slain.^[286] In Thanet too the landfolk withstood them manfully, refused them landing and water, and drove them altogether away.^[287] Thence they sailed to Essex, where they plundered at their pleasure.^[288] By this time the King |Eadward and the Earls pursue the pirates, but they escape to Flanders.| and the Earls had got together some ships. The Earls were doubtless Godwine and Harold, on whose governments the attack had been made, and the words of our 96authorities seem to imply that Eadward was really present in person.^[289] They sailed after the pirates, but they were too late. The enemy had already made his way to the common refuge of banished Englishmen and of foes of England. The Wikings were now safe in the havens of Flanders—of Baldwines land; there they found a ready market for the spoils of England, and thence they sailed back to their own country.^[290]

We here seem to be reading over again the history of the events which led to the first hostile relations between England and Normandy.^[291] The Northmen are again plundering England, and a continental power again gives them so much of help and comfort as is implied in letting them sell their plunder in his havens. This time the offending power was not Normandy but Flanders, and Eadward, unlike his father, had no lack of powerful friends on the |Alliance with the Emperor Henry.| continent. The great prince who had, a year before,^[292] been raised to the throne of the world was, as we have seen,^[293] on the most intimate terms with his English brother, and it is plain that close alliance with the Empire formed part of the policy of the patriotic party. The illustrious Cæsar had filled the Papal chair with a Pontiff like-minded |The German Popes.| with himself. A series of German Popes of Imperial nomination had followed one another in a quick succession of short reigns, but they had had time to show forth in their virtues a marked contrast to the utter degradation of the Italian Pontiffs who had gone |Leo the Ninth. 1048–1054.| immediately before them. The throne of Peter was now filled, at the Imperial bidding, by Bruno, Bishop of Toul, a native of Elsass and kinsman of the Emperor, who had 97taken the name of Leo the Ninth.^[294] He was now in his second year of office, having· been appointed in the year of the peace between England and Norway. It was perhaps only a later legend which told how, on his way to Rome, he fell in with the famous Hildebrand, then in exile, how he listened to his rebukes for the crime of accepting a spiritual office from an earthly lord, how he entered Rome as a pilgrim, and did not venture to ascend the Pontifical throne till he was again more regularly chosen thereto by the voice of the Roman clergy and people.^[295] But, in any case, this concession to ecclesiastical rule or prejudice had abated nothing of Leo’s loyalty to his Teutonic sovereign, nothing of his zeal for the welfare, both spiritual and temporal, of lands which the Italian Pontiffs so seldom visited. The Pope was now at Aachen, |Rebellion of Godfrey and Baldwin against the Emperor. 1047.| ready with his spiritual weapons to help the Emperor against a league of his rebellious vassals. They had waged war against their suzerain; they had burned the city and church of Verdun; they had destroyed the noble palace of the Emperor at Nimwegen. Foremost among the offenders were Theodoric of Holland, Baldwin of Flanders, and Godfrey of Lotharingia. Godfrey was specially guilty. After a former rebellion he had been imprisoned and released, and now he was foremost in the new insurrection, especially in the deed of sacrilege at Verdun.^[296] The Pope therefore did not hesitate to issue 98|Leo excommunicates Godfrey. 1049.| his excommunication against him. Godfrey yielded; the ban of the father of Christendom bent his soul; he submitted to scourging, he redeemed his hair at a great sum, he contributed largely to the rebuilding of the cathedral which he had burned, and himself laboured at the work |Continued ravages of Baldwin.| like a common mason. But Baldwin of Flanders, possibly trusting to his ambiguous position as a vassal both of the Empire and of the French Crown, was more obstinate, and still continued his ravages. The Emperor accordingly called on his vassals and allies for help against a prince whose power might well seem dangerous even to Kings |Swend and Eadward join the Emperor against Baldwin.| and Cæsars. King Swend of Denmark—so low had Denmark fallen since the days of Cnut—obeyed the summons as a vassal.^[297] King Eadward of England contributed his 99help as an ally, and as one who was himself an injured party. The reception of English exiles at Baldwin’s court, the licence allowed to Scandinavian pirates of selling the spoils of England in Baldwin’s havens, caused every Englishman to look on the Count of Flanders as an enemy. The help which had been refused to Swend was therefore readily granted to Henry. The King of the English was not indeed asked to take any share in continental warfare by land. The share of the enterprise assigned to him was to keep the coast with his ships, in case the rebellious prince should attempt to escape by sea.^[298] Again, as in the days of Æthelstan and Eadmund, an English fleet appeared in the Channel, ready, if need be, to take a part in continental warfare. But now, as in the days of |Baldwin defeated without actual English help.| Æthelstan and Eadmund,^[299] nothing happened which called for its active service. Eadward and his fleet watched at Sandwich, while the Emperor marched against Baldwin by land. But the Count of Flanders, instead of betaking himself to the sea, submitted in all things to the will of the mighty overlord whom he had provoked.^[300]

The immediate object for the assembling of the fleet had been attained; but the events which immediately followed showed that the fleet was just as likely to be 100needed for protection at home, as for a share in even just and necessary warfare abroad. The submission of Baldwin to the Emperor seems to have let loose the English exiles who had been flitting backwards and forwards between Flanders and Denmark,^[301] and who had possibly taken a part on Baldwin’s side in the last campaign. Both Osgod Clapa and Swegen the son of |Swegen and Osgod return.| Godwine now appeared at sea. Swegen had only eight ships; but Osgod had—we are not told how—gathered a force of thirty-nine. While the King was still at Sandwich, Swegen returned to England. He sailed first to Bosham, a favourite lordship of his father’s, and one whose name we shall again meet with in connexion with events of still greater moment to the house of Godwine. He there left his ships, and went to the King at Sandwich, |Swegen’s reconciliation with Eadward. 1049.| and offered to become his man.^[302] His natural allegiance as an English subject was perhaps held to be cancelled by his outlawry or by his having become the man of Swend of Denmark or of some other foreign prince. A new personal commendation was seemingly needed for his reconciliation with his natural sovereign. He seems to have asked for his Earldom again; at any rate, he was tired of the life of a sea-rover, and asked that his lands which had been confiscated might be given back to him for his maintenance. He seems to have found favour, either with the King personally or with some of those who were about him, for it was proposed, if not actually resolved, that Swegen should be restored to all his former possessions.^[303] But the strongest opponents of such a course 101|Harold and Beorn oppose his reconciliation.| were found in the kinsmen to whom his confiscated lands had been granted, his cousin Beorn and his brother Harold. They both refused to give up any part of what the King had given them.^[304] Swegen’s petition was accordingly refused; |Swegen’s outlawry is renewed.| his outlawry was confirmed; only, as seems to have been usual in such cases, he was allowed four days to get him out of the country. How far Harold and Beorn were actuated in this matter by mere regard to their own interests, how far by a regard to the public good, how far by that mixture of motives which commonly determines men’s actions, we have no means of judging. This is not the only act of Harold’s early life which may be taken to show that he had not yet acquired those wonderful gifts of conciliation and self-restraint which mark his more mature career. Of the character of Beorn we know nothing except from this story; what we hear of him directly afterwards certainly sets him before us in a generous and amiable light. The tale is told us in a perfectly colourless way, without any hint how the conduct of the two cousins was judged of in the eyes of contemporaries in general or in those of Earl Godwine. At all events, Swegen went away from Sandwich disappointed. He thence went to Bosham, where his ships were lying in the land-locked haven of that place. This was just at the moment when the fleet, no longer needed for service against Baldwin, was beginning to disperse. We see that this fleet also had been gathered in the ancient way by the contingents or contributions of the shires,^[305] and that only a small number of the ships were in the King’s permanent service. Those of the crews who had come from distant, especially inland, 102districts were naturally weary of tarrying when there was no prospect of active service, and the contingent of Mercia was accordingly allowed to return home.^[306] The King remained at Sandwich with a few ships only. Meanwhile a rumour came that hostile ships had been seen ravaging |Godwine at Pevensey.| to the west. The Earl of the West-Saxons accordingly sailed forth to the rescue, with forty-two ships belonging to the men of his Earldom.^[307] He took also two ships of the King’s, commanded respectively by Harold and by his third son Tostig, of whom we now hear for the first time.^[308] Stress of weather however hindered them from getting further west than Pevensey. While they lay there, a change, of the motive of which we are not told, was made in the command of the two royal ships which had accompanied Godwine. Harold gave up the ship which he had commanded to his cousin Beorn.^[309] This accidental change possibly saved Harold’s life.^[310] For Swegen now came from Bosham to Pevensey, and there found his father and cousin. He there spoke with both of them. The result of their discourse was that Beorn 103|Beorn entrapped and slain by Swegen.| was persuaded to undertake the office of intercessor with the King on Swegen’s behalf. What arrangement was to be proposed—whether Beorn brought himself to consent to the sacrifice which he had before refused—whether Swegen was to be again invested with his Earldom or only with his private lordships—whether Harold, Beorn, or Swegen was to be compensated in any other way for the surrenders which one or more of them would have to make—of all this nothing is explained to us. We hear however that Beorn, trusting to his kindred with Swegen,^[311] did not hesitate to set out to ride with him to the King at Sandwich. He even agreed to a proposal of Swegen’s, according to which they left the road from Pevensey to Sandwich, and went westward to Bosham. For this deviation from his original scheme Swegen made an excuse, which was doubtless more intelligible then than it is now, namely a fear lest the crews of his ships should forsake him, if they were not confirmed in their faith to him by the presence of Beorn. The young Earl fell into the snare, and accompanied his cousin to the haven of Bosham. But when Swegen pressed him to go on board one of his ships, Beorn’s suspicions were at last aroused, and he vehemently refused. At last Swegen’s sailors bound him, put him in a boat, rowed him to the ships, and there kept him a prisoner. They then hoisted their sails and steered for Dartmouth.^[312] There Beorn was killed by Swegen’s orders, but his body was taken on shore and buried in a church. As soon as the murder became known, Earl Harold,^[313] with others of Beorn’s friends, and the sailors 104from London—a clear mark of Beorn’s popularity—came and took up the body, carried it to Winchester, and there buried it in the Old Minster by the side of Beorn’s uncle King Cnut.

The general indignation at the crime of Swegen was intense. The King and the army publicly declared the murderer to be Nithing.^[314] This was the vilest epithet in the English language, implying utter worthlessness. It was evidently used as a formal term of dishonour. We shall find |1087.| it at a later time resorted to by a Norman King as a means of appeal to his English subjects. William Rufus, when he needed English support, proclaimed in the like sort that all who failed to come to his standard should be declared to be Nithing. But this proclamation has a deeper importance than the mere use of this curious expression of public |Functions of the Witan discharged by the army.| contempt. It is to be noted that the proclamation is described as the act of the King and his army. Here is clearly a case of a military Gemót.^[315] The army, as representing the nation, assumes to itself in time of war the functions which belonged to the regular Gemót in time of peace. The army declares Swend to be Nithing, and it was doubtless the army, in the same sense, which had just before hearkened to, and finally rejected, his petition for restoration to his estates. So it was the army, Cnut’s |1014.| Danish army, which assumed to itself the functions of the English Witan by disposing of the English Crown on the 105death of King Swend.^[316] In the ancient Teutonic constitution the army was the nation and the nation was the army. In the primitive Gemóts described by Tacitus,^[317] to which all men came armed, no distinction could be |Nature of the military Gemót.| drawn between the two. But it should be noticed that the word used is not that which denotes the armed levy of the Kingdom, but that which expresses the army in its special relation to the King.^[318] This fact exactly falls in with the practical, though not formal, change which had taken place in the constitution of the ordinary Gemóts.^[319] The military Gemót which passed this sentence on Swegen was not the whole force of England, for we were just before told that the contingents both of Mercia and Wessex had left Sandwich. This assembly must have consisted of the King’s Comitatus of both kinds, of the Thegns bound to him by the older and more honourable tie, and also of the standing force of the Housecarls, or at any rate of their officers.^[320] Setting churchmen aside—though we have seen that even churchmen often bore arms both by land and by sea—such a body would probably contain a large proportion of the men who were likely to attend an ordinary Witenagemót. By an assembly of this kind, acting, whether constitutionally or not, in the character of a National Assembly, the outlawry and disgrace of Swegen were decreed.

It would seem that this decree preceded the translation of Beorn’s body to Winchester, a ceremony which may not improbably have been ordered by the Assembly. For it was before that translation^[321] that the men of Hastings, 106most probably by some commission from the King or his military council, sailed forth to take vengeance on the murderer. Swegen was already forsaken by the greater part of his following. Of his eight ships six had left him. Their crews were probably rough Wikings from the North, men familiar with all the horrors of ordinary pirate warfare, not troubled with scruples about harrying a land whose people had never wronged them, but who nevertheless shrank from the fouler wickedness of slaying a kinsman by guile. Two ships only remained with Swegen, those doubtless whose crews had been the actual perpetrators of the deed. The men of Hastings chased and overtook these ships, slew their crews, and brought the ships to the King.^[322] How Swegen himself escaped it is not easy to see; possibly the men of Hastings still scrupled personally to lay hands upon a son of Godwine. At any rate the murderer baffled pursuit, and again took shelter in his old quarters. Baldwin, so lately restored to his dominions, again began his old practice of receiving English exiles, and Swegen spent the whole winter at the court of Flanders under the full protection of its sovereign.^[323]

107The story of the murder of Beorn is told in so minute and graphic a way that it seems impossible to throw doubt on any part of the tale. And every account represents the deed as a deed of deliberate treachery.^[324] An act of mere violence would not have greatly offended the morality of that age. Had Swegen killed even a kinsman in a moment of provocation or in a fair fight to decide a quarrel, his guilt would not have seemed very black. Had he even used craft in carrying out an ancestral deadly feud, he might have quoted many precedents in Northumbrian history, and, among them, an act in the life of the reigning Earl of the North hardly inferior in guilt to the worst |Universal indignation against Swegen.| aspect of his own.^[325] But to kill a kinsman, a confiding kinsman, one who had just granted a somewhat unreasonable prayer, was something which offended the natural instincts not only of contemporary Englishmen but of Scandinavian pirates. At the moment Swegen seems to have found no friends; the voice of all England was against him; there is no sign that any of his family stood by him; the sympathies of Harold clearly lay with his murdered cousin. It is hardly possible to conceive a blacker or more unpardonable crime. One would have thought that Swegen would have failed to find patrons or protectors in any |His reception by Baldwin.| corner of Christendom. Yet, strange to say, the murderer, forsaken by all, was at once received with favour by Baldwin, even though Baldwin must have known that by receiving him he was running the risk of again offending the King of the English and even the Emperor himself. |His outlawry is reversed and he returns to England. Midlent, 1050.| And what followed is stranger still. In the next year, in a Witenagemót held in London in Midlent, Swegen’s 108outlawry was reversed, and he was restored to his Earldom.^[326] And, strangest of all, his restoration is attributed, not to the influence of Godwine or his family, not to any revulsion of feeling on the part of the King or the nation, but |Swegen reconciled to Eadward by Bishop Ealdred.| to the personal agency of Bishop Ealdred the Peacemaker. He it was who, it would seem, crossed over to Flanders, brought Swegen to England, and procured his restoration at the hands of the King and his Witan.^[327] There is nothing to show that Ealdred was specially under the influence of Godwine. We shall before long find him acting in a manner which, to say the least, shows that he was not one of Godwine’s special followers. His episcopal city and the greater part of his diocese lay within the Earldom of Leofric; no part of it lay within the Earldom of Godwine.^[328] And, if part of his diocese lay within the Earldom of the man whom he sought to restore, that only makes him the more responsible for the act which was so directly to affect a portion of his own flock. In the restoration of Swegen, Ealdred seems to have acted purely in his capacity of peacemaker.^[329] At first sight it might seem that Ealdred strove to win the blessing promised to his class by labouring on behalf of a sinner whom the most enlarged charity could hardly excuse. The very strangeness of the act suggests that there must have been some explaining cause, intelligible at the time, but which our authorities have not 109recorded. The later history of Swegen shows that, if he was a great sinner, he was also a great penitent. We can only guess that Ealdred already marked in him some signs of remorse and amendment, that he had received from him some confession of his crime, to which we possibly owe the full and graphic accounts of the murder of Beorn which have been handed down to us.^[330] If so, it was doubtless wise and charitable not to break a bruised reed; still again to entrust the government of five English shires to the seducer of Eadgifu and murderer of Beorn was, to say the least, a perilous experiment.

We must now go back to the time when King Eadward had just dismissed the Mercian contingent after the reconciliation |Various military operations of the year 1049.| between Baldwin and the Emperor. While the unhappy events which I have just narrated were going on, Englishmen had cause to be alert in more than one quarter of the island against assaults of various kinds. In the comparatively peaceful reign of Eadward this year stands forth as marked by warlike operations of every sort. England had to resist the assaults of foreign enemies, of faithless vassals, and of banished men seeking their restoration. |Movements of Osgod Clapa.| Besides the small force of Swegen, Osgod Clapa was, as has been already said,^[331] at sea with a much larger number of ships. He first appeared at Wulpe near Sluys on the coast of Flanders, and the news of his arrival there was brought to Eadward at the moment when the King was left at Sandwich at the head of a very small force. The Mercian contingent had just been dismissed, and Godwine, with the force of Wessex, had sailed westward. 110Eadward was therefore nearly defenceless. He therefore countermanded the orders for the dismissal of the Mercian vessels, and as many of them as was possible were brought |He returns to Denmark.| back. Osgod however did not act personally as the enemy of England. He merely took his wife from Bruges, where she had been left, and sailed back to Denmark with |Piracy and destruction of his fleet.| six ships. The remainder of his fleet took to piracy off Eadulfsness in Essex, and there did much harm. But a violent storm arose and destroyed all the vessels except four.^[332] These were chased and captured, and the crews slain, whether by Eadward’s own fleet in pursuit or by some of the foreign allies of England is not very clear.^[333]

The rumour which had called Godwine westward from Sandwich was not wholly a false one. The ships which were then said to be ravaging the south coast, were doubtless Danish pirate vessels from Ireland, the same which, in the course of July, sailed up the Bristol Channel as far as the mouth of the Usk.^[334] There they were welcomed by the South-Welsh King Gruffydd,^[335] who was doubtless rejoiced at the prospect of such allies, alike against the English and against his Northern namesake, the momentary confederate of England. After a certain amount of harrying along the coast of the Channel, the combined forces of Gruffydd and the pirates crossed the Wye, and slew and |They invade Gloucestershire, and defeat Bishop Ealdred.| plundered within the diocese of Worcester. It is not clear who was the Earl responsible for the safety of the country since the banishment of Swegen. It was probably the 111King’s nephew, Ralph the Timid, whose name begins about this time to appear in the Charters with the title of Earl.^[336] If this be so, this was the first appointment of a foreigner to a great temporal office, a further step in the downward course, still more marked than that of appointing foreign Prelates. Under such a chief as Ralph no vigorous resistance was to be looked for, and the person who really took upon himself the defence of the country was Bishop Ealdred. He gathered a force from among the inhabitants of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire; but part of his army consisted of Welshmen, whether mere mercenaries hired for the occasion, or Welshmen living as immediate subjects of England. But whoever these Welshmen were, their sympathies lay wholly with Gruffydd and not with Ealdred. They sent a secret message to the Welsh King, suggesting an immediate attack on the English army. Gruffydd willingly answered to the call. With his twofold |July 29, 1049.| force, Welsh and Danish, he fell on the English camp early in the morning, slew many good men, and put the rest, together with the Bishop, to flight.^[337] Of the further results of this singular and perplexing campaign, especially when and how the retreat of the invaders was brought about, we hear nothing.

Everything which happened about this time sets before us the great and increasing intercourse which now prevailed between England and the continent. Our fathers |English attendance at Synods.| were now brought into a nearer connexion with both the 112spiritual and the temporal chiefs of Christendom than they had ever known before. We have already seen England in close alliance with the Empire; we have now to contemplate her relations with the Papacy. The active and saintly Pontiff who now presided over the Church held at this time a series of Councils in various places, at most of which English Prelates attended. Leo, after receiving the submission of Godfrey at Aachen, entered France, at the request of Heremar, Abbot of Saint Remigius at Rheims, to hallow the newly built church of his monastery.^[338] |Synod of Rheims.| He then held a synod, which sat for six days, and passed several canons of the usual sort, against the marriage of priests and against their bearing arms.^[339] The days of Otto the Great seemed to have returned, when the Pope and the Emperor,^[340] seemingly without reference to the Parisian King, held a Council on French ground, attended by a vast multitude of Prelates, clergy, and laity from the Imperial Kingdoms and from other parts of Europe. There, besides the Metropolitan of the city in which the synod was held, was the Archbishop of Burgundy, as our Chronicles call him,^[341] that is, the Archbishop of the great see of Lyons, Primate of all the Gauls, but no subject or vassal of the upstart dynasty of Paris. There were the Archbishops of Trier and Besançon; and from England came Duduc, the Saxon Bishop of Wells, 113and the Abbots Wulfric of Saint Augustine’s and Ælfwine of Ramsey, whom King Eadward had sent to bring him word of all that should be done for the good of Christendom.^[342] |Synod of Mainz.| It does not appear that any English Prelates were present at the synod which Leo held soon after at Mainz;^[343] but the two Italian synods which were held soon after were, as we shall see, connected in a singular manner with English affairs. There seems to have been about |Deaths of Bishops and Abbots.| this time a kind of mortality among the English Prelates. Among those who died was the Abbot of Westminster or Thorney, the humbler foundation which was soon to give way to the great creation of the reigning King. He bore the name of Wulfnoth, a name which suggests the likelihood of kindred with the house of Godwine. Another was Oswiu, the Abbot of the other Thorney in the fen land, the neighbour of Peterborough and Crowland. This |Siward dies, and Eadsige resumes the Primacy. 1049.| year too died Siward the Coadjutor-Archbishop, and Eadsige again resumed his functions for the short remainder |Eadnoth of Dorchester dies; Ulf succeeds. 1049.| of his life.^[344] Eadnoth too, the good Bishop of Dorchester,^[345] the builder of Stow in Lindesey, died this year, and his death offered a magnificent bait to Norman ambition and greediness. The great Bishoprick stretching from the Thames to the Humber, was conferred by the King on one of his Norman chaplains, who however bore the Scandinavian name of Ulf. As to the utter unfitness of this man for such an office there is an universal consent among our authorities. The King, even the holy Eadward, did evil in appointing him; the new Prelate 114did nought bishoplike; it were shame to tell more of his deeds.^[346]

The year which followed was one of great note in ecclesiastical history. In England the first event recorded is |Witenagemót of London. Midlent, 1050.| the usual meeting of the Witan in London at Midlent. The proceedings of this Gemót, like those of many others about this time, give us a glimpse of that real, though very imperfect, parliamentary life which was then growing up in England, and which the Norman Conquest threw back for many generations. Then, as now, there were economists pressing for the reduction of the public expenditure, and what we should now call the Navy Estimates were chosen as being no doubt a popular subject for attack. The narrative of the naval events of the last year shows that, on special occasions, naval contingents were called for, according to the old law,^[347] from various parts of the Kingdom, but that the King still kept a small naval force |Reduction of the Fleet.| in constant pay. This force had, under Cnut and Harold, consisted of sixteen ships;^[348] it seems now to have consisted only of fourteen. The experience of the last year showed that England was still open to attack from the West; but the great fear, fear of invasion from the North, had now quite passed away. It seemed therefore to be a favourable moment for further reductions. By the authority of this Gemót nine ships were accordingly paid off, the crews receiving a year’s pay, and the standing force was cut down to six.^[349] It was in this same assembly that Swegen 115|Swegen inlawed.| was inlawed,^[350] that is, his outlawry was reversed, by the intercession of Bishop Ealdred. That Prelate, as we have seen, seems to have gone over to Flanders, and to have brought Swegen back with him.^[351]

But Ealdred had soon to set forth on a longer journey. He and the Lotharingian Bishop Hermann were now sent to Rome on the King’s errand.^[352] What that errand was we learn only from legendary writers and doubtful charters, but, as their accounts completely fit in with the authentic history, we need not scruple to |The King’s vow of pilgrimage to Rome.| accept their general outline.^[353] The King had in his youth vowed a pilgrimage to Rome, and the non-fulfilment of this vow lay heavy on his conscience. It probably lay heavier still when he saw so many of his subjects of all ranks, led by the fashionable enthusiasm of the time, making both the pilgrimage to Rome and also the more distant pilgrimage to Jerusalem.^[354] A broken vow was a crime; still Eadward had enough of political sense and right feeling left to see that his absence from his Kingdom at such a time as the present would be a criminal forsaking of his kingly duty. The Great Cnut might 116venture on such a journey; his eye could see and his hand could act from Rome or Norway or any other part of the world. But the personal presence of Eadward was the only check by which peace could be for a moment preserved between the true sons of the soil, and the strangers |Eadward sends the Bishops to obtain a dispensation. 1050.| who were eating into its vitals. The King laid his case before his Witan; the unanimous voice of the Assembly forbade him to forsake his post; the legend adds that the Witan farther counselled him to satisfy his conscience by obtaining a Papal dispensation from his vow. This was the King’s errand on which Ealdred and Hermann were sent to attend the great synod^[355] held this year at Rome. They made good speed with their journey; starting at |The Synod of Rome.| Midlent, they reached the Holy City on Easter Eve.^[356] In that synod they stood face to face with a man then known |Lanfranc.| only as a profound scholar and theologian, the bulwark of orthodoxy and the pattern of every monastic virtue, but who was, in years to come, to hold a higher place in the English hierarchy, and to leave behind him a far greater name in English history, than either of the English Prelates whose blessing he may now have humbly craved. In that synod of Rome the doctrines of Berengar of Tours were debated by the assembled Fathers, and the foremost champion of the faith to which Rome still cleaves was Lanfranc of Pavia. Suspected of complicity with the heretic, he produced the famous letter in which Berengar had maintained the Eucharist to be a mere figure of the Body of Christ.^[357] How far Ealdred or Hermann took part in these theological debates we know not; but they are said to have successfully accomplished their own errand. 117The King’s vow of pilgrimage was dispensed with, on condition of the rebuilding and endowment on a grander scale of that renowned West Minster whose name was to be inseparably bound together with that of the sainted King.^[358] Before the year was out the unwearied Leo held |Synod of Vercelli.| another synod at Vercelli. Here the theological controversy was again raised, and Lanfranc again shone forth as the irresistible smiter of heresy. Berengar was finally condemned, notwithstanding his appeals to the elder teaching of John Scotus, and his protests that those who rejected John Scotus rejected Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and all the Fathers of the Church.^[359] These disputes, renowned in the Church at large, are wholly passed over by our insular Chroniclers. To them the famous Synod of Vercelli seems to have been memorable only as showing the Roman Court in what was apparently a new relation towards the Prelacy of England. Before the assembled Fathers came |Confirmation of Ulf of Dorchester.| the newly appointed Bishop of Dorchester, Ulf the Norman, seeking, it would seem, for consecration or confirmation. His unfitness for his post was manifest; he was found incapable of going through the ordinary service of the Church. The Synod was on the point of deposing him, of breaking the staff which, according to the ceremonial of those times, he had already received from the King. But the influence which was already all-powerful at Rome saved him. He retained his Bishoprick; but only at the cost of a lavish expenditure of treasure, of which we may be sure that no portion found its way into the private 118|Possible pilgrimage of Macbeth.| coffers of Leo.^[360] It was in this same year that Macbeth made that mysterious bestowal of alms or bribes at Rome from which some have inferred a personal pilgrimage on the part of the Scottish usurper.^[361] It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that one who seems to us hardly more real than the creations of Grecian tragedy may have personally appeared at Rome or at Vercelli, that he may have shown his pious indignation at the heresies of the Canon of Tours, or have felt his soul moved within him at the incapacity of the Bishop of Dorchester. A personal meeting between Leo, Lanfranc, Ealdred, and Macbeth would form no unimpressive scene in the hands of those who may venture on liberties with the men of far-gone times which to the historian are forbidden.

Ealdred and Hermann thus came back from Rome with the wished for dispensation from the King, and Ulf came back from Vercelli to hold the great see of Mid-England, and to rule it in his unbishoplike fashion for a little time. |Death of Archbishop Eadsige. October 9, 1050.| But before long a still greater ecclesiastical preferment became vacant. Eadsige, who had so lately resumed his archiepiscopal functions, died before the end of the year.^[362] The day of complete triumph for the Norman monks and chaplains who surrounded Eadward now seemed to have come. A Frenchman might now sit on the throne of Augustine. Patriotic Englishmen were of course proportionably alarmed, and among them none more so than those who were most immediately concerned, the Chapter of the metropolitan church. The monks of 119Christ Church met, and made what is called a canonical election.^[363] In the eye of English law such a process was little more than a petition to the King and his Witan for the appointment of the man of their choice. That choice fell on a member of their own body, their selection of whom showed that seclusion from the world had not made them incapable of a happy union of the dove |The monks of Christ Church elect Ælfric.| and the serpent. There was in their house a monk, Ælfric by name, who had been brought up in the monastery from his childhood, and who enjoyed the love of the whole society. Notwithstanding his monastic education, he was held to be specially skilled in the affairs of the world. And he had a further merit as likely as any of the others to weigh either with an English Chapter or with an English Witenagemót; he was a near kinsman of Earl Godwine.^[364] The monks petitioned the Earl, the natural patron of a corporation within his government, to use his influence to obtain the King’s confirmation of their choice.^[365] Godwine was doubtless nothing loth to avail himself of so honourable an opportunity to promote an Englishman and a kinsman. But his influence was crumbling away. Four years before he had been able to obtain the confirmation of Siward as Eadsige’s coadjutor; he was now unable to obtain the confirmation of Ælfric, or of any other man of native birth, |Ælfric rejected by the King, and Robert Bishop of London appointed to the see of Canterbury. Midlent, 1051.| 120as Eadsige’s successor. The saintly King paid no regard to the canonical election of the Convent, and in the Midlent Witenagemót of the next year, the Archbishoprick of Canterbury was bestowed on the King’s French favourite, Robert, Bishop of London.^[366] The national party however prevailed so far as to secure an English successor |Spearhafoc appointed to London, and Rudolf to the Abbey of Abingdon.| to the see which Robert vacated. Spearhafoc, Abbot of Abingdon, a man famous for his skill in the goldsmith’s craft,^[367] was named to the see of London by the King’s writ under his seal.^[368] The Abbacy of Abingdon was given to a man whose description raises our curiosity; he was one Rudolf, described as a kinsman of King Eadward and as a Bishop in Norway.^[369] For a native Northman to have been a kinsman of the son of Æthelred and Emma is hardly possible, unless the common ancestor was to be looked for so far back as the days before the settlement of Rolf. A Norman is hardly likely to have desired or obtained preferment in so unpromising a land; but it is highly probable that Cnut, who appointed several 121Englishmen to Bishopricks in Denmark, may have made use of a see in Norway either to reward or to remove some remote and unrecorded member of the English royal family. It is therefore very probable that Rudolf may have been an Englishman.^[370] He was an aged man and weary of his office. The hand of Harold Hardrada pressed heavily on the Church. Pilgrim of the Holy Sepulchre as he was, he is charged with destroying ecclesiastical buildings, and even with sending Christian men to martyrdom.^[371] Rudolf sought and found a place of more quiet, if of somewhat less honour, in the dominions of his kinsman. The monks of Abingdon received him, not very willingly, it would seem, but they were won over by the prospect that the old man would not live very long, and by the King’s promise that at the next vacancy free election should be allowed.^[372] Presently the new Archbishop |Robert returns from Rome. July 27, 1051.| Robert came back from Rome with his pallium; he was enthroned in the metropolitan church, and soon hastened to the royal presence.^[373] Spearhafoc, the Bishop-elect of London, came with the royal writ, and demanded 122|He refuses to consecrate Spearhafoc.| consecration of his Metropolitan. Robert refused, saying that the Pope had forbidden him to consecrate Spearhafoc.^[374] Things had come to such a pass, that an Englishman, appointed to an English office by the King and his Witan, was to be kept out of its full possession by one foreigner acting at the alleged bidding of another. There were times when the Roman see showed itself a real refuge for the oppressed, and, as far as good intentions went, so it doubtless was in the days of good Pope Leo. But Englishmen now needed protection against no one except against the foreign favourites of their own King, and it was on behalf of those foreign favourites, and against Englishmen, that these stretches of Papal authority were now made. The unworthy Ulf was allowed, by the power of bribes, to retain his see—for he was a stranger. Spearhafoc, on what ground we know not—except so far as his English birth was doubtless a crime in the eyes of Robert—was refused the rite which alone could put him into full possession of his office. A second demand was again made by the Bishop-elect, and consecration was again refused |Spearhafoc occupies the Bishoprick without consecration.| by the Norman Archbishop.^[375] Spearhafoc, rejected, unconsecrated, nevertheless went to Saint Paul’s, and took possession of the see which he held by the King’s full and regular grant.^[376] No doubt he did not pretend to 123discharge any purely episcopal functions, but he kept possession of the see and its revenues, and probably exercised at least its temporal authority. This he did, the Chronicler significantly adds, all that summer and autumn.^[377] Before the year was out, the crisis had come, and had brought with it the momentary triumph of the strangers.

One act more must be recorded before we come to the end of this portion of Eadward’s reign. In a meeting of the Witan, seemingly that in which Robert, Spearhafoc, |The remaining ships paid off and the Heregyld remitted.| and Rudolf received their several appointments, the remaining five ships of the standing or mercenary naval force were paid off.^[378] The war-contribution or Heregyld was therefore no longer exacted. This tax had now been |1012.| paid for thirty-eight years, ever since Thurkill and his fleet entered the service of Æthelred.^[379] This impost had all along been felt to be a great burthen; we are told that it was paid before all other taxes, the other taxes themselves, it would seem, being looked upon as heavy.^[380] The glimpse which is thus given us of the financial system of the time is just enough to make us wish for fuller knowledge. We must remember that in a rude state of society any kind of taxation is apt to be looked on as 124a grievance. It requires a very considerable political developement for a nation to feel that the power of the purse is the surest safeguard of freedom. But there must have been something specially hateful about this tax to account for the way in which it is spoken of by the contemporary chroniclers, and for the hold which, as the legends show,^[381] it kept on the popular imagination. The holy King, we are told, in company with Earl Leofric, one day entered the treasury in which the money raised by the tax was collected; he there saw the Devil sitting and playing with the coin; warned by the sight, he at once |Distinction between Danegeld and Heregyld.| remitted the tax. In this story the tax is called Danegeld, and as many of the sailors in the English service were likely to be Danes, the Heregyld seems to have been confounded with the Danegeld, and to have been popularly called by that name.^[382] The Danegeld was in strictness a payment made to buy off the ravages of Danish invaders, a practice of which we have seen instances enough and to spare in the days of Æthelred. But the tax now taken off was simply a war-tax for the maintenance of a fleet, a fleet whose crews may have been to a great extent Danes, but Danes who were not the enemies of England, but engaged in her service. The two ideas however easily ran into one another; it might be difficult to say under which head we ought to place some of the payments made both under Cnut and under Harthacnut. But the Heregyld, in its more innocent shape, would, according to modern ideas, be an impost absolutely necessary for the defence of the country. If the tax were remitted, no naval force would be retained, except the contingents of the shires, which could not in any case be very readily forthcoming. But, besides the general dislike to taxation 125|Import of the remission.| of any kind, this particular tax was a painful and hateful badge of national disgrace. It was a memory of times when England could find no defence against strangers except by taking other strangers into her pay. Its remission was doubtless looked on as a declaration that England no longer needed the services of strangers, or of hired troops of any kind, but that she could trust to the ready patriotism and valour of her own sons. The Law required every Englishman to join the royal standard at the royal summons.^[383] The effectual execution of that law was doubtless held to be a truer safeguard than the employment of men, whether natives or strangers, who served only for their pay. Such reasonings had their weak side even in those days, but they were eminently in the spirit of the time. The measure was undoubtedly a popular one, and we are hardly in a position to say that, under the circumstances of the time, it may not have been a wise one.

The influence of the strangers had now reached its height. As yet it has appeared on the face of the narrative mainly in the direction given to ecclesiastical preferments. During the first nine years of Eadward’s reign, we find no signs of any open warfare between the national and the Normannizing parties. The course of events shows that Godwine’s power was being practically undermined, but he was still outwardly in the enjoyment of royal favour, and his vast possessions were still being added to by royal grants.^[384] It is remarkable how seldom, at this stage of Eadward’s reign, the acts of the Witan bear 126the signatures of any foreigners except churchmen.^[385] We meet also with slight indications showing that the King’s foreign kinsmen and the national leaders were not yet on |Its seemingly stealthy character.| terms of open enmity.^[386] It was probably the policy of the strangers to confine their action in public matters to influencing the King’s mind through his ecclesiastical favourites, while the mass of them were gradually providing in other ways for their own firm establishment in the land. But the tale which I now have to tell clearly reveals the fact that the number of French landowners in England was already considerable, and that they had made themselves deeply hateful to the English people. Stealthily but surely, the foreign favourites of Eadward had eaten into the vitals of England, and they soon had the means of showing how bitter was the hatred which they bore towards the champions of English freedom. |Comparison between Danish and Norman influences.| England now, under a native King of her own choice, felt, far more keenly than she had ever felt under her Danish conqueror, how great the evil is when a King and those who immediately surround him are estranged in feeling from the mass of his people. The great Dane had gradually learned to feel and to reign as an Englishman, to trust himself to the love of his English subjects, and to surround the throne of the conqueror with the men whom his own axe and spear had overcome. Even during the troubled reigns of his two sons, the degeneracy was for the most part merely personal. Harthacnut indeed laid 127on heavy and unpopular taxes for the payment of his Danish fleet;^[387] but it does not appear that, even under him, Englishmen as Englishmen were subjected to systematic oppression and insult on the part of strangers. And, after all, the Danish followers of Cnut and his sons were men of kindred blood and speech. They could hardly be looked on in any part of England as aliens in the strictest sense, while to the inhabitants of a large part of the Kingdom they appeared as actual countrymen. But now, as a foretaste of what was to come fifteen years later, men utterly strange in speech and feeling stood around the throne, engrossed the personal favour of the King, perverted the course of justice, shared among themselves the highest places in the Church, and were already beginning to stretch out their hands to English lands and lordships as well as to English Bishopricks. The Dane, once brought to the knowledge of a purer faith and a higher civilization, soon learned to identify himself with the land in which he had settled, and to live as an Englishman |Incapacity of the French to appreciate English institutions.| under the Law of England. But to the French favourites of Eadward the name, the speech, the laws of England were things on which their ignorant pride looked down with utter contempt. They had no sympathy with that great fabric of English liberty, which gave to every freeman his place in the commonwealth, and even to the slave held out the prospect of freedom. Gentlemen of the school of Richard the Good,^[388] taught to despise all beneath them as beings of an inferior nature, could not understand the spirit of a land where the Churl had his rights before the Law, where he could still raise his applauding voice in the Assemblies of the nation, and where men already felt as keenly as we feel now that an Englishman’s house is his castle. Everything in short which had already made England free and glorious, everything which it is now our 128pride and happiness to have preserved down to our own times, was looked on by the foreign counsellors of Eadward as a mark of manifest inferiority and barbarism. |Diversity in speech;| The Dane spoke a tongue which hardly differed more widely from our own than the dialects of different parts of the Kingdom differed from one another. But the ancient mother-speech, once common to Dane and Frank and Angle and Saxon, the speech of which some faint traces may still have lingered at Laôn and at Bayeux, had now become only one of many objects of contempt in the eyes of men whose standards were drawn from the |in military tactics.| Romanized courts of Rouen and Paris. The Dane met the Englishman in battle, face to face and hand to hand, with the same tactics and the same weapons. Shield-wall to shield-wall, sword to sword or axe to axe, had men waged the long warfare which had ranged from the fight |871–1016.| of Reading to the fight of Assandun. To the Frenchman the traditions of Teutonic warfare appeared contemptible.^[389] His trust was placed, not in the stout heart and the strong arm of the warrior, but in the horse which is as useful in the flight as in the charge, and in the arrow which places the coward and the hero upon a level.^[390] Men brought up in such feelings as these, full too no doubt of the insolent and biting wit of their nation, now stood round the throne of the King of the English. They were not as yet, to any great extent, temporal rulers of the land, but they had already begun to be owners of its soil; they were already the Fathers of the Church; they were the personal friends of the King; they were the channels of royal favour; their influence could obtain the highest ecclesiastical office, when it was refused alike to the 129demand of the Earl of the West-Saxons and to the prayer of the canonical electors. In the company of these men the King was at home; among his own people he was a |Evils of a denationalized Court, especially in early times.| stranger. The sight of a denationalized Court, a Court where the national tongue is despised and where the sounds of a foreign speech are alone thought worthy of royal lips, a Court in which the heart of the sovereign beats more warmly for foreign favourites or foreign kinsmen than for the children of the soil, is a sight which in any age is enough to stir up a nation’s blood. But far heavier is the wrong in an age when Kings govern as well as reign, when it is not the mere hangers-on of a Court, but the nation itself, which is made personally to feel that strangers fill the posts of honour and influence, on its own soil and at its own cost. Often indeed since the days of Eadward has the Court of England been the least English thing within the realm of England. But, for ages past, no sovereign, however foreign in blood or feeling, could have ventured to place a stranger, ignorant of the English tongue, on the patriarchal throne of Dunstan and |Revolt of England against the foreign influence.| Ælfheah. Against such a state of things as this the heart of England rose. And the soul of the patriotic movement, the leader of the patriotic struggle, was the man whom Norman calumny has ever since picked out as its special victim, but with whom every true English heart was prepared to live and die. The man who strove for England, the man who for a while suffered for England, but who soon returned in triumph to rescue England, was once more Godwine, Earl of the West-Saxons.

The refusal of the King to confer the Archbishoprick of Canterbury on a kinsman of the great Earl regularly chosen by the Convent of the metropolitan church, its bestowal instead on an intriguing monk from Jumièges, had no doubt deeply embittered the feelings of Godwine 130and of all true Englishmen. All the sons of the Church, we are told, lamented the wrong;^[391] and we may be sure that the feeling was in no way confined to those who are no doubt chiefly intended by that description. It now became the main object of the foreign Archbishop to bring about the ruin of the English Earl. Robert employed his |Robert’s cabals against Godwine. 1051.| influence with the King to set him still more strongly against his father-in-law, to fill his ears with calumnies against him, above all, to bring up again the old charge, of which Godwine had been so solemnly acquitted, which made him an accomplice in the death of Ælfred.^[392] A dispute about the right to some lands which adjoined the estates both of the Earl and of the Primate further embittered the dissension between them.^[393] Godwine’s influence was manifestly fast giving way, and an open struggle was becoming imminent. Just at this moment, an act of foreign insolence and brutality which surpassed anything which had hitherto happened brought the whole matter to a crisis.

We have seen that Eadward’s sister Godgifu—the Goda of Norman writers—the daughter of Æthelred and Emma, had been married to Drogo, Count of Mantes or of the French Vexin. Their son, Ralph the Timid, was now high in favour at the court of his uncle.^[394] Drogo had accompanied Duke Robert on his pilgrimage, and, like him, had died on his journey.^[395] His widow, who must now have been a good deal past her prime,^[396] had nevertheless 131found a second French husband in Eustace, Count of Boulogne. This prince, whom English history sets before us only in the darkest colours, was fated by a strange destiny to be the father of one of the noblest heroes of Christendom, of Godfrey, Duke of Lotharingia and King of Jerusalem. We cannot however claim the great Crusader as one who had English blood in his veins through either parent. The second marriage of Godgifu was childless, and the renowned sons of Eustace, Godfrey and his brother Baldwin, were the children of his second |Visit of Eustace to Eadward. September, 1051.| wife Ida. The Count of Boulogne, now brother-in-law of the King of the English, presently came, like the rest of the world, to the English Court. The exact object of his coming is not recorded, but we are told that whatever he came for he got.^[397] Some new favours were doubtless won for foreign followers, and some share of the wealth of England for himself. It was now September, and the King, as seems to have been his custom, was spending the autumn at Gloucester.^[398] Thither then came Count Eustace, and, after his satisfactory interview |Return of Eustace.| with the King, he turned his face homewards. We have no account of his journey till he reached Canterbury;^[399] there he halted, refreshed himself and his men, and rode on towards Dover. Perhaps, in a land so specially devoted to Godwine, he felt himself to be still more thoroughly in an enemy’s country than in other parts of England. At all events, when they were still a few miles from Dover, the Count and all his company took the precaution of putting on their coats of mail.^[400] They entered 132|Outrages of Eustace and his party at Dover.| the town; accustomed to the unbridled licence of their own land, puffed up no doubt by the favourable reception which they had met with at the King’s Court, they deemed that the goods and lives of Englishmen were at their mercy. Who was the villain or the burgher who could dare to refuse ought to a sovereign prince, the friend and brother-in-law of the Emperor of Britain? Men born on English soil, accustomed to the protection |1020–1051.| of English Law, men who for one and thirty years^[401] had lived under the rule of Godwine, looked on matters in quite another light. The Frenchmen expected to find free quarters in the town of Dover, and they attempted to lodge themselves at their pleasure in the houses of the burghers. There was one Englishman especially—his name unluckily is not preserved—into whose house a Frenchman was bent on forcing himself against the |The burghers resist,| owner’s will. The master of the house resisted; the stranger drew his weapon and wounded him; the Englishman struck the intruder dead on the spot.^[402] Count Eustace mounted his horse as if for battle;^[403] his followers 133mounted theirs, the stout-hearted Englishman was slain within his own house. The Count’s party then rode through the town, cutting about them and slaying at pleasure. But the neighbours of the murdered man had now come together; the burghers resisted valiantly; a |and drive the French out of the town.| skirmish began; twenty Englishmen were slain, and nineteen Frenchmen, besides many who were wounded. Count Eustace and the remnant of his party made their way out of the town, and hastened back to King Eadward at Gloucester. |Eustace accuses the men of Dover to the King.| They there told the story after their own fashion, throwing of course all the blame upon the insolent burghers of Dover.^[404] It is not hard to throw oneself into the position of the accusers. To chivalrous Frenchmen the act of the English burgher in defending his house against a forcible entry would seem something quite beyond their understandings. To their notions the appeal to right and law to which Englishmen were familiar, would seem, on the part of men of inferior rank, something almost out of the course of nature. We often see the same sort of feeling now-a-days in men whom a long course of military habits, a life spent in the alternation of blind obedience and arbitrary command, has made incapable of understanding those notions of right and justice which seem perfectly plain to men who are accustomed to acknowledge no master but the Law.^[405] The crime of Eustace was a dark one; but we may be inclined to pass a heavier judgement still on the crime of the English King, who, on the mere accusation of the stranger, condemned his own subjects without a hearing. When Eustace had told his tale, the 134King became very wroth with the burghers of Dover,^[406] and this time he thought that he had not only the will |Eadward commands Godwine to inflict military chastisement on the town.| but the power to hurt.^[407] He sent for Godwine, as Earl of the district in which the offending town lay. The English champion was then in the midst of a domestic rejoicing. He had, like the King, been strengthening himself by a foreign alliance, and had just connected his house with that of a sovereign prince. Tostig, the third son of Godwine, had just married Judith, the daughter or near kinswoman of Baldwin of Flanders.^[408] Such a marriage could hardly have been contracted without a political object. An alliance with a prince reigning in the debateable land between France and Germany, a land which, though its princes were rapidly becoming French, had by no means wholly lost its Teutonic character, was quite in harmony with the Lotharingian connexion so steadily maintained by Godwine and Harold. At the same time, an alliance with a prince who had been so lately in arms against England may not have tended to increase Godwine’s favour with the King. The Earl left the marriage-feast of his son, and hastened to the King at Gloucester. Eadward then told him what insults had been offered within his Earldom to a sovereign allied to himself by friendship and marriage. Let Godwine go, and subject the offending town to all the severity of military chastisement.^[409] Godwine had once before been sent on the like 135|Comparison between the cases of Worcester under Harthacnut and Dover under Eadward.| errand in the days of Harthacnut.^[410] He had then not dared to refuse, though he had done what he could to lighten the infliction of a harsh and unjust sentence. And, after all, the two cases were not alike. In the case of Worcester, Godwine was required to act as a military commander against a town which was not within his government, and whose citizens stood in no special relation to him. The citizens of Worcester too had been guilty of a real crime. Their crime was indeed one which might readily have been pardoned, and the punishment decreed was out of all proportion to the offence. Still the death of the two Housecarls fairly called for some atonement, though certainly not for an atonement of the kind commanded by Harthacnut. At that time too it was probably sound policy in Godwine to undertake the commission in which he was joined with the other great Earls of England, and merely to do his best to lighten its severity in act. But in the present case all the circumstances were different. Dover was a town in Godwine’s own Earldom; it would almost seem that it was a town connected with him by a special tie, a town whose burghers formed a part of his personal following.^[411] At all events it 136was a town over which he exercised the powers of the highest civil magistracy, where, if it was his duty to punish the guilty, it was equally his duty to defend and shelter the innocent. Such a town he was now bidden, without the least legal proof of any offence, to visit with all the horrors of fire and sword. Godwine was not long |Godwine refuses to obey the King’s orders.| in choosing his course. Official duty and public policy, no less than abstract justice and humanity, dictated a distinct refusal. Now or never a stand was to be made against the strangers. Now that Englishmen had been insulted and murdered by the King’s foreign favourites, the time was indeed come to put an end to a system under which those favourites were beginning to deal with England as with a conquered country. The eloquent voice of |He demands a legal trial for the burghers.| the great Earl was raised, in the presence of the King, probably in the presence of Eustace and the other strangers, in the cause of truth and justice.^[412] In England, he told them, there was a Law supreme over all, and courts in which justice could be denied to no man. Count Eustace had brought a charge against the men of Dover. They had, as he alleged, broken the King’s peace, and done personal wrong to himself and his companions. Let then the magistrates of the town be summoned before the King and his Witan, 137and there be heard in their own defence and in that of their fellow-burghers. If they could make a good excuse for their conduct, let them depart unhurt; if they could be proved to have sinned against the King or against the Count, let them pay for their fault with their purses or with their persons. He, as Earl of the West-Saxons, was the natural protector of the men of Dover; he would never agree to any sentence pronounced against them without a fair trial, nor would he consent to the infliction of any sort of illegal hardship upon those whom he was bound to defend. The Earl then went his way; he had done his own duty; he was accustomed to these momentary ebullitions of wrath on the part of his royal son-in-law, and he expected that the affair would soon be forgotten.^[413]

But there were influences about Eadward which cut off all hope of any such peaceful settlement of the matter. Eustace probably still lingered about the King, to repeat his own story, to enlarge on the insolence of the men of Dover, and on the disobedience—he would call it the |Archbishop Robert excites the King against Godwine.| treason—of the West-Saxon Earl himself. And there was another voice ever at the royal ear, ever ready to poison the royal mind against the English people and their leader. The foreign monk who sat on the throne of so many English saints again seized the opportunity to revive the calumnies of past times. He once more impressed upon the King that the man who refused to obey his orders, the man who had protected, perhaps excited, rebellious burghers against his dearest friends, was also the man who had, years before, betrayed his brother to a death of torment.^[414] The old and the new charges worked 138|The Witan summoned to Gloucester to hear charges against Godwine.| together on the King’s mind, and he summoned a Meeting of the Witan at Gloucester, to sit in judgement, no longer on the men of Dover, who seem by this time to have been forgotten, but on Godwine himself.^[415] The Earl now saw that he must be prepared for all risks. And, just at this moment, another instance of the insolence and violence of the foreigners in another part of the Kingdom served |Building of Richard’s Castle in Herefordshire.| to stir up men’s minds to the highest pitch. Among the Frenchmen who flocked to the land of promise was one named Richard the son of Scrob, who had received a grant of lands in Herefordshire. He and his son Osbern had there built a castle on a spot which, by a singularly lasting tradition, preserves to this day the memory of himself and his building.^[416] The fortress itself has vanished, but its site is still to be marked, and the name of Richard’s Castle, still borne by the parish in which it stood, is an abiding witness of the deep impression which its erection made on the minds of the men of those times. |Import of the building of castles.| The building of castles is something of which the English writers of this age frequently speak, and speak always with a special kind of horror.^[417] Both the name and the 139thing were new. To fortify a town, to build a citadel to protect a town, were processes with which England had long been familiar.^[418] To contribute to such necessary public works was one of the three immemorial obligations from which no Englishman could free himself.^[419] But for a private landowner to raise a private fortress to be the terror of his neighbours was something to which Englishmen had hitherto been unaccustomed, and for such a structure the English language had hitherto contained no name. But now the tall, square, massive donjon of the Normans, a building whose grandest type is to be seen in the Conqueror’s own Tower of London and in the more enriched keep of Rochester, began, doubtless on a far humbler scale, to rear itself over the dwellings of Englishmen. Normandy had, during the minority of William, been covered with such buildings, and his wise policy had levelled many of them with the ground.^[420] Such buildings, 140strange to English eyes, bore no English name, but retained their French designation of castles.^[421] Such a castle at once became a centre of all kinds of oppression. Men were harboured in it, and deeds were done within its impregnable walls, such as could find no place in the open hall of the ancient English Thegn. So it was with the castle which was now raised within the government of the eldest son of Godwine. The Welshmen, as they are called—that is, not Britons, but Frenchmen, Gal-Welsh, not Bret-Welsh—built their castle, and “wrought all the harm and besmear”—an expressive word which has dropped out of the language—“to the King’s men thereabouts that they might.”^[422] Here then was another wrong, a wrong perhaps 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.

141The 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, 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.^[423] 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 forces of Siward, Leofric, and Ralph assemble at Gloucester.| the functions of a Gemót.^[424] 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 when he had stood alone in the royal presence. He had then only refused to punish the 142innocent; 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.^[425] He even offered to renew his compurgation on the old charge |Godwine’s offers to the King refused through the influence of Frenchmen.| of the death of Ælfred.^[426] 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.^[427] Eadward therefore refused the audience, and declined to receive the compurgation.^[428] Godwine then took a higher |Godwine demands the surrender of Eustace and the other criminals. September 8, 1051.| 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.^[429] The demand was a bold one; Godwine asked for 143the surrender of the person of a foreign prince, the King’s own favourite and brother-in-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 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.^[430] The King was frightened and perplexed. |The Northern Earls bring their full forces.| 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. Seemingly 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 confidence to his timid mind.^[431] 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 arrayed against 144|1035.| each other, just as they had been in the great Gemót of Oxford sixteen years before.^[432] 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 cloaked under the guise of loyalty to the West-Saxon King. They were therefore quite ready to play into the hands of the strangers. They |The King finally refuses to surrender the Frenchmen.| 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, |The Northumbrians ready for battle.| when the Northern host entered the city, eager to be led to battle against the men of Wessex and East-Anglia.^[433] 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. The punishment of the innocent had been commanded; the punishment of the guilty had been denied; the old charges, of which Godwine had been so |1040.| solemnly acquitted eleven years before, were again raked up against him by the slanderous tongue of a foreign |March of the West-Saxons and East-Angles on Gloucester.| priest. Loath as the Earl and his followers were to fight against their Lord the King,^[434] 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 145down the hill-side which overlooks the fairest and most fertile of English valleys.^[435] The broad Severn wound through the 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,^[436] 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.^[437] 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 146people. 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,^[438] 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 |War hindered by the intervention of Leofric.| 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 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 |He effects a compromise, and procures the adjournment of the Gemót.| hearth-stones. The good old Earl of the Mercians now, as ever,^[439] 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 to hand over the land to its enemies without defence.^[440] But, while two armed hosts stood ready for 147battle, 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.^[441] 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 make the most of the breathing-space thus given them for the damage of the national cause. The |Eadward appears at the head of an army.| King employed 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 Northumberland and Mercia, and to have summoned the immediate following of the King, the royal Housecarls, and perhaps the King’s immediate Thegns, even within Godwine’s own Earldom.^[442] The King’s quarters were probably at his favourite palace of Westminster. Godwine came, accompanied by a large force of the men |The King’s demands of Godwine.| of his Earldom, to his own house in Southwark.^[443] 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 148terms. 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 adjourned Gemót. Instead of this agreement being carried out, Godwine and his sons found themselves dealt |The outlawry of Swegen renewed. Injustice of its renewal.| with as criminals. The first act of the Assembly, seemingly before Godwine and his sons had appeared at all, was to renew the outlawry of Swegen.^[444] No act could be more unjust. His old crimes could no longer be brought up against him with any fairness. The time when they might have been rightly urged was on the motion for the repeal of his former outlawry.^[445] But, whether wisely or unwisely, that outlawry had been legally reversed; Swegen had been restored to his Earldom, a restoration which of course implied the absolute pardon of all his former offences. Since that time, we hear of no fresh crime on his part, unless it were a crime to have been a fellow-worker with his father, his brother, and the men of his Earldom, in resistance to the wrongs inflicted by the strangers. To condemn Swegen afresh for his old offences was a flagrant breach of all justice; to condemn him for his late conduct was a breach of justice equally flagrant in another way. Besides this, his condemnation on this last ground would carry with it an equal condemnation of Godwine and Harold. Swegen then was outlawed, and that, |Godwine and Harold summoned before the King.| as far as we can see, without a hearing; and Godwine and Harold were summoned to appear before the King, seemingly as criminals to receive judgement. Bishop Stigand, in whose diocese Godwine was then living, procured some delay;^[446] but Archbishop Robert took advantage 149of that very delay, still further to poison the King’s mind against the Earl.^[447] Godwine, after the treatment which his eldest son had just received, declined to appear, unless he received an assurance of the King’s favour, guaranteed by the placing of special hostages in his hands, as pledges for his personal safety during the interview. The King’s answer was apparently a demand that the Earls should allow, or perhaps compel, all the King’s Thegns who had joined them, to go over to the King’s side.^[448] The demand was at once obeyed. By this time the tide was clearly turning against Godwine, and the force which he had brought with him to Southwark |Final summons of the Earls.| was getting smaller and smaller.^[449] The King again summoned the Earls to appear, with twelve companions only. We can hardly believe that Stigand was compelled, however against his will, to announce as a serious message to Godwine that the King’s final resolution was that Godwine could hope for his peace only when he restored to him his brother Ælfred and his companions safe and sound.^[450] It is inconceivable that such words can have formed part of a formal summons, but it is quite possible that they may have been uttered in mockery, either by |Their demand for a safe-conduct is refused.| the King or by his Norman Archbishop. But whatever was the form of the summons, Godwine and Harold refused to appear, unless they received hostages and a safe-conduct for their coming and going.^[451] Without such security 150they could not appear in an Assembly which had sunk into a mere gathering of their enemies.^[452] They had obeyed, and would obey, the King in all things consistent with their safety and their honour. But both their safety and their honour would be at stake, if they appeared before such a tribunal without any sort of safeguard, and without their usual retinue as Earls of two great Earldoms.^[453] The demand was perfectly reasonable.^[454] Godwine and his son could not be expected to appear, without safeguards of any kind, in such an assembly as that which now surrounded the King. The adjourned Gemót had been summoned for the free and fair discussion of all disputes between two parties, each of which was declared to be in the full enjoyment of the King’s peace and friendship. It was now turned into a Court, in which one son of Godwine had been outlawed without a crime or a hearing, in which Godwine himself was summoned to receive judgement on charges on one of which he had been years before solemnly acquitted. The hostages and the safe-conduct were refused. The refusal was announced by Stigand to the Earl as he sat at his evening meal. The Bishop wept; the Earl sprang to his feet, overthrew the table,^[455] sprang on his horse, and, with his sons, rode for his life all that night.^[456] In the morning the King held his Witenagemót, 151|Godwine and his family outlawed.| and by a vote of the King and his whole army,^[457] Godwine and his sons were declared outlaws, but five days were allowed them to get them out of the land.^[458] By this |Godwine, Swegen, &c., take refuge in Flanders.| time Godwine, Swegen, Tostig, and Gyrth, together with Gytha and Judith, the newly-married wife of Tostig, had reached either Bosham or the South-Saxon Thorney.^[459] There could be little doubt as to the course which they were to take. Flanders, Baldwines land, was the common refuge of English exiles, and Godwine and the Flemish Count are said to have been bound to one another by the tie of many mutual benefits.^[460] It was at the court of Baldwin that Swegen had taken refuge in his exile, and the Count was the near kinsman, perhaps the father, of Tostig’s bride, whose wedding-festivities had been so cruelly interrupted by these sudden gatherings of Gemóts and armies.^[461] For Bruges then they set sail in a ship laded with as much treasure as it would hold.^[462] They reached the court of Flanders in safety; they were honourably received by the Count,^[463] and passed the whole winter with him.^[464]

152Godwine then, with the greater part of his family,^[465] had found shelter in the quarter where English exiles of that age commonly did find shelter. But two of his sons sought quite another refuge. To seek shelter in Flanders, a land forming the natural point of intercommunication between England, France, and Germany, was the obvious course for one whose first object, as we shall presently see, was to obtain his restoration by peaceful diplomacy. Such were the designs of Godwine, the veteran statesman, the man who never resorted to force till all other means |Harold determines on resistance.| had been tried in vain. But Harold, still young, and at all times more vehement in temper than his father, had not yet learned this lesson. His high spirit chafed under his wrongs, and he determined from the first on a forcible return to his country, even, if need be, by the help of a foreign force. This determination is the least honourable fact recorded in Harold’s life. It was indeed no |Estimate of his conduct.| more than was usual with banished men in his age. It is what we have already seen done by Osgod Clapa;^[466] it is what we shall presently see done by Ælfgar the son of Leofric; it was in fact the natural resource of every man of those times who found himself outlawed by any sentence, just or unjust. If we judge Harold harshly in this matter, we are in fact doing him the highest honour. So to judge him is in fact instinctively to recognize that he has a right to be tried by a higher standard than the mass of his contemporaries. Judged by such a standard, his conduct must be distinctly condemned; but it should be noticed that, among the various charges, true and false, 153which were brought against Harold, we never find any reference to this, which, according to our ideas, seems |He determines to seek help from the Irish Danes.| the worst action of his life. In company with his young brother Leofwine,^[467] he despised the peaceful shelter of Bruges, and preferred to betake himself to a land where, above all others, it would be easy to engage warlike adventurers in his cause. The eastern coast of Ireland, with the numerous towns peopled by Danish settlers, lay admirably suited for their purpose. Thither then |Harold and Leofwine go to Bristol; growing importance of that port.| the two brothers determined to make their way, with the fixed purpose of raising forces to effect their own return and to avenge their father’s wrongs.^[468] For the port of their departure they chose Bristol, a town in Swegen’s Earldom, unknown to fame in the earlier days of our history, but which was now rising into great, though not very honourable, importance. The port on the Avon, the frontier stream of Wessex and Western Mercia, was the natural mart for a large portion of both those countries. Commanding, as it did, the whole navigation of the Channel to which it gives its name, Bristol was then, as now, the chief seat of communication between England and the South of Ireland. That is to say, it was in those days the chief seat of the Irish slave-trade.^[469] In the haven of Bristol Earl Swegen had, for what cause we are not told, a ship made ready for himself.^[470] 154The two brothers made the best of their way towards Bristol, in order to seize this ship for the purpose of their voyage to Ireland. Perhaps they had, wittingly or unwittingly, allowed their purpose of appealing to arms to |Ealdred sent to overtake them.| become known. This would be the only excuse for an act on the King’s part, which, in any other case, would be one of the most monstrous and unprovoked breaches of faith on record. It is not likely that the five days, which had been allowed the outlaws to leave the country, were yet passed. Harold and Leofwine would be sure to make better speed than that. Yet Bishop Ealdred, whose diocese of Worcester then took in the town of Bristol, was sent after them from London with a party to overtake them, if possible, before they got on ship-board. But the Bishop and his company were not zealous on an errand which had at least the appearance of shameless perfidy. They failed to overtake the fugitives; “they could not or they would not,” says the Chronicler.^[471] Harold and |They escape, reach Ireland, and are well received by King Diarmid.| Leofwine reached Bristol in safety. They went on board Swegen’s ship; stress of weather kept them for a while at the mouth of the Avon, but a favourable wind presently carried them to Ireland.^[472] They were there favourably received by Dermot or Diarmid Mac Mael-na-mbo, King of Dublin and Leinster.^[473] He was a prince of native Irish 155descent, who had lately obtained possession of the Danish |1050.| district round Dublin, and whose authority seems to have been recognized by the Danes as well as by the Irish.^[474] In such a state of things it would not be difficult to find bold spirits ready for any adventure, and a King whose position must have been somewhat precarious would doubtless welcome any chance of getting rid of some of them. Diarmid gave Harold and Leofwine as kind a reception at Dublin as the rest of the family had found from Baldwin at Bruges, and they stayed at his court through the whole winter, plotting schemes of vengeance.

One member only of the family of Godwine still remained to be disposed of. What had been the position or the feelings of Eadgyth during the scenes which have been just described we have no means of knowing; but she too was doomed to have her share in the misfortunes of her father’s house. The English Lady, the daughter of Godwine, could not be allowed to share the honours of royalty, now that all her kinsfolk were driven from the land,^[475] now that the reign of the Normans was about to set in. The language of one contemporary authority seems almost to 156imply an actual divorce, of which Archbishop Robert was of course the main instigator.^[476] The lawfulness or possibility of divorce in such a case might form a curious subject of speculation for those who are learned in the Canon Law. Eadward consented, perhaps willingly, to the separation; he allowed the Lady to be deprived of all her goods, real and personal;^[477] but he interfered at least to save her from personal ignominy. Eadgyth was sent, with no lack of respect or royal attendance,^[478] to the royal monastery of Wherwell,^[479] and was there entrusted to the safe keeping of the Abbess. This Abbess was a sister of the King,^[480] no doubt one of the daughters of Æthelred by his first wife. One of the widows of the slain and banished Earls, the relict of the traitor Eadric or of the hero Ulfcytel,^[481] had taken the veil in the holy house of Eadgar and Ælfthryth,^[482] and she could there confer with her guest on the uncertainty of human happiness and the emptiness of human greatness.

157The whole of this history of the fall of Godwine is most remarkable; and it is singular that, though it is told in great detail in three distinct accounts, so much still remains which is far from intelligible. The first point which at once strikes us is the strength of Godwine in the Gemót of Gloucester and his weakness in the Gemót of London. Next year indeed we shall see the tide turn yet again; we shall behold Godwine return in triumph with the good will of all England. This is of course no difficulty; it would be no difficulty, even if popular feeling had been thoroughly against Godwine during the former year. Englishmen welcomed Godwine back again, because they had learned what it was to be without him. But the change of Godwine’s position during that eventful September of which we have just gone through the history is certainly perplexing. At Beverstone and at Gloucester he appears at the head of the whole force of Wessex, East-Anglia, and part of Mercia. All are zealous in his cause, ready, if need be, to fight in his quarrel against the King himself. He is clearly not without well-wishers even in the ranks of the Northern |Sudden collapse of the power of Godwine.| Earldoms. A compromise is brought about in which his honour is carefully guarded, and in which his party and the King’s are studiously put on equal terms. In the London Gemót, a few weeks later, all is changed. His followers gradually drop away from him; he does not venture to take his place in the Assembly which he had so often swayed at his pleasure; he is dealt with as an accused, almost as a convicted, criminal; he is subjected with impunity to every sort of unjust and irritating treatment; and he is at last driven to flee from the land, without a blow being struck, almost without a voice being raised, in his behalf. Such a falling away is difficult to understand; it is hard to see how Godwine could have given fresh offence to any one in the time between 158the conference at Gloucester and his appearance at Southwark. Norman flatterers and talebearers may have fanned the King’s prejudice against him into a still hotter flame; but there is at first sight nothing to account for the desertion |Position of the Northern Earls.| of his own followers. As for the Northern Earls and their followers, they had no ground of jealousy against Godwine in London which they had not equally at Gloucester; and at Gloucester they clearly were not disposed to push matters to extremities. Still it was clearly the number and strength of the following of Siward and Leofric in the London Gemót which decided the day against Godwine. The Earl of the West-Saxons was entrapped. He and his party came as to a peaceful assembly, and they found the King and his foreign followers bent on their destruction, and a powerful military force assembled to crush them. But why did even Siward lend himself to a scheme like this? Why, still more, did Leofric forsake the part, which he had so often and so worthily played, of mediator between extreme parties? Unless we are to suppose, which one would not willingly do, that Leofric was won by the bait of Harold’s Earldom for his son, we can only suppose that a mistaken feeling of loyalty hindered him from opposing a project on which he saw that the King was fully bent. It is in his position and that of Siward that the main difficulty lies. When Godwine found himself face to face with all the strength of Northern England, the rest of the story |Explanation of Godwine’s position and conduct.| becomes more intelligible. He had come expecting a fair discussion of all the questions at issue. But fair discussion was not to be had amid the clash of the axes of Siward’s Danes and of the lances of Ralph’s Frenchmen. Godwine had really no choice but to fight or to yield. Had he chosen to fight, the whole force of Wessex and East-Anglia would no doubt soon have been again at his command. But he shrank from a civil war; he saw that it was better policy to bide his time, to yield, even to 159flee, certain that a revulsion of national feeling would soon demand his recall. Such a course was doubtless wise and patriotic; but it was not one which would be at the time either acceptable or intelligible to the mass of his followers. If he meant to resist, he should doubtless have resisted at once; the hopes of an insurrection always lie in promptness and energy; every hour of delay only adds to the strength of the other side. We can thus understand how men began to fall off from a chief who, it might be said, dared not meet his sovereign either in arms or in council. Still, after all, there is something |His complete and sudden fall.| strange in the details of the story. There is something amazing in so sudden and so utter a fall, not only from the general exaltation of himself and his family, but from the proud and threatening position which he had so lately |Impression on his contemporaries.| held at Beverstone and Gloucester. It is not wonderful that Godwine’s fall from such an unparalleled height of greatness made a deep impression on the minds of the men of his own age. The Biographer of Eadward, who had before likened the children of Godwine to the rivers of Paradise,^[483] now deems it a fitting occasion to call upon his Muse to set forth the sufferings of the innocent, and to compare the outlawed Earl to Susanna, Joseph, and other ancient victims of slander.^[484] The plain English of the Chronicler who is less strongly committed to Godwine’s cause speaks more directly to the heart; “That would have seemed wonderful to ilk man that in England was, if any man ere that had said that so it should be. For that ere that he was so upheaven, so that he wielded the King and all England, and his sons were Earls and the King’s darlings, and his daughter to the King wedded and married.”^[485] He fell from his high estate; but in 160his fall he doubtless foresaw that the day of his restoration was not far distant. Another Gemót of London was soon to repeal the unrighteous vote of its predecessor; the champion of England was to return for a moment to his old honours and his old power, and then to hand them on to a son even more worthy of them than himself.

But for the moment the overthrow of the patriotic leaders was complete. The dominion of the strangers over the mind of the feeble King was fully assured. The Norman Conquest, in short, might now seem to have more than begun. Honours and offices were of course divided among the foreigners and among those Englishmen who had stood on the King’s side. Through the banishment of Godwine and his sons three great Earldoms were vacant. No one Earl of the West-Saxons seems to have been appointed. Probably, as in the early days of Cnut,^[486] the Imperial Kingdom, or at least its greater portion, was again put |Partition of honours among the King’s friends.| under the immediate government of the Crown. The anomalous Earldom of Swegen was dismembered. The |Ralph;| King’s nephew Ralph seems to have been again invested with the government of its Mercian portions.^[487] Of the two West-Saxon shires held by Swegen, Berkshire is not |Odda;| mentioned, but Somersetshire was joined with the other western parts of Wessex to form a new government under Odda, a kinsman of the King’s.^[488] His Earldom took in the whole of the ancient Wealhcyn, but it is now Cornwall only which is distinguished as Welsh. The policy of Æthelstan^[489] had been effectual, and no part of the land 161east of the Tamar is now recognized as a foreign land. Odda was a special favourite of the monks, and is spoken of as a man of good and clean life, who in the end became a monk himself.^[490] The third Earldom, that of East-Anglia, |Ælfgar.| hitherto held by Harold, was bestowed on Ælfgar, the son of Leofric,^[491] of whom we hear for the first time during these commotions. He had himself, it would seem, played a prominent part in them,^[492] and one would wish to believe that his promotion was the reward of acts of his own, rather than of his father’s seeming desertion of the patriotic |Spearhafoc deposed,| cause. Among churchmen, Spearhafoc, who had throughout the summer and autumn held the see of London without consecration,^[493] had now to give up his doubtful possession. |and William made Bishop of London. 1051.| The Bishoprick was then given to a Norman named William, a chaplain of the King’s.^[494] A man might now go from the Straits of Dover to the Humber, over Kentish, East-Saxon, and Danish ground, without once, in the course of his journey, going out of the spiritual jurisdiction of Norman Prelates. It is due however to Bishop William to say that he bears a very different character in our history from either his Metropolitan Robert or his fellow-suffragan Ulf. Banished for a while, he was restored when the patriotic party was in the height of its power—a distinct witness in his favour, perhaps a witness against his English competitor.^[495] William kept his Bishoprick for 162many years, and lived to welcome his namesake and native prince to the throne of England. But he had not to wait for so distant an opportunity of displaying his new honours |Visit of Duke William to England. 1051.| in the eyes of his natural sovereign. While Godwine dwelt as an exile at Bruges, while Harold was planning schemes of vengeance in the friendly court of Dublin, William the Bastard first set foot on the shores of England.^[496]

We are thus at last brought face to face with the two great actors in our history. Harold has already appeared before us. We have seen him raised at an early age to the highest rank open to a subject; we have seen him, in the cause of his country, deprived of his honours and driven to take refuge in a foreign land. His great rival we have as yet heard of only at a distance; he now comes directly on the field. There can be no doubt that William’s visit to England forms a stage, and a most important one, among the immediate causes of the Norman Conquest. I pause then, at this point, to take up the thread of Norman history, and to give a sketch of the birth, the childhood, the early reign, of the man who, in the year of Godwine’s banishment, saw, for the first time, the land which, fifteen years later, he was to claim as his own.

CHAPTER VIII. THE EARLY YEARS OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. [497] A.D. 1028–1051. — § 1. Birth, Character, and Accession of William. A.D. 1028–1035. — § 2. From the Accession of William to the Battle of Val-ès-dunes. 1035–1047. — § 3. From the Battle of Val-ès-dunes to William’s Visit to England. 1047–1051.

William, King of the English and Duke of the Normans, bears a name which must for ever stand forth among the foremost of mankind. No man that ever 164trod this earth was ever endowed with greater natural gifts; to no man was it ever granted to accomplish greater things. If we look only to the scale of a man’s acts, without regard to their moral character, we must hail in the victor of Val-ès-dunes, of Varaville, and of Senlac, the restorer of Normandy, the Conqueror of England, one who may fairly claim his place in the first rank of the world’s |Lasting results of his career.| greatest men. No man ever did his work more effectually at the moment; no man ever left his work behind him as |A good side to his character.| more truly an abiding possession for all time. And, when we consider all the circumstances of his life, when we judge him by the standard of his own age, above all, when we compare him with those who came after him in his own house, we shall perhaps be inclined to dwell on his great qualities, on his many undoubted virtues, rather than to put his no less undoubted crimes in their darkest light. As we cannot refuse to place him among the greatest of men, neither will a candid judgement incline us to place him among the worst of men. If we cannot give him a niche among pure patriots and heroes, he is quite as little entitled to a place among mere tyrants and destroyers. William of Normandy has no claim to a share in the pure glory of Timoleôn, Ælfred, and Washington; he cannot even claim the more mingled fame of Alexander, Charles, 165and Cnut; but he has even less in common with the mere enemies of their species, with the Nabuchodonosors, the Swends, and the Buonapartes, whom God has from time to time sent as simple scourges of a guilty world. Happily there are few men in history of whom we have |English and Norman portraits of him.| better materials for drawing the portrait. We see him as he appeared to admiring followers of his own race; we see him also as he appeared to men of the conquered nation who had looked on him and had lived in his household.^[498] We have to make allowance for flattery on the one side; we have not to make allowance for calumny on the other. The feeling with which the Normans looked on their conquering leader was undoubtedly one of awe rather than of love; and the feeling with which the vanquished English looked on their Conqueror was undoubtedly one of awe rather than of simple hatred. Assuredly William’s English subjects did not love him; but they felt a sort of sullen reverence for the King who was richer and mightier than all the Kings that were before him. In speaking of him, the Chronicler writes as it were with downcast eyes and bated breath, as if he were hardly dealing with a man of like passions with himself, but was rather drawing the portrait |Justice done to him by the English Chronicler.| of a being of another nature. Yet he holds the balance fairly between the dark and the bright qualities of one so far raised above the common lot of man. He does not conceal his crimes and his oppressions; but he sets before us the merits of his government and the good peace that he made in this land; he judicially sums up what was good and what was evil in him; he warns men to follow the good and to avoid the evil, and he sends him out of the world with a charitable prayer for the repose of his soul. And, at the moment when he wrote, it was no marvel if 166the Chronicler was inclined to dwell on the good rather than on the evil. The Crown of William passed to one who shared largely in his mere intellectual gifts, but who had no fellowship with the greater and nobler elements of his character. To appreciate William the Conqueror we have but to cast our glance onwards to William the Red. We shall then well understand how men writhing under the scorpions of the son might look back with regret to the whips of the father. We can understand how, under his godless rule, men might feel kindly towards the memory of one who never wholly cast away the thoughts of justice and mercy, and who, in his darkest hours, had still somewhat of the fear of God before his eyes.

In estimating the character of William, one feature stands out preeminently above all others. Throughout his career, we admire in him the embodiment, in the highest degree that human nature will allow, of the fixed purpose and the unbending will. From time to time there have been men who seem to have come into the world to sway the course of events at their good pleasure, men who have made destiny itself their vassal, and whose decrees it seems in vain for lesser men to seek to withstand. Such was the man who, with the blood of thousands reeking on his hands, could lay down despotic power, could walk unattended to his house, and calmly offer to give an account for any of his actions;^[499] and such in might, though assuredly not such in crime, was our first Norman King. Whatever the will of William decreed, he found a means to bring it about. Whatever his hand found to do, he did |His military genius.| it with all his might. As a warrior, as a general, it is needless to sound his praises. His warlike exploits set him among the foremost captains of history, but his warlike exploits are but the smallest part of his fame. 167Others beside him could have led the charge at Val-ès-dunes; others beside him could have chosen the happy moment for the ambush at Varaville; others beside him could have endured the weariness of the long blockade beneath the donjon of Brionne. Others, it may even be, beside him could have cut their way through palisade and shield-wall and battle-axe to the royal Standard of England. |His statesmanship.| But none in his own age, and few in any age, have shown themselves like him masters of every branch of the consummate craft of the statesman. Calm and clear-sighted, he saw his object before him; he knew when to tarry and when to hasten; he knew when to strike and how to strike, and how to use alike the noblest and the vilest of |His unscrupulousness as to means.| men as his instruments. Utterly unscrupulous, though far from unprincipled, taking no pleasure in wrong or oppression for its own sake, always keeping back his hands from needless bloodshed, he yet never shrank from force or fraud, from wrong or bloodshed or oppression, when they seemed to him the straightest paths to accomplish his purpose. His crimes admit of no denial; but, with one single exception, they never were wanton crimes. And when we come to see the school in which he was brought up, when we see the men whom he had to deal with from his childhood, our wonder really ought to |His personal virtues.| be that his crimes were not infinitely blacker. His personal virtues were throughout life many and great. We hear much of his piety, and we see reason to believe that his piety was something more than the mere conventional |His religious zeal.| piety of lavish gifts to monasteries. Punctual in every exercise of devotion, paying respect and honour of every kind to religion and its ministers, William showed, in two ways most unusual among the princes of that age, that his zeal for holy things was neither hypocrisy, nor fanaticism, nor superstition. Like his illustrious contemporary on the Imperial throne, he appeared as a real ecclesiastical 168reformer, and he allowed the precepts of his religion to have a distinct influence on his private life. He was one of the few princes of that age whose hands |General excellence of his ecclesiastical appointments.| were perfectly clean from the guilt of simony. His ecclesiastical appointments for the most part do him honour; the patron of Lanfranc and Anselm can never be spoken of without respect. In his personal conduct he practised at least one most unusual virtue; in a profligate age he was a model of conjugal fidelity. He was a good and faithful friend, an affectionate brother—we must perhaps add, too indulgent a father. And strong as was his sense of religion, deep as was his reverence for the Church, open-handed as was his bounty to her ministers, no prince that ever reigned was less disposed to yield to ecclesiastical usurpations. No prince ever knew better how to control the priesthood within his own dominions; none knew better both how to win the voice of Rome to abet his purposes, and how to bid defiance to her demands when they infringed on the rights of his Crown and the laws of his Kingdom. While all Europe rang with the great strife of Pope and Cæsar, England and Normandy remained at peace under the rule of one who knew how, firmly and calmly, to hold his own against Hildebrand himself.

But to know what William was, no way is so clear as to see what William did in both the countries over which he was so strangely called to rule. We are too apt to look on him simply as the Conqueror of England. But so to do is to look at him only in his most splendid, but at the same time his least honourable, aspect. William learned to become the Conqueror of England only by first becoming the Conqueror of Normandy and the Conqueror of France. He found means to conquer Normandy by the help of France and to conquer France by the help of Normandy. He turned a jealous overlord into an effective ally against his rebellious subjects, and he turned 169those rebellious subjects into faithful supporters against |His early struggles.| that jealous overlord. He came to his Duchy under every disadvantage. At once bastard and minor, with competitors for his coronet arising at every moment, with turbulent barons to hold in check and envious neighbours to guard against, he was, throughout the whole of his early life, beset by troubles, none of which were of his own making, and he came honourably out of all. The |Excellence of his rule in Normandy.| change which William wrought in Normandy was nothing less than a change from anarchy to good order. Instead of a state, torn by internal feuds and open to the attacks of every enemy, his Duchy became, under his youthful rule, a loyal and well-governed land, respected by all its neighbours, and putting most of them to shame by its prosperity. In the face of every obstacle, the mighty genius of the once despised Bastard raised himself and his principality to a place in the eyes of Europe such as Normandy and its prince had never held before. And these great successes were gained with far less of cruelty or harshness than might have been looked for in so |His general forbearance and occasional cruelty.| ruthless an age. He shared indeed in the fierce passions of his race, and in one or two cases his wrath hurried him, or his policy beguiled him, into acts at which humanity shudders. At all stages of his life, if he was debonair to those who would do his will, he was beyond measure stern to all who withstood it.^[500] Yet, when we think of all that he went through, of the treachery and ingratitude which he met with on every side, how his most faithful friends were murdered beside him, how he himself had to flee for his life or to lurk in mean disguises, 170we shall see that it is not without reason that his panegyrist praises his general forbearance and clemency. In short, the reign of William as Duke of the Normans was alike prosperous and honourable in the highest degree. Had he never stretched forth his hand to grasp the diadem which was another’s, his fame would not have filled the world as now it does, but he would have gone down to his grave as one of the best, as well as one of the greatest, rulers of his time.

If we turn from William Duke of the Normans to William King of the English, we may indeed mourn that, in a moral sense, the fine gold has become dim, but our admiration for mere greatness, for the highest craft of the statesman and the soldier, will rise higher than ever. No doubt he was highly favoured by fortune; nothing but an extraordinary combination of events could have made the Conquest of England possible. But then |Difficulties of his undertaking.| it is the true art of statesmanship, the art by which men like William carry the world before them, to know how to grasp every fortunate moment and to take advantage of every auspicious turn of events. Doubtless William could never have conquered England except under peculiarly favourable circumstances; but then none but such a man as William could have conquered England under any circumstances at all. He conquered and retained a land far greater than his paternal Duchy, and a land in |Skill displayed in his claim on the English Crown;| which he had not a single native partisan. Yet he contrived to put himself forward in the eyes of the world as a legal claimant, and not as an unprovoked invader. We must condemn the fraud, but we cannot help admiring the skill, by which he made men believe that he was the true heir of England, shut out from his inheritance by a perjured usurper. Never was a more subtle web of fallacy woven by the craft of man; never did diplomatic ingenuity more triumphantly obtain its end. He contrived 171to make an utterly unjust aggression bear the aspect, not only of righteous, but almost of holy, warfare. The wholesale spoiler of a Christian people contrived to win for himself something very like the position of a Crusader. And, landed on English ground, with no rights but those of his own sword, with no supporters but his own foreign |in his acquisition of it;| army, he yet contrived to win the English Crown with every circumstance of formal legality. He was elected, crowned, and anointed like his native predecessors, and he swore at the hands of an English Primate to observe the ancient laws of England. By force and by craft, but with the outward pretext of law always put prominently forward, he gradually obtained full possession of the whole land; he deprived the nation one by one of its native |and in his subsequent government.| leaders, and put in their places men of foreign birth and wholly dependent on himself. No prince ever more richly rewarded those to whom he owed his Crown, but no prince ever took more jealous care that they should never be able to bring his Crown into jeopardy. None but a man like him could have held down both conquerors and conquered, and have made his will the only law for Norman and Englishman alike. His consummate policy guarded against the dangers which he saw rife in every other country; he put the finishing stroke to the work of Ecgberht, and made England the most united Kingdom in Western Christendom. Normans and Englishmen conspired against him, and called the fleets and hosts of Denmark to their help. But William held his own alike against revolters at home and against invaders from abroad. Norman and English rebels were alike crushed; sometimes the Dane was bought off, sometimes he shrank from the firm array with which the land was guarded. All opposition was |Severity of his police.| quelled by fire and sword; but when it was quelled, whenever and wherever William’s rule was quietly accepted, his hand was heavy upon all smaller disturbers of the 172peace of the world. Life, property, female honour, stood indeed but a small chance while the process of Conquest was going on, but, when William’s work was fully accomplished, they were safer under him than they had ever been under England’s native Kings. As the stern avenger of crime, even the conquered learned to bless him, and to crown his good deeds with a tribute of praise hardly inferior to that which waits on the name of his illustrious rival.^[501]

Here then was a career through which none but one of the greatest of mankind could have passed successfully. But it was a career which brought out into full play all those darker features of his character which found but little room for their developement during his earlier reign in his native Duchy. There is no reason to believe that William came into England with any fixed determination to rule otherwise in England than he had already ruled in Normandy. Cnut can hardly fail to have been his model, and William’s earliest days in England were far more promising than the earliest days of Cnut. At no time of his life does William appear as one of those tyrants who actually delight in oppression, to whom the infliction of human suffering is really a source of morbid pleasure. |His false position gradually developed itself, and led him to oppression.| But, if he took no pleasure in the infliction of suffering, it was at least a matter about which he was utterly reckless; he stuck at no injustice which was needed to carry out his purpose. His will was fixed, to win and to keep the Crown of England at all hazards. We may well believe that he would have been well pleased could he have 173won that Crown without bloodshed. But, rather than not win it, he did not shrink from the guilt of carrying on a desolating war against a people who had never wronged him. We may well believe that, when he swore to govern his new subjects as well as they had been governed by their own Kings, it was his full purpose to keep his oath. That he acted on any settled scheme of uprooting the nationality, the laws, or the language of England is an exploded fable.^[502] But he could not govern England as he had governed Normandy; he could not govern England as Cnut had governed England; he could not himself be as Cnut, neither could his Normans be as Cnut’s Danes. He gradually found that there was no way for him to govern England save by oppressions, exactions, and confiscations, by the bondage or the death of the noblest of the land. He made the discovery, and he shrank not from its practical consequences. A reign which had begun with as good hopes as the reign of a foreign conqueror could begin with gradually changed into one of the most tremendous tyrannies on record. Northumberland was hard to be kept in order, and Northumberland was made a desert. |General change for the worse in his character.| This was the dictate of a relentless policy; but when William had once set forth on the downward course of evil, he soon showed that he could do wrong when no policy commanded it, merely to supply means for his |Formation of the New Forest.| personal gratification. To lay waste Hampshire merely to make a hunting-ground was a blacker crime than to lay waste Northumberland to rid himself of a political danger. He could still be merciful when mercy was not dangerous, but he had now learned to shed innocent blood without remorse, if its shedding seemed to add safety to his throne. The repeated revolts of Eadgar were forgiven 174as often as they occurred; but Waltheof, caressed, |Death of Waltheof.| flattered, promoted, was sent to the scaffold on the first convenient pretext. It is hardly superstitious to point out, alike with ancient and with modern authorities,^[503] that the New Forest became a spot fatal to William’s house, and that, after the death of Waltheof, his old prosperity |Crimes and misfortunes of his last years.| forsook him. Nothing indeed occurred to loosen his hold on England; but his last years were spent in bickerings with his unworthy son, and in a petty border warfare, in which the Conqueror had, for the first time, to undergo defeat. At last he found his death-wound in an inglorious quarrel, in the personal commission of cruelties which aroused the indignation of his own age; and the mighty King and Conqueror, forsaken by his servants and children, had to owe his funeral rites to the voluntary charity of a loyal vassal, and within the walls of his own minster he could not find an undisputed grave.

Such was William the Great, a title which, in the mouths of his contemporaries, he shared with Alexander and with Charles, but which in later times has been displaced by the misunderstood description of Conqueror.^[504] But, before he had won any right to either of those lofty titles, William was already known by another surname |Laxity of the Norman Dukes as to marriage and legitimacy.| drawn from the circumstances of his birth. Of all princely lines the ducal house of Normandy was that which paid least regard to the canonical laws of marriage or to the special claims of legitimate birth.^[505] The Duchy had been 175ruled by a whole succession of princes who either were sprung from that irregular kind of union which was known as the Danish marriage,^[506] or else were the sons of concubines raised to the rank of wives after the birth of their children. But, among all this brood of spurious or irregular heirs, the greatest of the whole line was the one to whom the reproach, if reproach it was deemed, |Special illegitimacy of William.| of illegitimate birth clave the most abidingly. William the son of Robert was emphatically William the Bastard, and the name clave to him through life, on the Imperial throne of Britain no less than on the ducal chair of Normandy. For, of all the whole line, William was the one whose bastardy was the most undoubted, the least capable of being veiled under ambiguous and euphemistic phrases. The position of Popa and Sprota was a doubtful one;^[507] it may, according to Danish ideas, have been perfectly honourable. The children of Richard and Gunnor were, according to the law recognized everywhere but in our own country, legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents. But we may doubt whether the notion of the Danish marriage survived as late as the days of Robert, and it is certain that no ecclesiastical sacrament ever gave William a right, according to the law of the Church, to rank as the lawful son of his father. The mother of William is never spoken of in the respectful terms which we find applied to the mother of Richard the Fearless. Throughout the whole of Duke Robert’s life, she remained in the position of an acknowledged mistress, and her illustrious son came forth before the world with no other description than the Bastard.

The irregular birth of one so renowned naturally became the subject of romance and legend. And the spot on which William first saw the light is one which seems to 176call for the tribute of the legend-maker as its natural due. |Position of Falaise.| The town of Falaise, in the Diocese of Seez, is one of the most famous spots both in the earlier and in the later history of Normandy, and none assuredly surpasses it in the striking character of its natural position. Lying on the edge of the great forest of Gouffer, the spot had its natural attractions for a line of princes renowned, even above others of their time, for their devotion to the sports of the field. The town itself lies in a sort of valley between two eminences. The great Abbey, a foundation of a later date than the times which we are concerned with, has utterly vanished; but two stately parish churches, one of them dating from the days of Norman independence, bear witness to the ecclesiastical splendour of the place. Passing |Historical associations of the Castle.| by them, the traveller gradually ascends to the gate of the Castle, renowned alike in the wars of the twelfth, the fifteenth, and the sixteenth centuries. A tall round tower still bears the name of the great Talbot, the guardian of |1417–1450.| the castle in the great English war, and who afterwards won a still higher fame as the last champion of the ancient |1453.| freedom of Aquitaine against the encroachments of the Kings of Paris.^[508] But this witness of comparatively recent strife is but an excrescence on the original structure. It is the addition made by an English King to one of the noblest works of his Norman forefathers. The Castle where legend fixes the birth of William of Normandy, and where |1175.| history fixes the famous homage of William of Scotland, is a vast donjon of the eleventh or twelfth century.^[509] One of 177the grandest of those massive square keeps which I have already spoken of as distinguishing the earliest military architecture of Normandy, crowns the summit of a precipitous rock, fronted by another mass of rock wilder still, on which the cannon of England were planted during |The rocks give its name to the town.| Henry’s siege. To these rocks, these felsen, the spot owes its name of Falaise,^[510] one of the many spots in Normandy where the good old Teutonic speech still lingers in local nomenclature, though in this case the Teutonic name has also preserved its permanent being in the general vocabulary of the Romance speech. Between these two rugged heights lies a narrow dell, through which runs a small beck, a tributary of the neighbouring river Ante. The dell is crowded with mills and tanneries, but the mills and tanneries of Falaise have their share in the historic interest of the place. The mills play no inconsiderable part in the |The Tanneries of Falaise.| records of the Norman Exchequer,^[511] and the tanneries at once suggest the name of the greatest son of Normandy. In every form which the story has taken in history or legend, the mother of the Conqueror appears as the |William the son of a Tanner’s daughter.| daughter of a tanner of Falaise, plying his unsavoury craft on the spot where it has continued to be plied through so many ages. The conquered English indeed strove to claim the Norman Duke as their own, by representing his mother as a descendant of their own royal house.^[512] But, even in this version, the traditional trade of her father 178|English legend of the birth of William.| is not forgotten. The daughter of the hero Eadmund disgraced herself by a marriage or an intrigue with her father’s tanner, to whom in process of time she bore three daughters. The pair were banished from England, and took refuge on the opposite coast. In the course of their wanderings they came to beg alms at the gate of Duke Richard the Good. The Prince discovered the lofty birth of the mother, and took the whole family into his favour. The youngest daughter became the mistress of his son Robert, and of them sprang the mighty William, great-grandson of Eadmund Ironside no less than of Richard the Fearless.

Such a tale is of course valuable only as illustrating the universal tendency of conquered nations to try to alleviate the shame and grief of conquest by striving to believe that their tyrants are at least their countrymen. The story of William’s English origin clearly comes from the same mint as the story in which Egyptian vanity gave out that Kambysês was Egyptian by his maternal origin,^[513] as the story which saw in Alexander himself a scion of the royal house of Persia.^[514] It seems however to preserve one grain of truth in the midst of so much that is mythical. It represents the connexion between Robert and his mistress as having begun before he ascended the ducal throne. There can be little doubt that this was the case, though the story is generally told as if Robert had been already Duke |Story of Herleva.| of the Normans. But it is more likely that Robert was as yet only Count of the Hiesmois, and, as such, Lord of Falaise, when his eye was first caught by the beauty of Arlette, or rather Herleva, the daughter of Fulbert the Tanner. Some say he first saw her engaged in the dance,^[515] others when she was busied in the more homely work 179of washing linen in the beck which flows by her father’s tannery at the foot of the castle.^[516] The prince himself, a mere stripling, saw and loved her. He sought her of her father, who, after some reluctance, gave up his child to his lord, by the advice, according to one account, of a holy hermit his brother.^[517] She was led the same evening to the castle; the poetical chroniclers are rich in details of her behaviour.^[518] She became the cherished mistress of Robert, and her empire over his heart was, we are told, not disturbed by another connexion, lawful or unlawful.^[519] |Advancement of her family.| After the example of former princes, Robert in after times raised the kinsfolk of his mistress to high honours. Half the nobility of Normandy had sprung from the brothers and sisters of Gunnor, so now Fulbert the Tanner, the father of Herleva, was raised to the post of ducal chamberlain,^[520] and her brother Walter was placed in some office which, in after times, gave him close access to the person of his princely nephew.^[521] After Robert’s death, |Her marriage with Herlwin of Conteville.| Herleva obtained an honourable marriage, and became, by her husband Herlwin of Conteville,^[522] the mother of two sons who will fill no small space in our history. But her union with the Duke produced but one son, perhaps but |Legends of omens.| one child.^[523] That child however was one whose future greatness was, so we are told, prefigured by omens and prodigies from the moment of his birth, and even from the moment of his conception. On the night of her first visit to the castle, Herleva dreamed that a tree arose from her 180body which overshadowed all Normandy and all England.^[524] At the moment of his birth, the babe seized the straw on the chamber floor with so vigorous a grasp that all who saw the sight knew that he would become a mighty conqueror, who would never let go anything that he had once laid |Birth of William. 1027–1028.| his hand upon.^[525] Leaving tales like these apart, it is certain that William, the bastard son of Robert and Herleva, was born at Falaise, perhaps in the year in which the great Cnut made his famous pilgrimage to the threshold of the Apostles.^[526]

Before Robert undertook so perilous an enterprise, it was clearly needful for him to regulate the succession to the Duchy. The reigning prince had neither brother nor legitimate child. The heir, according to modern notions of heirship, was a churchman, Robert, Archbishop of |Robert Archbishop of Rouen. 989–1037.| Rouen. This Prelate we have already seen in rebellion against his namesake the Duke,^[527] probably on account of this very claim to the succession. He was one of the children of Richard the Fearless, legitimated and made capable of ecclesiastical honours by the late marriage of his parents. Indeed, according to one account, the marriage of Richard and Gunnor was contracted expressly to take away the canonical objections which were raised against the appointment of a bastard to the metropolitan see.^[528] Archbishop Robert was thus an uncle of Duke Robert and a great-uncle of the child William. Besides his Archbishoprick, he held the County of Evreux as a lay fee. Like the more famous Odo of Bayeux, he drew a marked distinction between his ecclesiastical and his temporal character. As Count of Evreux, he had a wife, Herleva 181by name,^[529] and was the father of children of whom we shall hear again in our history. In his latter days, his spiritual character became more prominent; he repented of his misdeeds, gave great alms to the poor, and began the rebuilding of the metropolitan church.^[530] There were also two princes whose connexion with the ducal house was by legitimate, though only female, descent. One was |Guy of Burgundy;| Guy of Burgundy, a nephew of Duke Robert, being grandson of Richard the Good through his daughter |Alan of Britanny;| Adeliza.^[531] The other was Robert’s cousin, Count Alan of Britanny, the son of Hadwisa daughter of Richard the Fearless.^[532] Nearer in blood, but of more doubtful legitimacy, were Robert’s own half-brothers, the sons of Richard |Malger;| the Good by Papia. These were the churchman Malger, who afterwards succeeded Archbishop Robert in the |William of Arques;| see of Rouen,^[533] and William, who held the County and |Nicholas.| castle of Arques near Dieppe.^[534] There was also the monk Nicholas, the young, and no doubt illegitimate, son of |No candidate free from objection.| Richard the Third.^[535] None of these were promising candidates for the ducal crown. Robert, the lineal heir, might 182be looked on as disqualified by his profession; Alan and Guy were strangers, and could claim only through females; the nearer kinsmen were of spurious or doubtful birth, and some of them were liable also to the same objection as Robert. Had any strong opposition existed, William of Arques would probably have been found the best card to play; but there was no candidate whose claims were absolutely without cavil; there was none round whom national feeling could instinctively centre; there was none who was clearly marked out, either by birth or by merit, as the natural leader of the Norman people. This state of things must be borne in mind, in order to understand the fact, otherwise so extraordinary, that Robert was able to secure the succession to a son who was at once bastard and minor. There were strong objections against young William; but there were objections equally strong against |Unpopularity of William’s succession.| every other possible candidate. Under these circumstances it was possible for William to succeed; but it followed, almost as a matter of course, that the early years of his reign were disturbed by constant rebellions. William’s succession was deeply offensive to many of his subjects, especially to that large portion of the Norman nobility who had any kind of connexion with the ducal house. From the time of the child’s birth, there can be little doubt that his father’s intentions in his favour were at least suspected, and the suspicion may well have given rise to some of the rebellions by which Robert’s reign was disturbed.^[536]

At this stage of our narrative it becomes necessary to form some clear conception of the personality and the ancestry of some of the great Norman nobles. Most of them belonged to houses whose fame has not been confined to Normandy. We are now dealing with the fathers of the men, in some cases with the men themselves, who fought round William at Senlac, and among whom he 183divided the honours and the lands of England. These men became the ancestors of the new nobility of England, and, as their forefathers had changed in Gaul from Northmen into Normans, so now, by a happier application of the same law, they gradually changed from Normans into Englishmen. Many a name famous in English history, many a name whose sound is as familiar to us as any word of our own Teutonic speech, many a name which has long ceased to suggest any thought of foreign origin, is but the name of some Norman village, whose lord, or perhaps some lowlier inhabitant, followed his Duke to the Conquest of England and shared in the plunder of the conquered. But the names which are most familiar to us as names of English lords and gentlemen of Norman descent belong, for the most part, to a sort of second crop, which first grew up to importance on English soil. The great Norman houses whose acts—for the most part whose crimes—become of paramount importance at the time with which we are now dealing, were mostly worn out in a few generations, and they have left but few direct representatives on either side of the sea.

High among these great houses, the third in rank among the original Norman nobility,^[537] stood the house of Belesme, whose present head was William, surnamed Talvas.^[538] The domains held by his family, partly of the Crown of France, partly of the Duchy of Normandy, might almost put him on a level with princes rather than with ordinary nobles. The possession from which the family took its name lay within the French territory, and was a fief of the French Crown. But, within the Norman Duchy, the Lords of Belesme were masters of the valley bounded by the hills from which the Orne flows in one 184direction and the Sarthe in another. Close on the French frontier, they held the strong fortress of Alençon, the key of Normandy on that side. They are called Lords of the city of Seez,^[539] and, at the time of which we are speaking, a member of their house filled its episcopal throne.^[540] Their domains stretched to Vinoz, a few miles south-east of Falaise, and separated from the town by the forest of Gouffer. Ivo, the first founder of this mighty house, had been one of the faithful guardians of the childhood of Richard the Fearless, and had been enriched by him as the reward of his true service in evil days.^[541] But with Ivo the virtue of his race seems to have died out, and his descendants appear in Norman and English history as |Their supposed hereditary wickedness.| monsters of cruelty and perfidy, whose deeds aroused the horror even of that not over scrupulous age. Open robbery and treacherous assassination seem to have been their daily occupations. The second of the line, William of Belesme, had rebelled against Duke Robert, and had defended his fortress of Alençon against him.^[542] His eldest son Warren murdered a harmless and unsuspecting friend, and was for this crime, so the men of his age said, openly seized and strangled by the fiend. Of his other sons, Fulk, presuming to ravage the ducal territory, was killed in battle, Robert was taken prisoner by the men of Le 185Mans and beheaded by way of reprisals for a murder committed by his followers. The surviving heir of the possessions and of the wickedness of his race was his one remaining son William Talvas.^[543] This man, we are told, |William Talvas; his crimes.| being displeased by the piety and good manners of his first wife Hildeburgis, hired ruffians to murder her on her way to church.^[544] At his second wedding-feast he put out the eyes, and cut off the nose and ears, of an unsuspecting guest.^[545] This was William the son of Geroy, one of a house whose name we shall often meet again in connexion with the famous Abbeys of Bec and Saint Evroul. A local war ensued, in which William Talvas suffered an inadequate punishment for his crimes in the constant devastation of his lands. At last a more appropriate avenger arose from his own house. The hereditary wickedness of his line passed on to his daughter Mabel and his son Arnulf. Mabel, the wife of Roger of Montgomery, will be a prominent character in our story for many years. Arnulf rebelled against his father, and left him to die wretchedly in exile. An act of wanton rapacity was presently punished by a supernatural avenger; Arnulf, like his uncle Warren, was strangled by a dæmon in his bed.^[546] 186Such was the character of the family whose chief, first in power and in crime among the nobility of Normandy, stood forth, as the story goes, as the mouthpiece of that nobility, to express the feelings with which the descendants of the comrades of Rolf, the descendants of Richard the Fearless, even the descendants of the brothers and sisters of Gunnor, looked on the possible promotion of the Tanner’s grandson to be their lord.

William Talvas, says the tale, in the days of his prosperity, was one day in the streets of Falaise, a town where the close neighbourhood of his possessions doubtless made him well known. The babe William, the son of the Duke and Herleva, was being nursed in the house of his maternal grandfather. A burgher, meeting the baron, bade him step in and see the son of his lord. William Talvas entered the house and looked on the babe. He then cursed him, saying that, by that child and his descendants, himself and his descendants would be brought to shame.^[547] A curse from the mouth of William Talvas might almost be looked on as a blessing, and the form of the prediction was such as to come very near to the nature of a panegyric. It is indeed the highest praise of the babe who then lay in his cradle, that he did something to bring to shame, something to bring under the restraints of law and justice, men like the hoary sinner who instinctively saw in him 187the destined enemy of his kind. But the words, when uttered, would be meant and understood simply as a protest against the insult which was preparing for the aristocratic pride of the great Norman houses. Possibly indeed the tale, like other tales of the kind, may have been devised after the event; still it would mark none the less truly the feelings with which a man like William Talvas, boasting of a descent from the original conquerors of the land, looked on the unworthy sovereign whom destiny seemed to be providing for them.

Duke Robert however was bent on his purpose. He gathered an assembly of the great men of his Duchy, among whom the presence of Archbishop Robert, perhaps as being a possible competitor for the succession, is specially mentioned.^[548] The Duke set forth his intention of visiting the Holy Sepulchre, and told his hearers, that, aware of the dangers of such a journey, he wished to settle the succession to the Duchy before he set out. The voice of the Assembly bade him stay at home and continue to discharge the duties of government in person, especially at a time when there was no one successor or representative to whom they could be entrusted with any chance of the general good will. It was of course desirable to stave off the question. Robert might yet have legitimate heirs; or, in the failure of that hope, the Norman chiefs might gradually come to an agreement in favour of some other candidate. Let the Duke stay at home and guard his Duchy against the pretensions of the Breton and the Burgundian.^[549] But Robert would brook no delay in the accomplishment of his pious purpose; he would go at 188|He proposes William as his successor.| once to the Holy Land; he would settle the succession before he went. He brought forward the young William, and acknowledged him as his son. He was little, he told them, but he would grow; he was one of their own stock, brought up among them.^[550] His overlord the King of the French had engaged to acknowledge and protect him.^[551] He called on them to accept, to choose—the never-ceasing mixture of elective and hereditary claims appears here as everywhere—the child as their future Lord, as his successor in the Duchy, should he never return from the distant land to which he was bound.^[552] The Normans were in a manner entrapped. There can be no doubt that nothing could be further from the wishes of the majority of the Assembly than to agree to the Duke’s proposal; but there was nothing else to be done. If Robert could not be prevailed on to stay at home, some settlement must be made; and, little as any of them liked the prospect of the rule of the young Bastard, there was no other candidate in whose favour all parties could come to an agreement |William’s succession accepted.| on the spot. Unwillingly then the Norman nobility consented; they accepted the only proposal which was before them; they swore the usual oaths, and did homage to the son of Herleva as their future sovereign.^[553] The 189kinsmen of Gunnor, the descendants of the comrades of Rolf, became the men of the Tanner’s grandson, and he himself was received as the man of King Henry at Paris.^[554] As far as forms went, no form was wanting which could make William’s succession indisputably lawful. Duke Robert then set forth on the pilgrimage from which he never returned. Within a few months, his short life and |William succeeds his father in the Duchy. 1035.| reign came to an end at Nikaia.^[555] Thus, in the same year which beheld the great Empire of Cnut parted among his sons, did William, the seven years old grandson of the Tanner Fulbert, find himself on the seat of Rolf and Richard the Fearless, charged with the mission to keep down, as his infant hands best might, the turbulent spirits who had been unwillingly beguiled into acknowledging him as their sovereign.

Anarchy at once broke forth; all the evils which attend a minority in a rude age were at once poured forth upon the unhappy Duchy. We see the wisdom with which the custom of our own and of most contemporary lands provided that the government of men should be entrusted to those 190only who had themselves at least reached man’s estate. In England the exceptional minorities of the sons of Eadmund and of Eadgar had been calamitous, but they were nothing to compare to the minority of William of Normandy. In England the custom of regular national assemblies, the habit of submitting all matters to a fair vote, the recognition of the Law as supreme over every man, hindered the state from falling into utter dissolution, even in those perilous times. The personal reign of Æthelred proved far weaker than the administration which Dunstan carried on in his name in his early years. But in Normandy, where constitutional ideas had found so imperfect a developement as compared with England, there was nothing of this kind to fall back upon. Nothing but the personal genius of a determined and vigorous Prince could keep that fierce nobility in any measure of order. With the accession of an infant there at once ceased to be any power to protect or to punish. “Woe |Childhood of William.| to the land whose King is a child” is the apt quotation of an historian of the next age.^[556] The developement of the young Duke both in mind and body was undoubtedly precocious; but his early maturity was mainly owing to the stern discipline of that terrible childhood. It was in those years that he learned the arts which made Normandy, France, and England bow before him; but, at the age of seven years, William himself was no more capable than Æthelred of personally wielding the rod of rule. The child had good and faithful guardians, guardians perhaps no less well disposed to fulfil their trust towards him than Dunstan had been towards the children of Eadgar. But there was no one man in Normandy to whom every Norman could look up as every Englishman 191had looked up to the mighty Primate, and the bowl and the dagger soon deprived the young Prince of the support of his wisest and truest counsellors. The minority of William was truly a time when every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And what seemed right in the eyes of the nobles of Normandy was commonly |Utter anarchy of the time.| rebellion against their sovereign, ruthless oppression of those beneath them, and endless deadly feuds with one another. We have already seen some specimens of their crimes in the doings of the house of Belesme. That house is indeed always spoken of as exceptionally wicked; but a state of things in which such deeds could be done, and could go unpunished, must have come very nearly to a complete break-up of society. The general pictures which we find given us of the time are fearful beyond expression. Through the withdrawal of all controlling power, every landowner became a petty sovereign, and began to exercise all the sovereign rights of slaughter and devastation. |Building of castles.| The land soon bristled with castles. The mound crowned with the square donjon rose as the defence or the terror of every lordship.^[557] This castle-building 192|Building of castles.| is now spoken of in Normandy with a condemnation nearly as strong as that with which it was spoken of in England, when, a few years after this time, the practice was introduced into England by the Norman favourites of Eadward.^[558] But there is a characteristic difference in the tone of the two complaints. The English complaint always is that the Frenchmen built castles and oppressed the poor folk,^[559] or that they did all possible evil and shame to their English neighbours.^[560] The Norman complaint, though not wholly silent as to the oppression of the humbler ranks,^[561] yet dwells mainly on the castle-building as a sign of rebellion against the authority of the Prince, and as an occasion of warfare between baron and baron. And it would have been well for the reputation of the Norman nobles of that age if they had confined themselves to open warfare with one another and open rebellion against their sovereign. |Frequency of assassinations.| But they sank below the common morality of their own age; private murder was as familiar to them as open war. The house of Belesme had a bad preeminence in this as in other crimes; but, if they had a preeminence, they were far from having a monopoly. Probably no period of the same length in the history of Christendom contains the record of so many foul deeds of slaughter and mutilation as the early years of the reign of William. And they were constantly practised, not only against avowed and armed enemies, but against unarmed and unsuspecting guests. Some of the tales may be inventions or exaggerations; but the days in which such tales could even be invented must 193have been full of deeds of horror. Isolated cases of similar crimes may doubtless be found in any age; but this period is remarkable alike for the abundance of crimes, for the rank of the criminals, and for the impunity which they enjoyed. To control these men was the duty laid upon the almost infant years of William, a duty with which nothing short of his own full and matured powers might seem fit to grapple. Yet over all these difficulties the genius of the |Effects of William’s government in Normandy.| great Duke was at last triumphant. His hand brought order out of the chaos, and changed a land wasted by rebellion and intestine warfare into one of the most prosperous regions of Europe, a land flourishing as no Norman ruler had seen it flourish before. When we think of the days in which William spent his youth, of the men against whom his early years were destined to be one continued struggle, we shall be less inclined to lift up our hands in horror at his later crimes than to dwell with admiration on the large share of higher and better qualities which, among all his evil deeds, clave to him to his dying day.

We have seen among what kind of men the young Duke of the Normans had to pass the first years of his life and sovereignty. But his father, in leaving his one lamb among so many wolves, had at least provided him with trustworthy |Alan of Britanny.| guardians. Alan of Britanny, a possible competitor for the Duchy, a neighbouring prince with whom Duke Robert had so lately been at war,^[562] was disarmed when his overlord committed his son to his faith as kinsman and vassal, and even invested him with some measure of 194authority in Normandy itself.^[563] The immediate care of the young Duke’s person was given to one Thurcytel or Thorold, names which point to a genuine Scandinavian descent in their bearer, and which would make us look to the Bessin as the probable place of his birth.^[564] Other |Osbern.| guardians of high rank were the Seneschal Osbern, and Count Gilbert, both of them connected in the usual way with the ducal family. Osbern was the son of Herfast, a brother of the Duchess Gunnor; he was also married to a daughter of Rudolf of Ivry, the son of Asperleng and Sprota, the savage suppressor of the great |Gilbert.| peasant revolt.^[565] Gilbert’s connexion was still closer. He was illustrious alike in his forefathers and in his descendants. He sprang of the ducal blood of Normandy, and of his blood sprang the great houses of Clare and Pembroke in England. His father Godfrey was one of those natural children of Richard the Fearless who did not share the promotion of the offspring of Gunnor.^[566] He was lord of the border fortress of Eu, renowned in Norman history as early as the days of Rolf;^[567] he was lord too of the pleasant valley of the Risle, separated only by one wooded hill from the more memorable valley which is hallowed by the names of Herlwin, Lanfranc, and Anselm. 195|Alan poisoned. 1039–1040.| All these worthy men paid the penalty of their fidelity. Count Alan died of poison, while he was besieging the castle of Montgomery, the stronghold of a house which we shall often have again to mention. He died at Vinmoutier, and was buried in the abbey of Fécamp. Breton slander afterwards threw the guilt of this crime upon the Duke himself,^[568] the person who had least to gain by it. Norman slander threw it on Alan’s own subjects;^[569] but one can hardly doubt that, if the poisoned bowl was administered at all, it was administered by some one or |Murder of Gilbert.| other of the rebellious Norman nobles.^[570] Count Gilbert was murdered by assassins employed by Ralph of Wacey, son of Archbishop Robert.^[571] The sons of the murdered man fled to Flanders, and took refuge with the common protector of banished men, Count Baldwin. The lands of Gilbert were divided among various claimants; the County of Eu seems to have passed into the hands of his uncle William;^[572] but his famous castle of Brionne fell to the lot of Guy of Burgundy, of whom, and of whose possession of the fortress, we shall hear much as we go on.^[573]

Another still more criminal attempt directly introduces us for the first time to another of the great Norman houses, and one whose name has been more abiding than 196any other. I have just before mentioned Count Alan’s siege of the castle of Montgomery. The name of that castle, a hill fortress in the diocese of Lisieux, enjoys a peculiar privilege above all others in Norman geography. Other spots in Normandy have given their names to Norman houses, and those Norman houses have transferred those names to English castles and English towns and villages. But there is only one shire in Great Britain which has had the name of a Norman house impressed |Roger of Montgomery and his five sons.| upon it for ever. Roger, the present Lord of Montgomery, was, at the time of Duke Robert’s death, in banishment at Paris.^[574] His five sons remained in Normandy, and were among the foremost disturbers of the peace of the country.^[575] But one of the five, Hugh, had a son, named, like his |The younger Roger.| grandfather, Roger, who bore a better character and was destined to a higher fate. He had, through his mother, a connexion of the usual kind with the ducal house. Weva, a sister of Gunnor, was the wife of Thorulf of Pont-Audemer, the son of Torf,^[576] and her daughter Joscelina was the wife of Hugh of Montgomery, and the mother of the younger Roger.^[577] On this Roger, William Talvas, in his old age, |His wife Mabel, daughter of William Talvas.| bestowed the hand of his daughter Mabel, who transferred the name, the honours, and the hereditary wickedness of the house of Belesme to her sons of the house of Montgomery.^[578] Mabel, small in stature, talkative, and cruel, guilty of fearful crimes and destined to a fearful doom,^[579] fills a place 197in history fully equal to that filled by her husband. Of him we shall hear again as literally the foremost among the conquerors of England; we shall see him enriched with English estates and honours, bearing the lofty titles of Earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury, and, once at least, adorned with the loftier title which had been borne by Æthelred and |1087.| Leofric. Once, and that while engaged in rebellion against his prince, he flits before us for a moment as Roger Earl of the Mercians.^[580] A munificent friend of monks both in England and in Normandy, he has left behind him a different reputation from that of either his father, his wife, or his sons. In one of those sons we shall see the name of his maternal ancestors revive, and, with their name, a double portion of their wickedness.

But we have as yet to deal with the house of Montgomery |Attempt of William of Montgomery on Duke William at Vaudreuil.| only in its least honourable aspect. William, son of the elder, and uncle of the younger, Roger, stands charged with an attempt, aimed no longer at guardians or tutors, but at the person of the young Duke himself. William was staying with his guardian Osbern at Vaudreuil, a castle on an island in the Eure, said to have been the place of captivity of the famous Fredegunda in Merowingian times.^[581] Thorold, it would seem, had been already murdered, but his assassins are spoken of only in general terms.^[582] But Osbern still watched over his young lord day |Murder of Osbern; escape of the Duke.| and night. While at Vaudreuil he was butchered by William of Montgomery in the very bedchamber of the Duke, and the young prince owed his own safety on this, and on many other occasions, to the zealous care of his maternal uncle Walter. Many a time did this faithful 198kinsman carry him from palace and castle to find a lurking-place from those who sought his life in the cottages of the poor.^[583] The blood of Osbern was soon avenged; a faithful servant of the murdered Seneschal presently did to William of Montgomery as William of Montgomery had done to Osbern.^[584] In the state of things in Normandy at that moment crime could be punished only by crime. The remembrance of the faithful Osbern lived also in the memory of the Prince whose childhood he had so well |Friendship of the Duke with William Fitz-Osbern.| guarded. His son William grew up from his youth as the familiar friend and counsellor of his namesake the Duke. This is that famous William Fitz-Osbern who lived to be, next to the Duke himself, the prime agent in the Conquest of England, who won, far more than the Duke himself, the hatred of the conquered people, and who at last perished in a mad enterprise after a crown and a wife in Flanders.

The next enemy was Roger of Toesny, whom we have 199already heard of as a premature Crusader, the savage foe |Rebellion and death of Roger of Toesny.| of the Infidels of Spain.^[585] Disappointed in his dream of a Kingdom in the Iberian peninsula, he returned to his native land to find it under the sway of the son of the Tanner’s daughter. The proud soul of the descendant of Malahulc scorned submission to such a lord; “A bastard is not fit to rule over me and the other Normans.”^[586] He refused all allegiance, and began to ravage the lands of his neighbours. The one who suffered most was Humfrey de Vetulis, a son of Thorulf of Pont-Audemer, and of Weva the sister of Gunnor. He sent his son Roger of Beaumont against the aggressor. A battle followed, in which Roger of Toesny and his two sons were killed, and Robert of Grantmesnil received a mortal wound.^[587] This fight was fought rather in defence of private property than in the assertion of any public principle. But the country gained by the destruction of so inveterate an enemy of peace as Roger of Toesny. And here, as at every step of this stage of our narrative, we become acquainted with men whose names are to figure in the later portion of |Houses of Grantmesnil and Beaumont.| our history. Robert of Grantmesnil was the father of Hugh of Grantmesnil, who had no small share in the conquest of England and the division of its spoil. Roger of Beaumont became the patriarch of the first house of the Earls of Leicester. One of his descendants played an honourable part in the great struggle between King and Primate in the latter half of the twelfth century;^[588] and his 200honours passed by female succession to that great deliverer who made the title of Earl of Leicester the most glorious in the whole peerage of England.^[589]

By this time William was getting beyond the years of childhood, and he was beginning to display those extraordinary powers of mind and body with which nature had endowed him. He could now in some measure exercise a will of his own. He still needed a guardian, but, according to the principles of Roman Law, he had a right to a voice in determining who that guardian should be. He summoned the chief men of his Duchy, and, by their advice, he chose as his own tutor and as Captain-General of the armies of Normandy,^[590] Ralph the son of Archbishop Robert. The choice seems a strange one, as Ralph was no other than the murderer of William’s former guardian Count Gilbert.^[591] But it may have been thought politic for the young Duke to strengthen his hands by an alliance with a former enemy, and to make, as in the case of Count Alan of Britanny, a practical appeal to the honour of a possible rival. The appointment of Ralph seems in fact to have had that effect. A time of comparative internal quiet now followed. But there still were traitors in the land. Many, we are told, of the Norman nobles, even of those who professed the firmest fidelity to the Duke, and were loaded by him with the highest honours, still continued to plot against him in secret.^[592] For a while they no longer 201revolted openly on their own account; but there was a potentate hard by whose ear was ever open to their suggestions, and who was ever ready to help them in any plots against their sovereign and their country.

From this point a new chapter opens in the relations between Normandy and France. We have seen that, ever since the Commendation made by Richard the Fearless to Hugh the Great,^[593] the relations between the Norman Princes and the Dukes and Kings of Paris had been invariably |945.| |987.| friendly.^[594] It was to Norman help that the Parisian dynasty in a great measure owed its rise to royalty;^[595] it |1031.| was to Norman help that the reigning King of the French owed his restoration to his throne.^[596] Henry of Paris, made King by the help of Robert, had received Robert’s son as his vassal,^[597] and had promised to afford him the protection due from a righteous overlord to a faithful vassal. But we |Return to ill-feeling from the accession of William.| now, from the accession of William, begin to see signs of something like a return on the French side to the old state of feeling in the days when the Normans were still looked on as heathen intruders, and their Duke was held to be Duke only of the Pirates.^[598] We find the French applying contemptuous epithets to the Norman people,^[599] and we find the King of the French ready to seize every opportunity 202for enriching himself at the expense of the Norman Duke.

It is not easy at first sight to explain this return to a state of things which seemed to have passed away for more than a generation. Still we must not forget that any prince reigning at Paris could hardly fail to look with a grudging eye on the practically independent power which cut him off from the mouth of his own river. The great feudatory at Rouen seemed, in a way in which no other feudatory seemed, to shut up his overlord in a kind of prison. The wealth and greatness and prosperity of Normandy might seem, both historically and geographically, to be something actually taken away from the possessions of France. This feeling would apply to Normandy in a way in which it did not apply to the other great fiefs of Flanders and Aquitaine. And the feeling would on every ground be stronger in the mind of a King reigning at Paris than in that of a King reigning at Laôn. To a French King at Paris the Normans were the nearest and the most powerful of all neighbours, those whose presence must have made itself far more constantly felt than that of any other power in Gaul. Hitherto this inherent feeling of jealousy had been kept in check by the close hereditary connexion between the two states. The league established between Richard and Hugh had hitherto been kept unbroken by their descendants. But the main original object of that league, mutual support against the Carolingian King at Laôn, had ceased to exist when the Parisian Duke assumed the royal dignity. Since that time, the league could have rested on little more than an hereditary sentiment between the Norman and French princes, which probably was never very deeply shared by their subjects on either side. And now that sentiment was giving way to the earlier and more instinctive feeling which pointed out the Rouen Duchy as the natural enemy 203of the Parisian Kingdom. It had once been convenient to forget, it was now equally convenient to remember, that the original grant to Rolf had been made at the immediate expense, not of the King of Laôn but of the Duke of Paris.^[600] Under these changed circumstances, the old feeling, dormant for a time, seems to have again awakened in all its strength. And now that Normandy held out temptations to every aggressor, now that Norman nobles did not scruple to invite aid from any quarter against a prince |Ingratitude of King Henry.| whose years were the best witness of his innocence, every feeling of justice and generosity seems to have vanished from the mind of King Henry. The King who owed his Crown to the unbought fidelity of Duke Robert did not scruple to despoil the helpless boy whom his benefactor had |Dispute about Tillières.| entrusted to his protection. The border fortress of Tillières formed the first pretext. That famous creation of Richard the Good had been raised as a bulwark, not against the King, but against the troublesome Count of Chartres.^[601] But Odo had found it convenient to surrender the disputed territory of Dreux to the Crown;^[602] the Arve therefore now became the boundary between Normandy and the royal domain. Tillières was accordingly declared to be a standing menace to Paris, whose retention was inconsistent with any friendly relations between King and Duke.^[603] The loyal party in Normandy thought it better to yield 204than to expose their young Duke to fresh jeopardy.^[604] But the actual commander of the fortress was of another mind. |Gilbert Crispin besieged in Tillières.| Tillières had been entrusted by Duke Robert to Gilbert Crispin, the ancestor of a race by whom, after its restoration to Normandy, the border fortress was held for several generations.^[605] He scorned to agree to a surrender which he looked on as dangerous and disgraceful;^[606] he shut himself up in the castle with a strong force, and there endured a siege at the hands of the King. Besides his own subjects, Henry had a large body of Normans in the besieging host.^[607] It is not clear whether these were Normans of the disaffected party, or whether the Duke’s own adherents, when they had once pledged themselves to surrender the castle, deemed it expedient to display this excess of zeal against a comrade who had carried his loyalty to the extreme of |Tillières surrendered and burned.| disobedience. It is certain that it was only in deference to orders given in the Duke’s name, and which seem to imply the Duke’s personal presence,^[608] that the gallant Gilbert at last surrendered his trust. The fortress of which Normandy had been so proud was handed over to the French King, and was at once given to the flames, to the sorrow of every true Norman heart.^[609] The King pledged 205himself, as one of the conditions of the surrender, not to restore the fortress for four years.^[610] But, if the Norman writers may be trusted, he grossly belied his faith. His somewhat unreasonable demand had been granted, and no further provocation seems to have been given on the Norman side. But, now that the protecting fortress |Henry invades Normandy and restores Tillières.| was dismantled, Henry ventured on an actual invasion. He retired for a while; but he soon returned and crossed the border. He passed through the County of Hiesmes, the old appanage of Duke Robert; from the valley of the Dive he passed into the valley of the Orne, and burned the Duke’s own town of Argentan. He then returned laden with booty, and, on his way back, in defiance of his engagements, he restored and garrisoned the dismantled fortress of Tillières.^[611] The border fortress, so long the cherished defence of Normandy, now became the sharpest thorn in her side.

It is impossible to doubt that this devastation of the County of Hiesmes was made by special agreement with the man who was most bound to defend it. The commander of the district was Thurstan surnamed Goz, the son of Ansfrid the Dane.^[612] In this description, so long after the first occupation of the country, we must recognize a son of a follower of Harold Blaatand,^[613] not a son of an original companion of Rolf. And a son of a follower of Harold Blaatand must have been by this time a man advanced in life. But neither his age and office, nor his Scandinavian 206|Treason of Thurstan Goz.| descent and name, hindered Thurstan from playing into the hands of the French invaders. Seeing that the Duke had been thus compelled to yield to the King, Thurstan |He garrisons Falaise Castle against the Duke.| looked upon the moment as one propitious for revolt. He took some of the King’s soldiers into his pay, and with their help he garrisoned the castle of Falaise against the Duke.^[614] Young William’s indignation was naturally great. To select that particular spot as a centre of rebellion was not only a flagrant act of disloyalty, but the grossest of personal insults. Acting under the guidance of his guardian Ralph of Wacey, he summoned all loyal Normans to his standard, and advanced to the siege of his |The castle besieged and taken by the Duke and Ralph of Wacey.| birthplace. The castle was attacked by storm, a fact which shows that the town was loyal, proud as it well might be of numbering among its sons not only a sovereign, but a sovereign who was beginning to be renowned even in his boyhood. It was only on the side of the town that the castle could be assaulted in this way. William himself could hardly have swarmed up the steep cliffs which looked down upon the dwelling of his grandfather, nor could he, like the English invader four centuries later, command the fortress by artillery planted on the opposite heights. By dint of sheer personal strength and courage, the gallant Normans assaulted the massive walls of the Norman fortress, in the heart of the Norman land, which French hirelings, in the pay of a Norman traitor, were defending against the prince to whom that fortress owes a renown which can never pass away. Their attacks 207made a breach, perhaps not in the donjon itself, but at any rate in its external defences; night alone, we are told, put an end to the combat, and saved Thurstan and his party from all the horrors of a storm. But the rebel chief now saw that his hopes were vain; he sought a parley with the Duke, and was allowed to go away unhurt on condition of perpetual banishment from Normandy. |Thurstan’s descendants, the Earls of Chester.| Thurstan’s son, Richard, Viscount of Avranches, proved a loyal servant to William, and in the end procured the pardon of his father.^[615] The son of the loyal Richard, the grandson of the rebel Thurstan, finds a place in English history by the name of Hugh the Wolf, the first of the mighty but short-lived line of the Counts Palatine of Chester.^[616]

The young Duke’s great qualities were now fast displaying themselves. At the earliest age which the rules of chivalry allowed, he received the ensigns of knighthood from King Henry, and his subjects now began, not without reason, to look forward to a season of peace and order under his rule.^[617] We hardly need the exaggerated talk of his extravagant panegyrist to feel sure that William, at an unusually early age, taught men to see in him the born ruler. We hear, not only of his grace and skill in every warlike exercise, not only of his wisdom in the choice of his counsellors, but of his personally practising every virtue that becomes a man and a prince. William, we are told, was fervent in his devotions, righteous in his judgements, and he dealt out a justice as strict as that of Godwine or 208Harold upon all disturbers of the public peace.^[618] All this we can well believe. Of all these virtues he retained many traces to the last. A long career of ambition, craft, and despotic rule, never utterly seared his conscience, never brought him down to the level of those tyrants who neither fear God nor regard man. And in the fresh and generous days of youth, we can well believe that one so highly gifted, and who as yet had so little temptation to abuse his gifts, must have shone forth before all men as the very model of every princely virtue. In one important point however, the public acts of William, or of those who acted in his name, hardly bear out the language of his |Ecclesiastical appointments abused by the Norman Dukes.| panegyrists. His first ecclesiastical appointments were quite unworthy of the prince who was, somewhat later in life, to learn to appreciate and to reward the virtues of Lanfranc and Anselm. The two greatest preferments of the Norman Church fell vacant during this period, and the way in which they were filled illustrates a not uncommon practice of the Norman princes which had few or no parallels in England. There have been few instances in England in any age of great spiritual preferments being perverted into means of maintenance for cadets or bastards of the royal house. In Normandy, at least since the days of Richard the Fearless, the practice had been shamefully common, and in the early days of William the scandal still continued.

It must be remembered that the Prelates of Normandy, 209|Position of the Norman Prelates.| like the Prelates of the other great fiefs of the French Crown, were, in every sense, the subjects of the Princes within whose immediate dominions they found themselves. Here was one great point of difference between the condition of France and the condition of Germany. In Germany all the great churchmen, in every part of the country, held immediately of the Emperor. Every Bishop was therefore reckoned as a Prince. The episcopal city also commonly became a Free City of the Empire, and, as such, a commonwealth enjoying practical independence. |Their subjection to the Ducal authority.| No such oases of ecclesiastical or municipal privilege interrupted the continuous dominion of a Norman or Aquitanian Duke. The Metropolitan of Rouen or of Bourdeaux might be either the loyal subject or the refractory vassal of his immediate Prince; but in no case was he a coordinate sovereign, owning no superior except in the common overlord. It is only among the Bishops within the Crown lands, those who, in the extemporized jurisprudence of a later age, sat as Peers of France, alongside of the great Dukes and Counts, that the slightest signs of any such hierarchical independence can be discerned. At an earlier age we have indeed seen the metropolitan see of Rheims holding a position which faintly approached that of Mainz or Köln;^[619] but even Rheims had now considerably fallen from its ancient greatness, and no such claims to princely authority were at any time put forward by the proudest Prelate of Rouen or Bayeux. It was as Count of Evreux, rather than as Primate of Normandy, that Archbishop Robert had been able to make himself so troublesome to |Death of Archbishop Robert. 1037.| his nephew and sovereign. That turbulent Prelate, after an episcopate of forty-eight years, had amended his ways, and had at last vacated both County and Archbishoprick by death.^[620] In his temporal capacity he was succeeded by 210a son and a grandson, after whom the County of Evreux passed by an heiress to the house of Montfort, giving the Count-Primate the honour of being, through female descendants, a forefather of the great Simon.^[621] The vacancy of the Archbishoprick placed the greatest spiritual preferment in the Duchy at the disposal of the young Duke. The choice of the new Primate was as little directed by considerations of ecclesiastical merit as that of his predecessor, and it proved in every way unfortunate. At the |Malger, Archbishop of Rouen. 1037–1055.| head of the Norman Church William’s counsellors placed his uncle Malger, one of the sons of Richard the Good by Papia.^[622] We shall presently find him displaying no very priestly qualities, and the only act of his life which could be attributed to Christian or ecclesiastical zeal was one which wounded the Duke himself in the tenderest point. |Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. 1048–1098.| So too, when, some years later, the great see of Bayeux fell vacant, William bestowed it on his half-brother Odo, the son of Herleva by her husband Herlwin of Conteville.^[623] Odo, like Hugh of Rheims in earlier times,^[624] must have been a mere boy at the time of his appointment;^[625] but he 211held the see of Bayeux for fifty years,^[626] and, during most part of that time, his name was famous and terrible on both sides of the Channel. The character which he left |His character in England,| behind him was a singularly contradictory one.^[627] In England he was remembered only as the foremost among the conquerors and oppressors of the land, the man who gained for himself a larger share of English hatred than William |1086|. himself, the man whose career of wrong was at last cut short by his royal brother, who, stern and unscrupulous as he was, at least took no pleasure in deeds of wanton oppression. Of Odo’s boundless ambition and love of enterprise there is no doubt. The one quality led him to aspire to the Papal throne;^[628] the other led him first to forsake his diocese to rule as an Earl in England, and then to forsake it again to follow his nephew Duke Robert to the first Crusade. That he was no strict observer of ecclesiastical rules in his own person is shown by the fact that he left behind him a son, on whom however he at least bestowed the ecclesiastical name of John.^[629] Still Norman |and in Normandy.| ecclesiastical history sets Odo before us in a somewhat fairer light than that in which we see him in English secular history. He at least possessed the episcopal virtue of munificence, and, whatever were the defects of his own conduct, he seems to have been an encourager of learning and good conversation in others. He was bountiful to all, 212specially to those of his own spiritual household. He |His works at Bayeux. Cathedral consecrated, 1077.| rebuilt his own church at Bayeux, where parts of his work still remain. The lower part of the lofty towers of the western front, the dim and solemn crypt beneath the choir, of that stately and varied cathedral, are relics of the church reared by its most famous Bishop. These precious fragments, severe but far from rude in style, form a striking contrast to the gorgeous arcades which in the next century supplanted Odo’s nave, and to the soaring choir and apse raised by a still later age. Besides renewing the fabric, he increased the number of the clergy of his church, and founded or enriched a monastery in the outskirts of the city, in honour of Saint Vigor, a canonized predecessor in the see of Bayeux.^[630] The name of Odo is one which will be constantly recurring in this history, from the day when his Bishop’s staff and warrior’s mace were so successfully wielded against the defenders of England, till the day when he went forth to wield the same weapons against the misbelievers of the East, and found on his road a tomb, far from the heavy pillars and massive arches of his own Bayeux, among the light and gorgeous enrichments with which the art of the conquered Saracen knew how to adorn the palaces and churches of the Norman lords of Palermo.^[631]

But, though the appointments of Malger and Odo might bode but little good for the cause of ecclesiastical reformation, 213it is certain that a great movement was at this time |Ecclesiastical movement in Normandy; foundation of monasteries.| going on in the interior of the Norman Church. The middle of the eleventh century was, in Normandy, the most fruitful æra of the foundation of monasteries. The movement in that direction, which had begun under Richard the Fearless, had continued under Richard the Good, and it seems to have reached its height under Robert and William. A Norman noble of that age thought that his estate lacked its chief ornament, if he failed to plant a colony of monks in some corner of his possessions.^[632] No doubt the fashion of founding monasteries became, in this case, as in other cases earlier and later, little more than a mere fashion. Many a man must have founded a religious house, not from any special devotion or any special liberality, but simply because it was the regular thing for a man in his position to do.^[633] And, as an age of founding monasteries must also be an age in which men are unusually eager to enter the monastic profession, we may infer that many men took that profession on them out of mere imitation or prevalent impulse, without any real |Character of the monastic reformations in various ages.| personal call to the monastic life. Still, though movements of this sort may end in becoming a mere fashion, they never are a mere fashion at their beginning. The Norman Benedictine movement in the eleventh century, the English Cistercian movement in the twelfth century, 214the still greater movement of the Friars in the thirteenth century—we may add the revulsion in favour of the Seculars in the fourteenth century, and the great Jesuit movement in the sixteenth—all alike point to times when all classes of men were dissatisfied with the existing state of the Church, and were filled with a general desire for its reformation. The evil in every case was that the monastic reformations were never more than temporary. Some new foundations were created, perhaps even some old ones were reformed; the newly kindled fire burned with great fervour for a generation or two; a crop of saints arose, with their due supply of legends and miracles. But presently love again waxed cold; the new foundations fell away like the elder ones, and the next age saw its new order arise, to run the same course of primitive poverty and primitive holiness, degenerating into wealth, indolence, and corruption. Still there is a peculiar charm in contemplating the early years, the infant struggles, the simple and fervent devotion, of one of these religious brotherhoods |Two monasteries claiming special notice, Bec and Saint Evroul.| in the days of its first purity. And, among the countless monasteries which arose in Normandy at this time, there are two which claim some special notice at the hands of an historian whose chief aim is to connect the history of Normandy with that of England. The famous Abbey |Three Archbishops of Canterbury from Bec;| of Bec became the most renowned school of the learning of the time, and, among the other famous men whom it sent forth, it gave three Primates to the throne of Augustine. Thence came Lanfranc, the right hand man of the |Lanfranc, 1070–1089.| Conqueror—the scholar whose learning drew hearers from all Christendom, and before whose logic the heretic stood abashed—the courtier who could win the favour of Kings without stooping to any base compliance with their will—the ruler whose crozier completed the conquest which the ducal sword only began, and who knew how to win the love of the conquered, even while rivetting their fetters. 215|Anselm, 1093–1109.| Thence too came also the man of simple faith and holiness, the man who, a stranger in a strange land, could feel his heart beat for the poor and the oppressed, the man who braved the wrath of the most terrible of Kings in the cause at once of ecclesiastical discipline and of moral righteousness. Such are the truest claims of Anselm to the reverence of later ages, but it must not be forgotten that, if Bec sent forth in Lanfranc the great reformer of ecclesiastical discipline, it sent forth also in his successor the father of the whole dogmatic theology of later times. |Theobald, 1139–1161.| The third Metropolitan who found his way from Bec to Canterbury cannot compete with the fame of either of his great predecessors; yet Theobald lives in history as the first to discern the native powers of one whose renown presently came to outshine the renown of Lanfranc and Anselm. The early patron of Thomas the burgher’s son of London may fairly claim some reflected share of the glory which surrounds the name of Thomas the Chancellor of England, the Primate and the Martyr of Canterbury. |Ouche or Saint Evroul.| By the side of the house which sent forth men like these the name of the other Norman monastery of which I speak may seem comparatively obscure. Yet the Abbey of Ouche or Saint Evroul has its own claim on our respect. It was the spot which beheld the composition of the record from which we draw our main knowledge of the times following |The home of Orderic Vital.| those with which we have immediately to deal; it was the home of the man in whom, perhaps more than in any other, the characters of Norman and Englishman were inseparably mingled. There the historian wrote, who, though the son of a French father, the denizen of a Norman monastery, still clave to England as his country and gloried in his English birth^[634]—the historian who could at 216once admire the greatness of the Conqueror and sympathize with the wrongs of his victims, who, amid all the conventional reviling which Norman loyalty prescribed, could still see and acknowledge with genuine admiration the virtues and the greatness even of the perjured Harold.^[635] To have merely produced a chronicler may seem faint praise beside the fame of producing men whose career has had a lasting influence on the human mind; yet, even beside the long bead-roll of the worthies of Bec, some thought may well be extended to the house where Orderic recorded the minutest details of the lives alike of the saints and of the warriors of his time.

The tale of the early days of Bec is one of the most captivating in the whole range of monastic history or monastic legend. It has a character of its own. The origin of Bec differs from that of those earlier monasteries which gradually grew up around the dwelling-place or the burial-place of some revered Bishop or saintly hermit. It differs again from the origin of those monasteries of its own age which were the creation of some one external founder. Or rather it united the two characters in one. It gradually rose to greatness from very small beginnings; but, gradual as the process was, it took place within the lifetime of one man. And that man was at once its founder and its first ruler. The part of Cuthberht at Lindisfarne, the parts of William and of Lanfranc at Caen, |Herlwin, founder of Bec, born 994.| were all united in Herlwin, Knight, Founder, and Abbot. This famous man passed thirty-seven years of his life as a man of the world, a Norman gentleman and soldier. His father Ansgod boasted of a descent from the first 217|His descent| Danes who occupied Neustria,^[636] that is to say, from the original companions of Rolf as distinguished from the later settlers under Harold Blaatand.^[637] And this descent agrees with the geographical position of his estates, which lay, though on the left bank of the Seine, yet on the right bank of the Dive, within the limits of the original grant of Charles the Simple.^[638] On the spindle side he boasted of a still higher ancestry; his mother Heloise is said, on what authority it is not very clear, to have been a near |and early life.| kinswoman of the reigning house of Flanders.^[639] He was a vassal of Count Gilbert of Brionne, the faithful guardian of William, in the neighbourhood of whose castle his own estates lay. He had proved his faithfulness to his immediate lord by many services of various kinds, and he had won the favour, not only of Count Gilbert but of their common sovereign Duke Robert. On one occasion, an injury received from the Count had caused him to forsake |His virtues.| his service. But presently the Count was engaged in a more dangerous warfare with Ingelram, Count of Ponthieu. Herlwin with his followers came at a critical moment to Gilbert’s help, and the Count restored all, and more than all, that he had taken away from one who so well knew how to return good for evil.^[640] At another time 218Gilbert sent Herlwin to the ducal court on an errand of which his conscience disapproved;^[641] he failed to execute the unjust commission; in revenge the Count ravaged the lands of Herlwin and did great damage to their poor occupiers.^[642] Herlwin went to the Count, and made light of his own injury, but prayed that in any case the losses of the poor might be made good to them. Such a man was already a saint in practice, if not in profession; and we have no right to assume that, in this carrying out of Christian principles into daily life, Herlwin stood alone among the gallant gentlemen of Normandy. But the misfortune always was that men like Herlwin, who were designed to leaven the world by their virtues, were in that age open to so many temptations to forsake the world |He contemplates monastic retirement.| altogether. Herlwin began to feel himself out of place in the secular world of Normandy, full, as it was in those days, of strife and bloodshed, where every man sought to win justice for himself by his own sword. But he was hardly more out of place in the Norman ecclesiastical world, where priests not only married freely, but bore arms and lived the life of heathen Danes,^[643] and where even monks used their fists in a way which would hardly have been becoming in laymen.^[644] The faith of Herlwin nearly 219failed him when he saw the disorder of one famous monastery; but he was comforted by accidentally beholding the devotions of one godly brother, who spent the whole night in secret prayer. He was thus convinced that the salt of the earth had not as yet wholly lost its savour.^[645]

Herlwin now, at the age of forty, retired from the world, and received the habit of religion from Herbert, Bishop of Lisieux.^[646] Count Gilbert released him from his service, and seemingly released his lands from all feudal dependence on himself.^[647] Herlwin then began the foundation of a monastery on his own estate of Burneville near Brionne.^[648] A few devotees soon gathered round him. They lived a hard life, Herlwin himself joining them in tilling the ground, and in raising with his own hands the church and the other buildings needed by the infant brotherhood.^[649] The |He becomes Priest and Abbot. 1037.| church, when finished, was consecrated by Bishop Herbert, who at the same time ordained Herlwin a priest, and gave him the usual benediction as Abbot of the new society.^[650] 220About the same time he for the first time learned to read, and that to such good purpose that he gradually became mighty in the Scriptures, and that without ever neglecting the daily toil which his austere discipline imposed upon himself.^[651] His mother Heloise also, struck by the example of her son, gave up her dower-lands, and became a sort of serving sister to the brotherhood, washing their clothes, and doing for them other menial services.^[652] But after a while it was found that the site of Burneville was unsuited for a religious establishment; it seems not to have been well supplied with the two great monastic necessities of wood |He removes the monastery to Bec.| and water.^[653] Herlwin therefore determined to remove his infant colony to a spot better suited to his purpose, a spot to which his own name has ever since been inseparably attached. A wooded hill divides the valley of the Risle, with the town and castle of Brionne, from another valley watered by a small stream, or, in the old Teutonic speech of the Normans, a beck.^[654] That stream gave its name to the most famous of Norman religious houses, and to this day the name of Bec is never uttered to denote that spot without the distinguishing addition of the name of Herlwin. |Present condition of the spot.| The hills are still thickly wooded; the beck still flows, through rich meadows and under trees planted by 221the water-side, by the walls of what once was the renowned monastery to which it gave its name. But of the days of Herlwin no trace remains besides these imperishable works of nature. A tall tower, of rich and fanciful design, one of the latest works of mediæval skill, still attracts the traveller from a distance; but of the mighty minster itself all traces, save a few small fragments, have perished.^[655] The monastic buildings, like those of so many other monasteries in Normandy and elsewhere in Gaul, had been rebuilt in the worst days of art, and they are now applied to the degrading purposes of a receptacle of French cavalry. The gateway also remains, but it is, like the rest of the buildings, of a date far later than the days of Herlwin. The truest memorial of that illustrious Abbey is now to be found in the parish church of the neighbouring village. In that lowly shelter is still preserved the effigy with which after times had marked the resting-place of the Founder. Such are all the traces which now remain of the house which once owned Lanfranc and Anselm as its inmates.

In this valley it was that Herlwin finally fixed his infant settlement, devoting to it his own small possessions in the valley itself, and obtaining from Count Gilbert a grant of the adjoining wood, one of the most precious possessions of the lordship of Brionne.^[656] There Herlwin built his first church, and added a wooden cloister, which he afterwards exchanged for one of stone.^[657] There he ruled his house in peace and wisdom, his knowledge of the outer world, and especially 222his familiarity with the laws of Normandy, standing him, we are told, in good stead.^[658] Bec seemed destined to the ordinary lot of a monastic house—to a short succession of men of primitive zeal and primitive virtue, followed by a period of worldly prosperity, leading to its usual results of coldness and laxity. And such doubtless would have been its fate, the glory of Bec would have been as transitory as that of other monastic houses, but for the appearance of |Effects of the admission of Lanfranc.| one illustrious man, who came to be enrolled as a private member of the brotherhood, and who gave Bec for a while a special and honourable character with which hardly any other monastery in Christendom could compare. Abbot |Herlwin’s death. 1078.| Herlwin survived his first conversion forty-four years;^[659] his first humble church was pulled down and rebuilt, and |The church consecrated by Lanfranc. 1077.| the new fabric was hallowed in his presence by one whom he had himself received to the monastic order, one who had made Bec the light of the world, and who then returned to his old home in all the greatness of the Patriarch of the nations beyond the sea.^[660] If the first origin of the house was owing to the simple devotion of its founder and Abbot Herlwin, its lasting fame and splendour were no less owing to the varied learning and soaring genius of its renowned Prior Lanfranc.

The future Primate of England was one of the most illustrious witnesses to that feature in the Norman character which made the men of that race welcome strangers from every quarter, and which led to the settlement of so many eminent men of various nations, both in Normandy itself and in the conquered lands of Britain and 223Sicily.^[661] In the days of Richard the Good, monks and priests had flocked into Normandy, even from such distant lands as Greece and Armenia, and the Norman Duke had kept up a close intercourse even with the monks of Mount Sinai.^[662] The first great teacher of Bec came from a nearer, though |His birth at Pavia. 1005.| still a distant, region. Lanfranc, Prior of Bec, Abbot of Saint Stephen’s, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a native of the Lombard city of Pavia, and was born of a family which, though perhaps not technically noble, was at any rate |His learning;| eminent and honourable.^[663] He was full of all the secular learning of the time, and his range of study seems to have taken in the unusual accomplishment of a knowledge of Greek.^[664] A knowledge of that tongue was then probably less rare than it became somewhat later, and it is an accomplishment which might be looked for in Italy, even in the northern part of the peninsula, more naturally than 224|his knowledge of Greek,| in any country north of the Alps. At the time of Lanfranc’s birth and youth, a large part of Southern Italy was still subject to the Eastern Emperors, and the use of the Greek language survived, both in Sicily and on the main land, long after the establishment of the Norman dynasty. A knowledge of that tongue must therefore have been highly expedient for those who were likely to have any intercourse, diplomatic or commercial, with the parts of Italy where it was spoken; still we cannot suppose that its acquirement formed any part of the ordinary course of study |and of Civil Law.| of a Lombard scholar. But the great object of Lanfranc’s study was one specially adapted to the Imperialist city where he was born, the study of the Civil Law. It was an hereditary calling in his family; his father Hanbald had been a lawyer of distinction,^[665] and his son more than maintained the credit of his house. As a pleader, he was eminently successful; the veterans of the courts could not resist the eloquence and the learning with which he spoke, and his legal opinions were accepted as decisive by the magistrates of his native city.^[666] His father died while Lanfranc was still young, and his honours and offices were offered to his son.^[667] Why a man who had such fair prospects at home should have forsaken that home for the distant and barbarous Normandy, it is not easy to guess.^[668] We are told only that he heard that Normandy was a land which 225|He opens a school at Avranches. 1039.| lacked learning, and that its young Duke was disposed to give encouragement to learned men.^[669] At all events, early in the period of anarchy which formed the early years of the reign of William, Lanfranc came into Normandy with a following of scholars, and opened a school in the episcopal city of Avranches.^[670] The cathedral church of that |1172.| city beheld in after times the penance by which the greatest successor of William atoned for his share in the death of the most renowned among the successors of Lanfranc. But the glory of Avranches has passed away. From it, alone among the seven episcopal towns of Normandy, minster and Bishoprick have wholly vanished.^[671] But, for those few years of the life of Lanfranc, Avranches must have been an intellectual centre without a rival on this side of the Alps. The fame of the great teacher was spread abroad, and scholars flocked to him from all quarters. But as yet his learning was wholly secular; his pursuits were peaceful, but he thought perhaps less of divine things than Herlwin had thought when he rode after Count Gilbert to battle. At last divine grace touched his heart; a sudden conversion made him resolve to embrace the monastic |He becomes a monk at Bec. 1042.| profession. He left Avranches suddenly, without giving any notice to his friends and scholars, and set forth to seek for the poorest and most lowly monastery that could be found, for one which his own fame had never reached.^[672] A happy accident led him to Bec, which then 226fully answered his ideal.^[673] Received as a monk by Abbot Herlwin, he strove to hide himself from the world; he even at one time thought of leaving the monastery, and leading a life of utter solitude in the wilderness.^[674] But the |He becomes Prior. 1045.| Abbot required him on his obedience to remain, and he was advanced to the dignity of Prior.^[675] He had already proved his fitness to command by his readiness to obey. His predecessor in the Priorship, an unlearned man, had bidden him, when reading in the refectory, to shorten the second syllable of docere. The great scholar did as he was bid, deeming holy obedience to be something higher than the rules of Donatus.^[676] But such necessity was not long laid upon him; such a light as his could not long be hid under a bushel; his fame was again spread abroad, and, with it, the fame of the house in which he sojourned. Clerks and scholars, men of noble birth, even sons of princes, flocked to profit by the instruction of the learned Prior, and enriched the Abbey with costly gifts for his sake.^[677] 227The society increased so fast that the buildings were found to be too small, and the site not healthy enough for so great a multitude.^[678] By the persuasion of Lanfranc, Herlwin was induced to change his abode once more, and to raise a third house, larger and more stately than either of its predecessors,^[679] but still within the same valley and |His favour with William.| upon the banks of the same beck. At last the name of the Prior of Bec reached the ears of Duke William himself. Lanfranc became his trusted counsellor,^[680] and we shall presently find him acting zealously and successfully on his sovereign’s behalf, in pursuit of the object which, next to the Crown of England, was nearest to William’s heart. |He appears at the Synods of Rome and Vercelli. 1049, 1050.| The fame of Lanfranc soon spread beyond the bounds of Normandy; he appeared, as we have already seen, at a succession of synods, as the champion of the received doctrine of the Church.^[681] The theological position of Lanfranc I leave to be discussed by others;^[682] it is enough to say that, summoned before Pope and Council as a suspected heretic, he came away from Rome and Vercelli with the reputation of the most profound and most orthodox doctor of his time.^[683]

228The monastery of Ouche or Saint Evroul had, as far as the eleventh century was concerned, an origin of a different kind from that of Bec; but its story is really little more than that of Bec carried back into an earlier age. That is to say, while Bec was altogether a new foundation, Saint Evroul was, like many other religious houses both in England and Normandy, a restoration of an earlier one. In both countries the Scandinavian invaders had destroyed or pillaged countless churches and monasteries. Many of these last, sometimes after complete destruction, sometimes after dragging on a feeble existence during the intermediate time, rose again, like Crowland and Jumièges, in more than their former greatness. But the case of Saint Evroul was a peculiar one. Its temporary fall was owing, not to the devastations of heathen Northmen, but to the wars between Christian |Story of Ebrulf or Evroul. 575.| Normandy and Christian France. The history of its founder, Ebrulf or Evroul, a saint of the sixth century, is, in many respects, a forestalling of the history of Herlwin of Bec.^[684] Of noble birth in the city of Bayeux,—perhaps therefore of Saxon, rather than of either Frankish or Gaulish, blood,—high in favour at the court of Hlothar the son of Hlodwig, he lived, even as a layman, the life of a saint.^[685] At last he forsook the world; his wife and himself both took monastic vows; but Ebrulf, as Lanfranc had wished to do, presently forsook his monastery for a deeper seclusion. With three companions only, he sought out a lonely spot by the river Charenton, close by the forest of Ouche, on the borders of the dioceses of Lisieux, Evreux, 229and Seez. There he lived a hermit’s life, adorned, as we are told, by many miracles,^[686] and his cell, like the cell of Guthlac at Crowland, became the small beginning of a |Monastery of Saint Evroul; it escapes the Danish ravages;| famous monastery. The secluded site of the house saved it from the ravages of the Northmen, and the votaries of Saint Evroul, with almost unique good luck, remained undisturbed, while Hasting and Rolf were overthrowing so many holy places of their brethren elsewhere.^[687] But, during the troubled minority of Richard the Fearless, when King Lewis of Laôn and Duke Hugh of Paris were invading the defenceless Duchy,^[688] the monks of Saint Evroul received two seemingly honourable, but, as it |but is pillaged by Hugh the Great. 943.| turned out, highly dangerous, guests. These were Herlwin, Abbot of Saint Peter’s at Orleans, the Chancellor of Hugh the Great, and Ralph of Drangy his Chamberlain.^[689] Both, we are told, were men of great piety, but they showed their piety in a strange fashion. Soon after their visit, Duke Hugh gave orders for the ravage of that part of Normandy. His devout officers either despised or scrupled at plunder of a more vulgar kind;^[690] they remembered the 230hospitality of the monks of Saint Evroul, and requited it by carrying off all the ornaments of their church, including, what they most valued, the relics of their founder and other saints. The holy spoil was duly shared among various churches of the Duchy of France,^[691] and a large |The monastery forsaken.| body of the monks of Saint Evroul followed the objects of their veneration. A few however remained behind, and the brotherhood still dragged on a feeble existence for some time. At last the house of Saint Evroul was utterly forsaken and forgotten, and miracles were needed to point |The church restored by Restold.| out the spot where it had stood. A pious priest^[692] from Beauvais, Restold by name, moved by a divine vision, came and dwelt on the spot, and found benefactors willing to repair the ruined church.^[693] At last one special benefactor |Geroy and his family.| arose. Geroy, a man of great valour and piety, was lord of Escalfoy by the forest of Ouche, and of Montreuil near the Dive.^[694] Of mingled French and Breton extraction, he had been attached to the fortunes of the elder William of Belesme, probably as a vassal of some of the estates held by him under the Crown of France. In a |c. 1015.| fight against Count Herbert of Maine, when William and all the rest of his followers had fled, Geroy regained the day by his single valour.^[695] In return for this exploit, William introduced him at the court of Richard the Good, by whom he was allowed to succeed to the lordships already 231spoken of.^[696] They had been the property of Helgo, a Norman noble, to whose daughter Geroy had been betrothed, but the marriage was hindered by the premature death of the bride.^[697] By another wife he had a numerous family, many of whom were distinguished in Norman |William son of Geroy.| history.^[698] He was himself succeeded by his second son William who, like his father, was attached to the house of Belesme, and also distinguished himself in the war with Maine.^[699] He had however to contend for the possession of his estates against the violence of Count Gilbert of Brionne, a man who, on this as on some other occasions,^[700] seems to have failed to carry into his private relations those principles of honourable conduct which in so marked a way distinguished his administration of public affairs. William was a brave soldier and a faithful vassal, ready to undergo any personal loss on behalf of his lord or of 232his friend.^[701] He was also bountiful to the Church, though he strictly maintained the ecclesiastical privileges of his own lordships.^[702] Twice he made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, once during the height of his prosperity, and once after the great misfortune which clouded his later days. For |Blinded by William Talvas.| he it was whom the fierce Talvas, in defiance of every tie of gratitude, of hospitality, and of feudal honour, blinded and mutilated when he came as a guest to his bridal.^[703] The daughter of Talvas too, the cruel Mabel, pursued the house of Geroy throughout life with unrelenting hatred.^[704] |He grants Saint Evroul to Bec.| In his old age he became a monk at Bec, a house to which he had already been a benefactor.^[705] He had given to Herlwin and his monks the lands of Saint Evroul and the church lately restored by Restold. It now became a cell to the Abbey, inhabited by a small body of monks with Lanfranc at their head.^[706] But presently William’s nephews, Hugh and Robert of Grantmesnil,^[707] were designing the foundation of a monastery near the lordship on the Oudon from which they took their name. 233Of these two brothers, Robert became a monk of Saint Evroul; of Hugh we shall hear again in the history both |Restoration of Saint Evroul. 1050.| of Normandy and of England. Their pious uncle approved of the design, but pointed out that the site which they had chosen was lacking in the two great monastic necessaries of wood and water.^[708] Let them rather join with him in restoring to its ancient splendour the fallen house of Saint Evroul, placed on a spot suited for every monastic want.^[709] Uncle and nephews joined their energies and their purses; the rights of Bec over the church and lands were exchanged for another estate, and the new Saint Evroul arose with the full licence of Duke William, of Archbishop Malger, and of the other Prelates of Normandy. Monks were brought from Jumièges, and a brother of |1050.| that house, Theodoric by name, became the first Abbot of the new foundation.^[710] But the house seems to have been |1058.| far less fortunate than Bec in its rulers. Theodoric after a while laid aside his office, driven to resignation, it is said, by the cabals of the co-founder Robert of Grantmesnil, who, having made his profession in the house, had obtained |1059.| the rank of Prior.^[711] Robert was chosen to the |1063.| Abbotship, but, a few years after, he was himself deposed, 234or driven to resignation, by Duke William,^[712] and long controversies followed between him and his successor Osbern.^[713]

I have given a sketch of the origin of these two famous monasteries, partly because their stories bring before us so many members of the leading Norman families, but mainly |Connexion of the religious movement in Normandy with the Conquest of England.| as illustrating the great religious movement which was then at work in Normandy, and which was not without its share in bringing about the Conquest of England. When we come to a later stage in our history, we shall see with what art William, and his trusty counsellor Lanfranc, contrived to appeal to the religious feelings of the Normans, to represent the English King as a sinner against the local saints of Normandy, and to represent the Conquest of England as a holy war undertaken to chastise the ungodly. Such a vein of sentiment could hardly have been safely appealed to except at a time when there was a great religious stir in the national mind. One side of this movement is shown in the foundation of so many monasteries, in the zeal with which men gave of their substance for their erection, in the eagerness with which men, often the same men, pressed to become members of the holy brotherhoods. But a still more honourable fruit of the religious mind of Normandy, one however which Normandy only shared with many other parts of Europe, is to be found in the acceptance during this period of the famous Truce of God.

This extraordinary institution is the most speaking witness, at once to the ferocity of the times, and also to 235the deep counter feeling which underlaid men’s minds. Clergy and laity alike felt that the state of things which they saw daily before their eyes was a standing sin against God and man, repugnant alike to natural humanity and to the precepts of the Christian religion. States were everywhere so subdivided, governments were everywhere so weak, that, in most parts of Europe, every man who had the needful force at his command simply did that which was right in his own eyes. We cannot doubt that in those parts of Britain where the authority of the English Kings was really established, the evil was smaller than it was in any part of Gaul.^[714] Neither can we doubt that in Normandy, during the minority of William, the evil was even greater than it was in other parts of Gaul. But the extreme disorder of that minority was simply an exaggerated form of what might be called the normal state of things throughout the greater part of Western |Private war.| Europe. Every man claimed the right of private war against every other man who was not bound to him by any special tie as his lord or his vassal. And the distinction between private war and mere robbery and murder was not always very sharply drawn. It is clear that, in such a state of things, an utterly unscrupulous man, to whom warfare, however unjust, was a mere trifle, had a decided advantage over his more peaceable neighbours. A few such men as William Talvas might throw a whole province into disorder; and men who were in no way naturally disposed to wrong or violence were necessarily driven to constant warfare in sheer self-defence. The poor and the weak were of course the chief victims; when one gentleman harried the lands of another, the immediate tillers of the earth must have suffered far more severely 236than their master. It was the tenants of Herlwin, rather than Herlwin himself, who had most bitterly to complain |Undercurrent against the violence of the time.| of the ravages of Count Gilbert.^[715] The lower classes then had especial reason to curse the lawlessness of the times; yet we can well believe that there were many men of higher rank, who were dragged into these wretched contests against their own will, and who would have been well pleased to keep their swords sheathed, save when the lawful command of their sovereign required them to be drawn. These two contending feelings can always be traced side by side. Every attempt to put any kind of check on the violence of the times was always received with general good will; and yet the practical result of so many praiseworthy attempts was, after all, something extremely small. The men who were ready to keep the peace, and to observe the rules made to preserve it, were left in a manner at the mercy of those who refused to obey any rule whatsoever. Whatever laws were made to preserve the peace, the peaceable man was still, as before, driven to fight in his own defence. Still the movement in favour of law and order was a very remarkable and a very general one. The call to observe peace towards Christians at home was a call, quite as general, though much more gradual, than the call to wage war against the |Comparison between the Truce of God and the Crusades.| Infidels in other lands. But the call to the Crusade fell in with every side of the temper of the times; the proclamation of the Truce of God fell in with only one, and that its least powerful, side. Good and bad men alike were led by widely different motives to rush to the Holy War. The men who endeavoured to obey the Truce of God must often have found themselves the helpless victims of those who despised it.

A movement on behalf of peace and good will towards 237|The form taken by the movement necessarily ecclesiastical.| men could not fail in those days to assume an ecclesiastical form. As of old the Amphiktyonic Council, the great religious synod of Greece, strove to put some bounds to the horrors of war as waged between Greek and Greek,^[716] so now, in the same spirit, a series of Christian synods strove, by means of ecclesiastical decrees and ecclesiastical censures, to put some bounds to the horrors of war as |Moderation of the reform attempted.| waged between Christian and Christian. And at both times the spiritual power showed its wisdom in not attempting too much. War was not wholly forbidden in either case, for such a precept would have been hopelessly impossible to carry out. But certain extreme measures were to be avoided, certain classes of persons were to be respected, certain holy seasons were to be kept altogether free from warfare. Such at least was the form in which the Truce of God was preached in Normandy. But Normandy was one of the last countries to receive the Truce, and it seems not to have appeared there in its earliest shape. It would rather seem as if the first attempts at its establishment had tried to compass too much, and as if later preachers of peace had been driven to content themselves with a much less close approach to |The Truce first preached in Aquitaine. 1034.| universal brotherhood. The movement began in Aquitaine, and the vague and rhetorical language of our authority would seem to imply that all war, at any rate all private war, was forbidden under pain of ecclesiastical censures.^[717] It must not be forgotten that, in that age, it 238|Difficulty of defining public and private war.| must have been exceedingly difficult to draw the distinction between public and private war. In England indeed, where an efficient constitutional system existed, the distinction was plain. Except when sudden invasion required the immediate action of the local power, no war could be lawful which was not decreed by the King and his Witan. There might be rebellions and civil wars, but there was no recognized private warfare in the continental sense. But in Gaul it would have been impossible to deny the right of war and peace to the great vassals of the Crown, to the sovereigns of Normandy and Aquitaine. And, if the vassals of the Crown might make war on each other, on what principle could the same right be refused to their vassals, to the Lords of Alençon and Brionne? Among the endless links of the feudal chain, it was hard to find the exact point where sovereignty ended and where simple property began. A preacher therefore who denounced private war must have had some difficulty in |Enthusiastic reception of the Truce.| so doing without denouncing war altogether. But the doctrine, hard as it might be to carry out in practice, was rapturously received at its first announcement. As the first preaching of the Crusade was met with one universal cry of “God wills it,” so the Bishops, Abbots, and other preachers of the Truce were met with a like universal cry of Peace, Peace, Peace.^[718] Men bound themselves to God and to one another to abstain from all wrong and violence, and they engaged solemnly to renew the 239obligation every five years.^[719] From Aquitaine the movement spread through Burgundy, royal and ducal.^[720] But it seems to have been gradually found that the establishment |Relaxation about 1041.| of perfect peace on earth was hopeless. After seven years from the first preaching of peace, we find the requirements of its apostles greatly relaxed. It was found vain to forbid all war, even all private war. All that was now attempted was to forbid violence of every kind from the evening of Wednesday till the morning of Monday.^[721] It |Reception of the Truce in Burgundy and Lotharingia.| was in this shape that the Truce was first preached in northern and eastern Gaul. The days of Christ’s supper, of His passion, of His rest in the grave and His resurrection, were all to be kept free from strife and bloodshed. The Burgundian Bishops were zealous in the cause; so especially was Richard, Bishop of Verdun in Lotharingia.^[722] But Bishop Gerard of Cambray maintained, on the other 240|Opposition of Gerard of Cambray.| hand, that the whole affair was no concern of the ecclesiastical power. It was, he argued, the business of temporal rulers to fight, and the business of spiritual men to pray; the pious scheme of his brethren could never be carried out, and the attempt to enforce it could lead only to an increase of false-swearing.^[723] This Prelate, in his worldly wisdom, seems to have looked deeper into the hearts of the men of his time than his more hopeful and enthusiastic brethren. At last the new teaching reached Normandy. The luxury of mutual destruction was dear to the Norman mind; for a long time any restraint upon it was strongly resisted, and even the preaching of Bishop Richard himself had for a long time no effect.^[724] Miracles were needed to convince so stiff-necked a generation, but at last the apostolic labours of Hagano, the successor of Richard, |The Truce received at the Councils of Caen [1042],| brought even Normandy to a better mind.^[725] The young Duke and his counsellors were urgent in behalf of the Truce, and it was at last received by the Clergy and Laity of Normandy in the famous Council held for that purpose at Caen.^[726] We are told that it was most carefully 241observed;^[727] but, nearly forty years after, when the long reign of William was drawing towards its end, it had to be |and Lillebonne [1080].| again ordained in another Council at Lillebonne, and all the powers of the State, ecclesiastical and temporal, were called on to help in enforcing its observance.^[728]

The men who laboured to put even this small check on the violence of the times are worthy of eternal honour, and it is probable that the institution of the Truce of God really did something for a while to lessen the frightful anarchy into which Normandy had fallen. But we can hardly doubt that a far more effectual check was supplied by the increasing strength of William’s government, as he drew nearer to manhood, and more and more fully displayed the stern and vigorous determination of his character. But neither the one nor the other could avail wholly to preserve Normandy for some years to come |Wide spread conspiracy against William. 1047.| either from civil war or from foreign invasion. A far more deeply spread conspiracy than any that we have as yet heard of was now formed against the Duke. We have now reached one of the great epochs in the life of the Conqueror; we shall soon have to tell of his first battle 242and his first victory. Within a few years after the proclamation of the Truce of God, not this or that isolated Baron, but the whole of the most Norman part of Normandy |Intrigues of Guy of Burgundy.| rose in open revolt against its sovereign. The prime mover in the rebellion was Guy of Burgundy.^[729] He |His friendship with the Duke, and his large possessions.| had been brought up with the Duke as his friend and kinsman,^[730] and he had received large possessions from his bounty. Among other broad lands, he held Vernon, the border fortress on the Seine, so often taken and retaken in the wars between France and Normandy. He held also Brionne, the castle on the Risle, lately the home of William’s faithful guardian Count Gilbert.^[731] But the old jealousy was never lulled to sleep; the sway of the Bastard was insupportable, and, the greater the qualities that William displayed, the more insupportable was it doubtless felt to be. William had now reached manhood. After such a discipline as he had gone through, his nineteen years of life had given him all the caution and experience of a far more advanced age. He was as ready and as able to show himself a born leader of men as Cnut had been at the same time of life.^[732] The turbulent spirits of Normandy began to feel that they had found a master; unless a blow were struck in time, the days of anarchy and licence, the days of castle-building and oppression, would |He plots with the lords of the Bessin and Côtentin.| soon be over. Guy of Brionne therefore found many ready listeners, especially among the great lords of the true Norman land west of the Dive. He, the lawful heir of their Dukes, no bastard, no tanner’s grandson, but sprung of a lawful marriage between the princely houses 243of Burgundy and Normandy, claimed the Duchy as his right by birth.^[733] But, if the lords of the Bessin and the |Scheme for a division of the Duchy.| Côtentin would aid him in dispossessing the Bastard, he would willingly share the land with them.^[734] This most probably means that he would content himself with the more purely French parts of the Duchy, the original grant to Rolf, and would leave the Barons of the later settlements in the enjoyment of independence. We can thus understand, what at first sight seems puzzling, why the cause of Guy was taken up with such zeal. Otherwise it is hard to see why the chiefs of any part of Normandy, and, above all, the chiefs of this more strictly Scandinavian part, should cast aside a prince who was at any rate a native Norman, in favour of one whose connexion with Normandy was only by the spindle side, and who must have seemed |Geographical division of Parties;| in their eyes little better than a Frenchman. We can thus also understand the geographical division of parties during the war which followed. William is faithfully supported by the French districts to the East; by Rouen and the 244|Rouen and the French lands loyal to William.| whole land to the right of the Dive. These are the districts which the division between Guy and the confederate Lords would have given to the Burgundian prince, and which no doubt armed zealously against any such arrangement. To them the overthrow of William’s authority meant their own handing over to a foreign ruler. But to |Bayeux and the Danish lands join the rebellion.| the inhabitants, at any rate to the great lords, of the Lower Normandy, the Scandinavian land, it would seem that the struggle against the ducal power was simply a struggle for renewed independence. We are told that the sympathies of the mass of the people, even in the Bessin and the Côtentin, lay with William.^[735] This is quite possible. The peasant revolt may well have left behind it some root of abiding bitterness, bitterness which would show itself far more strongly against the immediate lords of the soil than against the distant sovereign, who is, in such cases, always looked to as a possible protector. But the great lords of the western districts joined eagerly in the rebellion; and the smaller gentry, willingly or unwillingly, followed their banners. The descendants of the second colony of Rolf,^[736] of the colonies of William Longsword and Harold Blaatand, drew the sword against the domination of the districts which, even a hundred years before, had become French.^[737] Saxon Bayeux and Danish Coutances rose against Romanized Rouen and Evreux. We know not whether the old speech and the old worship may not still have lingered in some out-of-the-way corners; it is certain that the difference in feeling between the two districts was still living and working, just as the outward difference is still to this day stamped on their inhabitants. |Rebel leaders;| The foremost men of western Normandy at once attached themselves to Guy, and joined zealously in his plans. First in the revolt was Nigel or Neal of Saint Saviour, 245Viscount^[738] of Coutances, the son of the chief who had, forty-six |Neal of Saint Saviour.| years before, beaten back the host of Æthelred.^[739] The elder Neal had died, full of years, during the days of anarchy,^[740] and his son was destined to an equally long possession of his honours. In the very heart of his peninsula stood his castle by the Ouve, already consecrated by a small college of Canons, the foundation of his grandfather Roger, soon to give way to his own famous Abbey of Saint Saviour.^[741] This point formed the natural centre of the whole conspiracy. From that castle, Neal, the ruler of the Côtentin, commanded the whole of that varied region, its rich meads, its hills and valleys, its rocks and marshes, the dreary landes by the great minster of Lessay, the cliffs which look down on the fortress of Cæsar, and which had stood as beacons to guide the sails of Harold Blaatand to the rescue.^[742] The Viscount of Saint Saviour now became the chief leader of the rebellion, won over by the promises and gifts of Guy, who did not scruple to rob his mother of her possessions, and to bestow them on his ally.^[743] With Neal 246|Randolf, Viscount of Bayeux.| stood Randolf, Viscount of Bayeux, who, from his castle of Brichessart, held the same sway over the Saxons of the Bessin which Neal held over the Danes of the Côtentin.^[744] |Hamon Dentatus.| In the same company was Hamon, lord of Thorigny, lord too of the steep of Creuilly, where a vast fabric of later times has displaced his ancient donjon, and where the adjoining church bears witness to the splendour and bounty of the generation immediately following his own.^[745] Some personal peculiarity entitled him to bear, in the language of our Latin chroniclers, one of the most glorious cognomina of old Rome, and Hamon Dentatus became the forefather of men famous in British as well as in Norman history.^[746] One loyal chronicler, in his zeal, speaks of the rebel by the strange name of Antichrist;^[747] but, as in the case of Thurstan of Falaise, the stain was wiped out in the next generation. His son, Robert Fitz-Hamon, was destined to set the seal to the work of Offa and of Harold, to press down the yoke for ever upon the necks of the southern Cymry, and to surround his princely fortress of 247Cardiff with the lowlier castles of his twelve homagers of |Grimbald of Plessis.| the land of Morganwg. Hardly less famous was a third Baron from the Saxon land, Grimbald of Plessis, whose ancestors and whose descendants have won no renown, but whose own name still remains impressed upon his fortress, and whose sister’s son became the forefather of a mighty house in England. Of her stock came William of Albini, who, like the Tudor of later days, won the love of a widowed Queen, and whose name still lives among his works in the fortresses of Arundel and Castle Rising.^[748] By the help of these men the claims of the Burgundian became widely acknowledged. They swore to support his rights, and to deprive the Bastard of the Duchy which he had invaded, whether by force of arms or by the baser acts |Preparations for the revolt.| of treachery. They put their castles into a state of thorough defence; they stored them for a campaign or a siege,^[749] and made ready for the most extensive and thoroughly organized revolt which the troubled reign of the young Duke had yet beheld.

The revolt began, as an earlier revolt had begun,^[750] with a treacherous attempt to seize or murder the Duke, in which Grimbald seems to have been the immediate agent.^[751] |Attempt to seize William at Valonges.| The opportunity was tempting, as William was now at a point in Neal’s own Viscounty, at no great distance from his own castle. He was at Valognes, the old town so rich in Roman remains, and the rich and fanciful outline of whose Gothic cupola is one of the most striking objects in 248the architecture of the district. Perhaps some scent of the coming danger had reached him, and he had ventured into the enemy’s country in order to search out matters for himself. But, in any case, he did not neglect the chosen amusement to which he and his race were given up, even beyond other men of their time. Several days had been spent in the employment of William’s favourite weapon the bow^[752] against either savage or harmless victims. At |William warned by his fool.| last, one night, when all his party, except his immediate household, had left him, while he was yet in his first sleep, Gallet his fool, like his uncle Walter at an earlier stage of his life,^[753] burst into his room, staff in hand, and aroused him. If he did not arise and flee for his life, he would never leave the Côtentin a living man. The Duke arose, |His escape.| half dressed in haste, leaped on his horse, seemingly alone, and rode for his life all that night. A bright moon guided him, and he pressed on till he reached the estuary formed by the rivers Ouve and Vire. There the ebbing tide supplied a ford, which was afterwards known as the Duke’s Way. William crossed in safety, and landed in the district of Bayeux, near the church of Saint Clement. He entered the building, and prayed for God’s help on his way. His natural course would now have been to strike for Bayeux; but the city was in the hands of his enemies; he determined therefore to keep the line between Bayeux and the sea, and thus to take his chance of reaching the loyal districts. As the sun rose, he drew near to the church and castle of Rye,^[754] the dwelling-place of a faithful vassal named Hubert. The Lord of Rye was standing at 249his own gate, between the church and the mound on which his castle was raised.^[755] William was still urging on |His reception by Hubert of Rye.| his foaming horse past the gate; but Hubert knew and stopped his sovereign, and asked the cause of this headlong ride. He heard that the Duke was flying for his life before his enemies. He welcomed his prince to his house, he set him on a fresh horse, he bade his three sons ride by his side, and never leave him till he was safely lodged |He reaches Falaise.| in his own castle of Falaise.^[756] The command of their father was faithfully executed by his loyal sons. We are not surprised to hear that the house of Rye rose high in William’s favour; and we can hardly grudge them their share in the lands of England, when we find that Eudes the son of Hubert, the King’s Dapifer and Sheriff of Essex, was not only the founder of the great house of Saint John at Colchester, but won a purer fame as one of the very few Normans in high authority who knew how to win the love and confidence of the conquered English.^[757]

250The Bessin and the Côtentin were now in open rebellion. We are told that men cursed the rebels, and wished well to the Duke in their hearts. But the revolted Barons had for the time the upper hand. They seized on the ducal revenues within their districts, and robbed and slew many who still clave to their allegiance. The dominion of the male line of Rolf, the very existence of Normandy as an united state, seemed in jeopardy. William did not venture to meet his enemies with the forces of the districts which |He seeks help of the King of the French.| still remained faithful. He was driven to seek for foreign aid, and he sought it in a quarter where one would think that nothing short of despair could have led him to think of seeking for it. He craved help of one who was indeed bound to grant it by every official and by every personal tie, but who had hitherto acted towards William only as a faithless enemy, ready to grasp at any advantage, however mean and treacherous. The Duke of the Normans, driven to such humiliation by the intrigues of an ungrateful kinsman, crossed the French border, and made his suit to his |Henry comes to his help in person.| Lord King Henry at Poissy.^[758] He met with favour in the eyes of his suzerain; a French army, with the King at its head, was soon ready to march to the support of Duke William against his rebels. It is hard to see why Henry, 251whose whole earlier and later conduct is of so opposite a kind, stood forth for this once faithfully to discharge the duties of an honourable overlord towards an injured |His probable motives.| vassal. One would have thought that a revolt which, above all others, tended to the dismemberment of Normandy would have been hailed by Henry as exactly falling in with the interests of the suzerain power. Instead of the one strong and united state which had hitherto cut him off from the whole coast from Britanny to Ponthieu, there was now a chance of the establishment of two or three small principalities, each insignificant in itself, and all probably hostile to one another. Such states would run a fair risk of being recovered one by one by their overlord. Henry had himself in past years encroached on the Norman territory, and he had not scrupled to give encouragement to Norman traitors against their own sovereign. Yet the common interest of princes may have led him to see that it was bad policy to abet open rebellion, and he may have doubted whether the aggrandizement of the mutinous Barons of the Bessin and the Côtentin would be any real gain to France. Such neighbours might prove far more turbulent as vassals, and might not be much more easy to subdue as enemies, than the comparatively firm and orderly government of the Dukes of Rouen. At all events French aid was freely granted to the princely suppliant.^[759] The King set forth at the head of his army 252to join the troops which William had gathered from the loyal districts, and to share with them in a decisive encounter with the rebel forces.

The French and the loyal Normans joined their forces some miles to the east of Caen, in the neighbourhood of the memorable field of Val-ès-dunes. The spot is not one specially attractive in itself; it is not one of those spots which seem marked out by the hand of nature as specially designed to become the scene of great historical events. But we shall see that, for the purposes of the particular battle which was fought there, no ground could have been better suited. Nor, at first sight, does the fight of Val-ès-dunes, an engagement of cavalry between two Norman factions, seem to have any claim to a place among the |its importance in the life of William.| great battles of history. But Val-ès-dunes was the first pitched battle of the Conqueror; it was the field on which he first won a right to that lofty title, and the lessons which he learned there stood him in good stead on a far more awful day. And, more than this, it was there that William conquered his own land and his own people, and by that earlier conquest both schooled and strengthened himself for his mightier conquest beyond the sea. Normandy had first to be firmly grasped, and her fierce Barons to be brought under the yoke, before the hand of William could be stretched forth to fix its grasp on England, and to press the yoke upon the necks of her people. In a word, the strife with Randolf and Neal and their revolted provinces was the needful forerunner of the strife with Harold and his Kingdom. The tourney of Norman horsemen upon the open slope of Val-ès-dunes was William’s school of fence for the sterner clashing of axe and spear upon the palisaded heights of Senlac.

253And there is another aspect in which the two battles have a common feature. Val-ès-dunes, no less than Senlac, was a struggle between the Roman and the Teuton. The fact was not indeed forced in the same way upon men’s minds by the outward contrast of language, of tactics, of every badge of national difference. Still it is none the less true that, at Val-ès-dunes, the old Scandinavian blood of Normandy found its match, and more than its match, in the power of France and of the French portions of the Norman Duchy. Danish Coutances and Saxon Bayeux were brought face to face with Romanized |District which supported William.| Rouen and Evreux and with royal Paris itself. From all the lands east of the Dive men flocked to the Ducal standard. The episcopal cities of Lisieux and Evreux, along with primatial Rouen, sent forth their loyal burghers, and the men of the surrounding districts pressed no less eagerly to the muster. They came, according to the old division, which the suppression of the peasant revolt had not wholly broken up, arranged in companies which still retained the name of communes, suggesting the freedom which they had perhaps not wholly lost.^[760] From beyond the Seine came the troops of Caux, and from the south of the Duchy came the men of Auge, and of Duke Robert’s County of Hiesmes. And who can doubt that foremost among them all were the burghers of William’s own Falaise, zealous on behalf of a Prince who was also their own immediate countryman? But the whole west of Normandy, the land where the old Norman speech and spirit had longest lingered, was arrayed on the side of the rebels. Except the contingent of his own birthplace and its neighbourhood, no part of the Duke’s force seems to have come from the lands west of the Dive; all else came 254from the old domain of Rolf, the oldest, but, then as now, not the most Norman Normandy.^[761]

The field of battle lies just within the hostile country.^[762] South-east of Caen, in continuation of the high ground of Allemagne^[763] immediately south of the town, stretches a long, broad, and slightly elevated plain, sloping gently towards the east.^[764] It hardly deserves to be called a hill, and the indentations with which its sides are broken hardly deserve to be called valleys.^[765] Several villages and churches, Secqueville, Bellengreville, Billy, Chicheboville, form the boundaries of the field, but the plain itself is open and without any remarkable feature. A ridge somewhat higher than the rest of the ground, known as Mount Saint Lawrence, is the only conspicuous point of the plain itself, and this marks the western boundary of the actual battle-ground. The little stream of the Muance, a tributary of the Orne, bounds the plain to the south-east.^[766] To 255the north lies the high ground of Argences, over which William advanced with the troops of the loyal districts. The French auxiliaries, approaching from the south by way of Mezidon, first reached the little village of Valmeray, where a ruined tower of later date marks the site of the church of Saint Brice in which King Henry heard mass |Junction of the Ducal and French forces.| before the battle.^[767] Meanwhile the Duke’s forces crossed the Muance at the ford of Berengier,^[768] and at once joined the French. King and Duke now ranged their troops in the order in which it was most natural to meet an enemy advancing from the west. The Normans, who had come from the north, formed the right wing, while the French, coming from the south, naturally formed the left.^[769] There was pitched the royal standard, on which we are told that the presumption of the upstart house of Paris had dared to emblazon the eagle of Julius and Charles.^[770] King Henry and Duke William, each baton in hand,^[771] were now marshalling their troops, and the battle seemed about to begin, when, if we may trust our only detailed narrative of that day’s fight, one side was cheered and the other dispirited by an unlooked for incident.

Ralph of Tesson was lord of the forest of Cingueleiz, 256|Ralph of Tesson joins the Duke.| the forest some way to the south of Caen, between the rivers Orne and Lise, and his chief seat was at Harcourt Thury. He was a lord of great power, and his contingent is said to have mustered no less than a hundred and twenty knights with their banners and tokens.^[772] He had no ground of offence against the Duke; yet he had joined in the conspiracy, and had sworn on the saints at Bayeux to smite William wherever he found him.^[773] But his heart smote him when he found himself standing face to face against his lord in open battle. His knights too pressed around him, and reminded him of his homage and plighted faith, and how he who fought against his natural lord had no right to fief or honour.^[774] On the other hand the Viscounts Neal and Randolf pressed him to stand firmly by them, and promised great rewards as the price of his adherence. For a while he stood doubtful, keeping his 257troop apart from either army. We are told that the King and the Duke marked them as they stood, and that William told Henry that he knew them for the men of Ralph of Tesson, that their leader had no grudge against him, and that he believed that they would all soon be on his side. Presently the arguments of his own knights prevailed with Ralph; he bade them halt, and he himself spurred across the field, shouting as his war-cry the name of his lordship of Thury.^[775] He rode up to the Duke, he struck him with his glove, and so performed his oath to smite William wherever he found him.^[776] The Duke welcomed the returning penitent, and Ralph rode back to his men. His detachment stood aside for a space till the two hosts were engaged in the thick of the battle. He then watched his opportunity, and made a vigorous charge on the side of the Duke.

Such an auspicious reinforcement might well stir up the spirits of the young Duke and his followers. Every man was eager for battle. A fierce combat of cavalry began. We have heard of the infantry of the communes as appearing at the ducal muster, but we hear nothing of them in the battle. We hear nothing of the Norman archers, who were to win so terrible a renown upon a later field. All is one vast tourney, mounted knights charging one another with shield, sword, and lance. The first great battle of William, like the first great battle of Alexander,^[777] was truly 258a battle of chivalry in every sense of the word, a hand to hand personal fight between mounted nobles on either side. On pressed the Duke, sword in hand, seeking out the perjured Viscounts,^[778] and shouting the war-cry of Normandy, “Dex aie.”^[779] On the same side rose the shout of “Montjoye-Saint-Denys,” the national war-cry of the French Kingdom. From the rebel host arose the names of various local saints, patrons of the castles and churches of the revolted leaders, Saint Sever, Saint Amand, and others of less renown.^[780] On the rebel left rode the men of the Bessin, on the right those of the Côtentin. The men of the peninsula thus came face to face with the |Personal exertions of King Henry.| royal troops; the King of the French, as in the old days of Lewis and Harold,^[781] had to meet in close fight with the fiercest and most unconquerable warriors of the Norman name. And well and bravely did King Henry do his duty on that one day of his life. Even in the Norman picture, it is around the King, rather than around the Duke, that the main storm of battle is made to centre. The knights now met on each side, lance to lance, and, when their lances were shivered, sword to sword. There was no difference of tactics, 259no contrast between one weapon and another; the fight of Val-ès-dunes was the sheer physical encounter of horse and man, the mere trial of personal strength and personal skill in knightly exercises. The King, as in such a fight any man of common courage must do, exposed himself freely to danger; but, as far as his personal adventures went, the royal share in the battle was somewhat unlucky. Once, if not twice, the King of the French, the overlord of Normandy, was hurled from his horse by the thrust of a Norman lance. A knight of the Côtentin first overthrew him by a sudden charge. The exploit was long remembered in the rhymes of his warlike province,^[782] but the hero of it purchased his renown with his life. The King was unhurt, but the report of such an accident might easily spread confusion among his army. Like more renowned warriors before and after, like Eadmund at Sherstone,^[783] like William at Senlac, it was needful that he should show himself to his followers, and wipe out the misfortune by fresh exploits. Henry was therefore soon again in the thickest of the fight; but, less fortunate than either Eadmund or William, the like mishap befell him a second time.^[784] The King presently encountered one of 260the three great chiefs of the rebellion; another thrust, dealt by the lance of Hamon, again laid Henry on the ground; but a well timed stroke from a French knight more than avenged this second overthrow; the Lord of Thorigny was carried off dead on his shield like an old Spartan.^[785]

The King honoured his valiant adversary, and, by his express order, Hamon was buried with all fitting splendour before the Church of Our Lady at Esquai on the Orne.^[786]

The King is thus made decidedly the most prominent figure in the picture, and, somewhat inglorious as were Henry’s personal experiences that day, it is to him and his Frenchmen that the Norman poet does not scruple to attribute the victory.^[787] The fight appears throughout as |Exploits and good fortune of William.| a fight between Normans and Frenchmen.^[788] But the Duke of the Normans himself was not idle. If his royal ally 261was personally unlucky, it was on this day that William began that career of personal success, of good fortune in the mere tug of battle, which, till the clouded evening of his life, was as conspicuous as the higher triumphs of his military genius and his political craft. Men loved to tell how the young Duke slew with his own hand the beloved vassal of Randolf, Hardrez, the choicest warrior of Bayeux;^[789] how the veteran champion, in the pride of his might, rode defiant in the front rank; how the Duke rode straight at him, not justing with his lance as in a mimic tourney, but smiting hand to hand with the sword. The poet rises to an almost Homeric flight, when he tells us how William smote the rebel below the chin, how he drove the sharp steel between the throat and the chest, how the body fell beneath his stroke and the soul passed away.^[790]

The fortune of the day was now distinctly turning against the rebels; but, had all of them displayed equal courage, the issue of the struggle might still have been unfavourable to King and Duke. Neal of Saint Saviour still fought among the foremost of the men of his peninsula, but the heart of his accomplice from Bayeux began to fail him. Randolf had seen his most cherished vassal fall by the hand of his young sovereign; his heart quailed lest the like fate should be his own; he feared lest Neal 262had fled; he feared that he was betrayed to the enemy; he repented that he had ever put on his helmet; it was sad to be taken captive, it was a still worse doom to be slain. The battle ceased to give him any pleasure;^[791] he gave way before every charge; he wandered in front and in rear; at last he lost heart altogether; he dropped his lance and his shield, he stretched forth his neck,^[792] and rode |Neal continues the fight to the last.| for his life. The cowards, we are told, followed him; but Neal still continued the fight, giving and taking blows till his strength failed him. The French pressed upon him; their numbers increased, the numbers of the Normans lessened; some of his followers had fled, others lay dead and dying around him. At last the mighty lord of the Côtentin saw that all hope was lost. On the rising ground of Saint Lawrence the last blow seems to have been struck. The spot was afterwards marked by a commemorative chapel, which was destroyed by the Huguenots in the religious wars. On its site it doubtless was that the valiant Neal at last turned and left the field, seemingly the last man of the whole rebel army.

The rout now became general. The example of Randolf drew after it far more followers than the example of Neal. The rebels rode for their lives in small parties, the troops of the King and the Duke following hard upon them, and smiting them from the rear. From the ridge of Saint Lawrence they rode westward, to reach the friendly land of Bayeux;^[793] they rode by the Abbey of Fontenay and the 263quarries of Allemagne; but the flood of the Orne checked their course; men and horses were swept away by the stream, or were slaughtered by the pursuers in the attempt to cross; the mills of Borbillon, we are told, were stopped by the dead bodies.^[794]

The victory was a decisive one, and it was one which proved no less decisive in its lasting results than it had been |The French auxiliaries return.| as a mere success on the field of battle. King Henry, who had done his work well and faithfully, now went back to his own land, and left William to complete the reduction of his revolted subjects. One of them, the original author of the plot, still offered him a long and vigorous resistance. Of the conduct of Guy of Burgundy in the field we hear nothing, except an incidental mention of a wound which he received there.^[795] Indeed, since the appearance of his three great Norman adherents, the |Escape of Guy.| Burgundian prince has nearly dropped out of sight.^[796] He now reappears, to receive from the Norman writers a vast out-pouring of scorn on account of his flight from the field,^[797] though it does not appear to have been in any way more ignominious than the flight of the mass of his Norman allies. At any rate he was not borne away in the indiscriminate rush of his comrades towards the Orne. He 264escaped, with a large body of companions,^[798] in quite the opposite direction, to his own castle of Brionne on the |He defends himself at Brionne.| Risle. There he took up a position of defence, and was speedily followed and besieged by Duke William. The castle of Brionne of those days was not the hill fortress, the shell of a donjon of that or of the next age, which now looks down upon the town and valley beneath. The stronghold of Count Guy had natural defences, but they were defences of another kind. The town itself seems to have been strongly fortified; but the point of defence which was most relied on at Brionne was the fortified hall of stone which stood on an island in the river.^[799] William had, before now, by one vigorous assault, brought his own native Falaise to surrender;^[800] but, though we are expressly told that the stream was everywhere fordable, the island fortress seems to have been deemed proof against any attacks |Siege of Brionne 1047–1050?| of this kind. A regular siege alone could reduce it, and William was driven to practise all the devices of the military art of his day against his rebellious cousin. He built a castle, this time very possibly of wood, on each side of the river, and thus cut off the besieged from their supplies of provisions.^[801] Constant assaults on the beleaguered castle 265are spoken of, but their aim seems to have been mainly to frighten the besieged rather than to produce any more practical effect;^[802] hunger was the sure and slow means on which William relied to bring Guy to reason. The siege was clearly a long one, though it is hardly possible to believe, on the incidental statement of a single authority, that it was spread over a space of three years.^[803] |Surrender of Brionne.| At last the endurance of Guy and his companions gave way, and he sent messengers praying for mercy. The Duke required the surrender of the castle; but touched, we are told, by the tie of kindred blood, he bade Guy |William’s clemency to the vanquished.| remain in his court.^[804] Nor was the Duke’s hand, on the whole, heavy on the other offenders. No man was put to death, though William’s panegyrist holds that death |Rarity of political executions.| was the fitting punishment for their offences.^[805] But in those days, both in Normandy and elsewhere, the legal execution of a state criminal was an event which seldom happened. Men’s lives were recklessly wasted in the endless 266warfare of the times, and there were men, as we have seen, who did not shrink from private murder, even in its basest form.^[806] But the formal hanging or beheading of a noble prisoner, so common in later times, was, in the eleventh century, distinctly an unusual sight.^[807] And, strange as it may sound, there was a sense in which |William’s ordinary treatment of enemies.| William the Conqueror was not a man of blood. He would sacrifice any number of lives to his boundless ambition; he did not scruple to condemn his enemies to cruel personal mutilations; he would keep men for years, as a mere measure of security, in the horrible prison-houses of those days; but the extinction of human life in cold blood was something from which he shrank. His biographer exultingly points out this feature in his character, and his recorded acts do not belie his praise.^[808] Once only did he swerve from this rule, when he sent the noble Waltheof to the scaffold. And, as that act stands out conspicuously from its contrast to his ordinary conduct, so it is the act from which it is impossible not to date the decline of his high fortune. And, at the time of his first great victory, William was of an age which is commonly disposed to be generous, and none of the worse features of his character had hitherto come to the surface. With one exception only, 267no very hard punishments were inflicted on the conquered |Destruction of the castles.| rebels. The mass of the rebellious Barons paid fines, gave hostages, and had to submit to the destruction of the castles which they had raised without the ducal licence.^[809] To this, and to other measures of the same kind, it is owing that such small traces of the Norman castles of the eleventh century now remain. Neal of Saint Saviour had to retire for a time to Britanny, but his exile must have been short, as we find him, seemingly in the very next year, again in office and in the ducal favour. He survived his restoration forty-four years;^[810] he lived to repay at Senlac the old wrong done by Englishmen to his father’s province; but, almost alone among the great Norman chiefs, he received |Guy returns to Burgundy.| no share in the spoils of England. As for Guy, he presently left the country of his own free will. His sojourn at William’s court must have been little else than an honourable imprisonment, and it would seem that he now found little respect or sympathy in Normandy.^[811] He 268returned to his native land, the Burgundian Palatinate, and there, we are told, spent the rest of his days in plotting against his brother, the reigning Count William.^[812] |Fate of Grimbald.| One criminal only was reserved for a harsher fate. Grimbald was taken to Rouen, and there kept in prison—such as prisons were in those days—and in fetters. He was looked on as the foulest traitor of all; he it was whom the Duke charged with the personal attempt on his life at Valognes.^[813] Grimbald confessed the crime, and named as his accomplice a knight named Salle the son of Hugh. The accused denied the charge, and challenged Grimbald to the judicial combat. Before the appointed day of battle came, Grimbald was found dead in his prison. He was buried with his fetters on his legs, his lands were confiscated, and part of them was given to the church of Bayeux. Plessis became a domain of the see, and other portions of the estates of Grimbald became the corpses of various prebends in the cathedral church.^[814]

269The power of William was now on the whole firmly established. He had still to repel many attacks from hostile neighbours, and we shall have yet to record one more considerable revolt within the Norman territory. But the Norman Barons now knew that they had a master.^[815] For some years to come, internal discord, strictly so called, underwent a sort of lull to a degree most remarkable in such an age. Under the firm and equal government of her great Duke, Normandy began to recover from her years of anarchy, and to rise to a higher degree of prosperity than she had ever yet attained to.^[816] |Effect of the struggle.| The Duchy became, more completely than it had ever been before, a member of the European and of the Capetian |The supremacy of the French element confirmed.| commonwealth. The Capetian King indeed soon learned again to look with a grudging eye on his northern neighbour; but the general result of the struggle must have been to make Normandy still more French than before. The French and the Scandinavian elements had met face to face, and the French element had had the upper hand. Frenchmen and French Normans had overthrown the stout Saxons of the Bessin and the fierce Danes of the Côtentin. The distinction between the two parts of Normandy is still one which even the passing traveller may remark; but, from the day of Val-ès-dunes, it ceased to manifest itself in the great outward expressions of language and political feeling. The struggle which began during the minority of Richard the Fearless was now finally decided at the close of the minority of William 270the Bastard. The Count of Rouen had overcome Saxons and Danes within his own dominions, and he was about to weld them into his most trustworthy weapons wherewith to overcome Saxons and Danes beyond the sea. The omen of the fight against Neal and Hamon might well have recurred to the mind of William, when Neal himself and the son of Hamon marched forth at his side from the camp at Hastings, and went on to complete the conquest of England at Exeter and York.

William was thus at peace at home; his next war was indeed one of his own seeking, but it was one from which he could not have shrunk without breaking through every |The Counts of Anjou; their connexion with Norman and English history.| tie alike of gratitude and of feudal duty. This is the first time that I have had directly to mention a power, which had been, for more than a hundred years, steadily growing up to the south of Normandy, and which was to exercise a most important influence on the future history of Normandy and, through Normandy, on that of England. I mean the dynasty of the Counts of Anjou. That |1154.| house, the house which mounted the throne of England in the person of a great-grandson of William, produced a succession of princes to whose personal qualities it must mainly have been owing that their dominions fill the place which they do fill in French and in European history. |Characteristics of Angevin history.| Anjou holds a peculiar position among the great fiefs of France. It was a singular destiny which gave so marked a character, and so conspicuous a history, to a country which seems in no way marked out for separate existence by any geographical or national distinction. Normandy, Britanny, Flanders, Aquitaine, Ducal Burgundy, all had a being of 271their own; they were fiefs of the Crown of France, but they were in no sense French provinces. But Anjou was at most an outpost on the Loire, a border district of France and Aquitaine; beyond this position it had nothing specially to distinguish it from any other part of the great |Saxon occupation. 464.| Parisian Duchy.^[817] A momentary Saxon occupation in the fifth century^[818] cannot be supposed to have left behind it any such abiding traces as were certainly left by the settlement of the same people at Bayeux, perhaps even by their less famous settlement at Seez.^[819] It was wholly to the energy and the marked character of its individual rulers that Anjou owes its distinct and prominent place among the principalities of Gaul. The restless spirit of the race showed itself sometimes for good and sometimes for evil, but there was no Count of Anjou who could be called a fool, a coward, or a fainéant. The history or legends of the family which was to rise to such greatness laid claim |Ingelgar, first Count. 870?| to no very remote or illustrious pedigree.^[820] The first Count of Anjou, who held a part only of the later County,^[821] was 272invested with that dignity either by Charles the Bald or by his son Lewis the Stammerer.^[822] He bore the name of Ingelgar, and he seems to be the first member of the family who can be unhesitatingly set down as historical. His grandfather, |Peasant origin of the family.| Torquatius or Tortulfus, was, according to the legend, a peasant, and seems to have sprung from that Breton race of which his descendants became the most persevering enemies. It must have been a later version of the tale which invented for him a Roman name and a Roman descent.^[823] |Torquatius and Tertullus.| The son of Torquatius, Tertullus, rose, we are told, to importance at the court of Charles, and founded the |Historical value of these tales.| greatness of his house.^[824] Whatever may be the amount of strictly historical truth preserved in these stories, they are, in one point of view, of no small historical value. Like the similar story of the origin of Godwine, they point to a belief, which can hardly have been ill-founded, that, in Gaul in the ninth century and in England in the eleventh, ignoble birth did not disqualify a man from 273rising to the highest dignities, or from founding a dynasty of Princes or even of Kings.^[825] But, when we reach Ingelgar, we seem to stand on more distinctly historical ground. He held Amboise in Touraine as an allodial possession,^[826] and he was, as we have seen, invested with the Countship of Anjou on the hither side of the Mayenne. But it is plain that no detailed account of his actions, or of those of his immediate successors, was preserved.^[827] |Fulk the Red. 888.| His son Fulk the Red received from Charles the Simple the remaining portion of the County of Anjou, that beyond the Mayenne, and he vigorously defended his enlarged dominions against the attacks of Northmen and Bretons.^[828] |Fulk the Good. 938.| This Romulus was appropriately succeeded by a Numa, Fulk the Good, renowned for his piety, his almsdeeds, 274his just and peaceful government, and for being the traditional author of the proverb that an unlettered King is but |Geoffrey Grisegonelle. 958.| a crowned ass.^[829] His son, Geoffrey Grisegonelle,^[830] renewed the warlike fame of his house; he fought with his neighbours of Britanny and Aquitaine; and he is said to |978.| have borne an important share in the wars between King Lothar and the Emperor Otto the Second.^[831] After |Fulk Nerra. 987.| him came his son Fulk,^[832] surnamed Nerra or the Black, renowned as a warrior and still more renowned as a pilgrim, and who is the first prince of his house whose name has found its way into the general history of France. He overthrew his brother-in-law Conan of Britanny in one or |992.| more pitched battles, which French, as well as Breton and |His war with Odo of Chartres.| Angevin, writers thought worthy of record. He was also engaged in a war with his neighbour Odo the Second, Count of Blois and Chartres, the grandson of the famous Theobald, a war which passed on as an inheritance to the next generation, and which proved the origin of the first entanglements between Normandy and Anjou.^[833] It sounds like an incursion from another hemisphere, when we read how Aldebert, Count of Perigueux, Perigueux with its cupolas and its Roman tower, far away in the heart of Aquitaine, appeared as an ally of the Angevin |Fulk gains and loses Tours. 990.| Count. He took Tours and gave it to Fulk, but the citizens were ill disposed to their new master, and Odo |Battle of Pontlevois. 1016.| recovered it after a short time. Later in his reign, Fulk defeated Odo in a great battle at Pontlevois in the territory 275|1031.| of Touraine, and afterwards gained or recovered Saumur. We have already met with him in the character of a mediator between contending candidates for the Crown of France,^[834] and he appears also in the less honourable light of an assassin, who removed a courtier of King Robert who stood in the way of the plans of his own termagant niece Queen Constance.^[835] We hear also heavy complaints of him as a violator of ecclesiastical rule, by setting up the usurped authority of the See of Rome against the rights |His pilgrimages. 1028, 1035.| of the independent metropolitans of Gaul.^[836] But he is perhaps best known for his two pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre, for the ready ingenuity which he displayed on his first journey, and for the extreme of penitential humiliation by which he edified all men on the second.^[837] Less happy in his private than in his public career, he was troubled in his last years by a rebellion of his son;^[838] he was charged, truly or falsely, with the murder of one wife, and 276with driving another from him by ill-treatment.^[839] A reign of unusual length made him, during a few years, a contemporary of the Great William, and at last he left his dominions to a son under whom Normans and Angevins met for the first time in open warfare.

This son, Geoffrey by name, rejoiced in the surname of Martel, which he bestowed upon himself to express the heavy blows which, like the victor of Tours, he dealt around upon all his enemies.^[840] He began his career in his father’s lifetime. A dispute for the possession of the County of Saintonge led to a war between him and William the Sixth or the Fat, Duke of Aquitaine and |He imprisons William of Aquitaine. April 22, 1033.| Count of Poitou.^[841] Geoffrey was successful; he took the Aquitanian prince prisoner, and kept him in close bondage, till his wife Eustacia ransomed him at a heavy price. According to one version, the ransom consisted only of gold and silver, the spoil or contribution of the monasteries of his Duchy. Others however assert that it was nothing short of the cession of Bourdeaux and other cities, and an engagement to pay tribute for the rest of his dominions. Three days after this hard bought deliverance, William died. Immediately afterwards, or, according to some accounts, in the course of the year before, Geoffrey married Agnes, the step-mother of his victim, the widow of William’s father, William the Fifth or the Great. The marriage was, on some ground or other, branded as incestuous, and it was this imprisonment of William and 277|Geoffrey rebels against his father. 1033.| this marriage with Agnes which, we are told, gave rise in some way to Geoffrey’s rebellion against his father and to the discord between Fulk and his second wife Hildegardis the mother of Geoffrey.

The imprisonment of William of Aquitaine evidently made a deep impression upon men’s minds at the time; but it was the standing war with the house of Chartres which brought Anjou into direct collision with Normandy, and thereby, at a somewhat later time, into connexion |Last days of Odo of Chartres.| with England. The last energies of Odo were mainly directed to objects remote from Anjou, and even from Chartres and Blois. He was one of the party which opposed the succession of King Henry, and in so doing he must have crossed the policy of Henry’s great champion |His war with King Henry. 1034.| Duke Robert. In a war which followed with the King Odo was unsuccessful,^[842] but his mind was now set upon greater things. Already Count of Champagne, he aimed |His attempt on the Kingdom of Burgundy. 1033.| at restoring the great frontier state between the Eastern and the Western Franks, at reigning as King of Burgundy, of Lotharingia, perhaps of Italy. After meeting |His defeat and death at Bar. 1037.| for a while with some measure of success, he was at last defeated and slain by Duke Gozelo, the father of Godfrey of whom we have already heard,^[843] in a battle near Bar in the Upper Lotharingia.^[844] His great schemes died with him. His sons were only Counts and not Kings, and their father’s dominions were divided between them. The |His sons Stephen and Theobald.| sons of both of them obtained settlements in England, and a grandson of one figures largely in English history. Stephen reigned in Champagne; his son Odo married a sister of the Conqueror, and was one of the objects of his brother-in-law’s bounty in England.^[845] Theobald inherited Blois and Chartres. His son Stephen married 278|Their wars with King Henry and with Geoffrey.| William’s daughter Adela, and thereby became father of a King of the English. But at present we have to deal with Count Theobald as a vassal of France at variance with his overlord, as a neighbour of Anjou inheriting the hereditary enmity of his forefathers. Touraine, part of which was already possessed by Geoffrey,^[846] and, above all, the metropolitan city of Tours, were ever the great objects of Angevin ambition. It was a stroke of policy on the part of Henry, when he formally deprived the rebel Theobald of |Geoffrey receives Tours as a grant from Henry, and imprisons Theobald. 1044.| that famous city, and bestowed it by a royal grant on the Count of Anjou.^[847] Geoffrey was not slow to press a claim at once fresh and most plausible. He advanced on the city to assert his rights by force. Saint Martin, we are specially told, favoured the enterprise.^[848] The brothers resisted in vain. Stephen was put to flight; Theobald was taken prisoner, and was compelled, like William of Aquitaine, to obtain his freedom by the surrender of the city.^[849]

Both French and Angevin writers agree in describing Geoffrey as taking possession of Tours with the full consent of King Henry. Yet, in the first glimpse of Angevin affairs given us by our Norman authorities, the relations between the King of the French and the Count of Anjou 279are set forth in an exactly opposite light. Geoffrey is |William helps King Henry against Geoffrey. 1048.| engaged in a rebellious war against Henry, and the Duke of the Normans appears simply to discharge his feudal duty to his lord, and to return the obligation incurred by the King’s prompt and effectual help at Val-ès-dunes.^[850] These two accounts are in no way inconsistent; in the space of four years the relations between the King and so dangerous a vassal as Geoffrey may very well have changed. Henry may well have found that it was not sound policy to foster the growth of one whose blows might easily be extended from Counts to Kings. The campaign which followed is dwelt on at great length by our Norman authorities and is cut significantly short by the Angevins. |Personal exploits of William.| In its course, we are told, William gained the highest reputation. The troops of Normandy surpassed in number the united contingents of the King and of all his other vassals.^[851] The Duke’s courage and conduct were preeminent, and they won him the first place in the King’s counsels.^[852] But on one point Henry had to remonstrate with his valiant ally. He was forced, says the panegyrist, to warn both William himself and the chief Norman leaders against the needless exposure of so precious a life.^[853] 280William at no time of his life ever shrank from danger, and we may be sure that, at this time of his life especially, he thoroughly enjoyed the practice of war in all its forms. But William’s impulses were already under the control of his reason. He knew, no doubt, as well as any man, that to plunge himself into needless dangers, and to run the risk of hairbreadth scapes, was no part of the real duty of a prince or a general. But he also knew that it was mainly by exploits of this kind that he must dazzle the minds of his own generation, and so obtain that influence over men which was needful for the great schemes of his life.^[854] In any other point of view, one would say that it was unworthy of William’s policy to win the reputation of a knight-errant at the expense of making for himself a lasting and dangerous enemy in the Count of Anjou.

The undisputed dominions of the two princes nowhere touched each other. But between them lay a country closely connected both with Normandy and with Anjou, and over which both William and Geoffrey asserted rights. This was the County of Maine, a district which was always said to have formed part of the later acquisitions of Rolf,^[855] but of which the Norman Dukes had never taken practical possession. The history of the Cenomannian city and province will be more fittingly sketched at another stage of William’s |Count Herbert. 1015.| career; it is enough to say here that Geoffrey was now practical sovereign of Maine, in the character of protector, |Hugh. 1036.| guardian, or conqueror of the young Count Hugh, the son of the famous Herbert, surnamed Wake-the-dog.^[856] William 281and Geoffrey thus became immediate neighbours, and Geoffrey, with the craft of his house, knew how to strike a blow |The fortresses of Domfront and Alençon.| where William was weakest. Two chief fortresses guarded the frontier between Maine and Normandy. Each commanded its own valley, its own approach into the heart of the Norman territory; each watched over a stream flowing from Norman into Cenomannian ground. These were Domfront towards the western, and Alençon towards the eastern, portion of the frontier. Domfront commanded the region watered by the Mayenne and its tributaries, while Alençon was the key of the valley of the Sarthe, the keeper of the path which led straight to the minster of Seez and to the donjon of Falaise. Of these two strongholds, Alençon stood on Norman, Domfront on Cenomannian soil.^[857] But Norman writers maintained that Domfront, no less than Alençon, was of right a Norman possession, both fortresses alike having been reared by the licence of Richard the |Disloyalty of Alençon.| Good.^[858] But even Alençon, whatever may have been its origin, was at this time far from being a sound member of the Norman body-politic. As a lordship of William Talvas, it shared in the ambiguous character, half Norman, half French, which attached to all the border possessions of the house of Belesme. And, as events presently showed, its inhabitants shared most fully in the spirit in which the 282Lord of Alençon had cursed the Bastard in his cradle.^[859] We are told also that the citizens both of Alençon and of Domfront disliked the rule of William, on account of the strict justice which he administered and the checks which he put on their marauding practices.^[860] This complaint sounds rather as if it came from turbulent barons than from burghers; yet it is quite possible that the burghers of a frontier town, especially on a frontier which was very doubtful and ill defined, may have indulged in those breaches of the peace which it was William’s greatest praise, both in Normandy and in England, to chastise without mercy. |Alençon garrisoned by Geoffrey.| At any rate, the people of Alençon were thoroughly disloyal to Normandy, and they willingly received the Angevin Count and his garrison.^[861] William returned the blow of |William marches ta Domfront;| Geoffrey’s hammer in kind. Leaving Alençon for a while to itself, he crossed the frontier, Angevin or Cenomannian as we may choose to call it, and laid siege to Domfront. |his exploits on the way.| On his march he found that treason was not wholly extinguished, even among his own troops. He had gone on a foraging or plundering party with fifty horse;^[862] a traitor, a Norman noble, sent word of his whereabout to the defenders of the town, who sent forth, we are told, three hundred horse and seven hundred foot to attack the Duke unexpectedly. It sounds like romance when we read 283that William at once charged and overthrew the horseman nearest to him, that the rest were seized with a sudden panic and took to flight, that the Duke and his little band chased them to the gates of Domfront, and that William carried off one prisoner with his own hands.^[863] Such stories are no doubt greatly exaggerated; the details may often be pure invention; but, as contemporary exaggerations and inventions, they show the kind of merit which Normans then looked for in their rulers, and they show the kind of exploit of which William himself was thought capable. |Traitors in the Norman camp.| And the perfectly casual mention of the traitor in the Norman camp is instructive in another way. We have here no doubt merely an example of what often happened, and the way in which treason is spoken of as an everyday matter sets vividly before us the difficulties with which William, even now after the victory of Val-ès-dunes, had still to contend at every step.^[864]

William now laid siege to Domfront. The town was strong both by its fortifications and by its natural position. The spirit of the citizens was high, and they were further strengthened by the presence of a chosen body of Angevin troops sent by Count Geoffrey. An assault was hopeless where two steep and narrow paths were the only ways by which the fortress could be approached even on foot.^[865] William surrounded it with four towers,^[866] and the Norman army sat down before it. The Duke was foremost in every attack, in every ambush, in every night march to cut off 284the approach of those who sought to bring either messages or provisions to the besieged town.^[867] Yet we are told that he found himself so safe in the enemy’s country that he often enjoyed the sports of hunting and hawking, for which the neighbouring woods afforded special opportunities.^[868] |1048–1049.| The siege had continued for some time in this way, and it was now seemingly winter,^[869] when news was brought that Count Geoffrey was advancing with a large |Geoffrey comes to relieve Domfront.| force to the relief of the town. A tale of knight-errantry follows, the main substance of which, coming as it does from a contemporary writer, we have no ground for disbelieving, even though some details may have been heightened to enhance the glory of William. The story is worthy of attention as showing that, amid all the apparent rudeness of the times, some germs of the later follies of chivalry had already begun to show themselves. As the Angevin army |Messages between William and Geoffrey. Early example of knight-errantry.| approached, William sent a message to Geoffrey by the hands of two of his chosen friends, two youths who had grown up along with him, and who were destined to share with him in all his greatest dangers and greatest successes. Both were men who lived to be famous in English history, Roger of Montgomery, the son-in-law of the terrible Talvas,^[870] and William, the son of that Osbern who had lost his life through his faithfulness to his master.^[871] These two trusty companions were sent to see Count Geoffrey, and to get from him an explanation of his purpose. Geoffrey told them that, at daybreak the next morning, 285he would come and beat up William’s quarters before Domfront. There should be no mistake about his person; he would be known by such a dress, such a shield,^[872] such a coloured horse. The Norman messengers answered that he need not trouble himself to come so far as the Norman quarters; he whom he sought would come and visit him nearer home. Duke William would be ready for battle, with such a horse, such a dress, such manner of weapons.^[873] The Normans appeared the next morning, eager for fight, |Geoffrey decamps.| and their Duke the most eager among them.^[874] But no enemy was there to await them; before the Normans came in sight, the Count of Anjou and his host had decamped. Geoffrey doubtless, like some later generals, retired only for strategical reasons; but the Norman writers can see no nobler motive for his conduct than his being seized with a sudden panic.^[875] Here, and throughout the war, the lions 286stand in need of a painter, or rather their painters suddenly refuse to do their duty. We have no Angevin account of the siege of Domfront to set against our evidently highly coloured Norman picture.

The whole country now lay open for William to harry; but he knew better than to waste time and energy on mere useless ravages.^[876] He determined rather to strike another sudden blow. Leaving a force before Domfront, he marched all night, through the enemy’s country, along the course of the Mayenne, passing by Mehendin, Pointel, and Saint-Samson.^[877] He thus suddenly appeared before Alençon with the morning light.^[878] A bridge over the Sarthe, strongly fortified with a ditch and a palisade, divided the Norman from the Cenomannian territory.^[879] This bridge now served as a barrier against a Duke of the Normans attacking his own town from the Cenomannian |Insults offered to William at Alençon.| side. The defenders of the bridge, whether Angevins or disaffected Normans, received the Duke with the grossest personal insult. They spread out skins and leather jerkins, and beat them, shouting, “Hides, 287hides for the Tanner.”^[880] The Duke of the Normans had acted a merciful and generous part towards the rebels of Val-ès-dunes and Brionne; but the grandson of Fulbert of Falaise could not endure the jeers thus thrown on his descent by the spindle side. Anything like a personal insult is commonly far more unpardonable in princely eyes than a real injury. The one act of cruelty which |1296.| stains the reign of our great Edward is the slaughter of the inhabitants of Berwick in revenge for a jesting and not very intelligible ballad sung against him from the walls.^[881] So now William swore, according to his fashion, by the Splendour of God,^[882] that the men who thus mocked him should be dealt with like a tree whose branches are cut off by the pollarding-knife.^[883] He kept his word. 288A vigorous assault was made upon the bridge. Houses were unroofed, and the timbers were thrown into the fosse.^[884] Fire was set to the mass; the wood was dry, the flame spread, the palisades and gates were burned down, and |He takes the town, and mutilates his prisoners.| William was master of the bridge, and with it of the town of Alençon. The castle still held out. The Conqueror, faithful to his fearful oath, now gave the first of that long list of instances of indifference to human suffering which have won for him a worse name than many parts of his character really deserve. Thirty-two of the offenders were brought before him; their hands and feet were cut off,^[885] and the dismembered limbs were thrown over the walls of the castle, as a speaking menace to its defenders.^[886] The threat did its work; the garrison surrendered, bargaining only for safety for life and limb.^[887] Alençon, tower and town, was thus taken so speedily that William’s panegyrist says that he might renew the boast of Cæsar, “I came; I saw; I conquered.”^[888] Leaving 289|Domfront surrenders.| a garrison in Alençon, the Duke hastened back to Domfront, the fame of his conquest and of his cruelty going before him. The man before whom Alençon had fallen, before whom the Hammer of Anjou had fled without striking a blow, had become an enemy too fearful for the men of Domfront to face.^[889] They surrendered on terms somewhat more favourable than those which had been granted to the defenders of the castle of Alençon; they were allowed to retain their arms as well as their lives and limbs.^[890] William entered Domfront, and displayed the banner of Normandy over the donjon.^[891] The town henceforth became a standing menace on the side of Normandy against Maine, and it formed, together with Alençon, the main defence of the southern frontier of the Duchy. If William undertook the war to discharge his feudal duty towards King Henry, he certainly did not lose the opportunity for permanently strengthening his own dominions. In fact, in our Norman accounts, the King of the French has long ago slipped away from the scene, and the Count of Chartres has vanished along with him. William and Geoffrey remain the only figures |William fortifies Ambières.| in the foreground. The Duke, having secured his frontier, marched, seemingly without resistance, into the undoubted territory of Maine; he there fortified a castle at Ambières, and returned in triumph to Rouen.^[892]

The men of Alençon had jeered at the grandson of the Tanner; but the sovereign who so sternly chastised their 290jests was determined to show that the baseness of his mother’s origin in no way hindered him from promoting his kinsmen on the mother’s side. If one grandson of Fulbert wore the ducal crown of Normandy, another already wore the mitre of Bayeux; and another great promotion, almost equivalent to adoption into the ducal |William the Warling;| house, was now to be bestowed upon a third. The county of Mortain—Moritolium in the Diocese of Avranches^[893]—was now held by William, surnamed Warling, son of Malger, a son of Richard the Fearless and Gunnor.^[894] |his connexion with the ducal family.| He was therefore a first cousin of William’s father, a descendant of the ducal stock as legitimate as any other branch of it. We have not heard his name in the accounts of any of the former disturbances; but it is clear that he might, like so many others, have felt himself aggrieved by the accession of the Bastard. Among |Robert the Bigod.| the knights in Count William’s service was one, so the story runs, who bore a name hitherto unknown to history, though not unknown to legend and fanciful etymology, but a name which was to become more glorious on English ground than the names of Fitz-Osbern and Montgomery. The sons of Robert the Bigod^[895] were to rule where Harold now held his Earldom, and his remote descendant was to win a place in English history worthy of Harold himself, as the man who wrested the freedom 291of England from the greatest of England’s later Kings.^[896] The patriarch of that great house was now a knight so poor that he craved leave of his lord to leave his service, and to seek his fortune among his countrymen who were carving out for themselves lordships and principalities in Apulia. The Count bade him stay where he was; within eighty days he, Robert the Bigod, would be able, there in Normandy, to lay his hands on whatever good things |He charges William with treason.| it pleased him. In such a speech treason plainly lurked; and Robert, whether out of duty to his sovereign or in the hope of winning favour with a more powerful master, determined that the matter should come to the ears of the Duke. The Bigod was a kinsman of Richard of Avranches, the son of Thurstan the rebel of Falaise,^[897] and Richard was now high in favour at the court of William. By his means Robert obtained an introduction to the Duke,^[898] and told him of the treasonable words of the Count of Mortain. William accordingly sent for his cousin, and charged him with plotting against the state. He had, the Duke told him, determined again to disturb the peace of the country, and again to bring about the reign of licence. But, while he, Duke William, lived, the peace which Normandy so much needed should, by God’s help, never be disturbed again.^[899] Count 292|William the Warling goes to Apulia.| William must at once leave the country, and not return to it during the lifetime of his namesake the Duke. The proud Lord of Mortain was thus driven to do what his poor knight had thought of doing. He went to the wars in Apulia in humble guise enough, attended by a |Robert, Count of Mortain.| single esquire. The Duke at once bestowed the vacant County of Mortain on his half-brother Robert, the son of Herlwin and Herleva. Of him we shall hear again in the tale of the Conquest of England. Thus, says our informant, did William pluck down the proud kindred of his father and lift up the lowly kindred of his mother.^[900]

This affair of William of Mortain is one of which we may well wish for further explanation. We are hardly in a position to judge of the truth or falsehood of the charge brought by Robert the Bigod against his lord.^[901] We have no statement from the other side; we have no defence from the Count of Mortain; all that we are told is that, when arraigned before the Duke, he neither confessed nor denied the charge.^[902] We need not doubt that William was honestly anxious to preserve his Duchy from internal disturbances. But in this case his justice, if justice it was, fell so sharply and speedily as to have very much the look of interested oppression. It was impossible to avoid the suspicion that William the Warling was sacrificed to the Duke’s wish to make a provision for his half-brother. We are not surprised to find that the charge of having despoiled and banished his cousin on frivolous pretences was brought up against William by his enemies in 293later times, and was not forgotten by historians in the next generation.^[903]

The energy of William had thus, for the time, |Prosperous condition of Normandy. 1049–1054.| thoroughly quelled all his foes, and his Duchy seems for some years to have enjoyed as large a share of peace and prosperity as any state could enjoy in those troubled times. The young Duke was at last firmly settled in the ducal seat, and he now began to think of strengthening himself by a marriage into the family of some neighbouring prince. And he seems to have already made up his mind in favour of the woman who retained |William seeks Matilda of Flanders in marriage.| his love during the remainder of their joint lives, Matilda,^[904] the daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders. He must have been in treaty for her hand very soon after the Angevin war, as the marriage was forbidden by a decree |1049.| of the Council of Rheims.^[905] But the marriage itself did |1053.| not take place till several years later, and the negotiation opened so many questions, and was connected with so many later events, that I reserve the whole subject of |William’s objects, Duchy, Wife, and Kingdom, all pursued in the like spirit.| William’s marriage for a later chapter. William had to struggle through as many difficulties to obtain undisputed possession of his wife as he had to obtain undisputed possession of either his Duchy or his Kingdom. And he 294struggled after all three with the same deliberate energy, ever waiting his time, taking advantage of every opportunity, never baffled by any momentary repulse. His struggle for Normandy was now, for the time, over; he had fairly conquered his own Duchy, and he had now only to defend it. His struggle for Matilda had already begun; a struggle almost as hard as the other, though one which was to be fought, not with bow and spear, but with the weapons of legal and canonical disputation. Whether he had already begun to lift up his eyes to the succession of his childless cousin, whether he had already formed the hope that the grandson of the despised Tanner might fill, not only the ducal chair of Normandy, but the Imperial throne of Britain, is a question to which we can give no certain answer. But there can be little doubt that, soon after this time, the idea was forcibly brought before his mind. And, with characteristic pertinacity, when he had once dreamed of the prize, he never slackened in its pursuit till he could at last call it his own.

Normandy was now at rest, enjoying the rest of hard-won peace and prosperity. England was also at rest, if we may call it rest to lie prostrate in a state of feverish stillness. She rested, as a nation rests whose hopes are crushed, whose leaders are torn from her, which sees for the moment no chance of any doom but hopeless submission |William’s visit to England. 1051.| to the stranger. It was at this crisis in the history of the two lands that the Duke of the Normans appeared as a guest at the court of England.^[906] Visits of mere friendship and courtesy among sovereign princes were rare in those days. The rulers of the earth seldom 295met, save when a superior lord required the homage of a princely vassal, or when Princes came together, at the summons of the temporal or the spiritual chief of Christendom, to discuss the common affairs of nations and churches. Such visits as those which William and Eustace of Boulogne paid at this time to Eadward were, in England at least, altogether novelties. And they were novelties which were not likely |Estimate of William in English eyes.| to be acceptable to the national English mind. We may be sure that every patriotic Englishman looked with an evil eye on any French-speaking prince who made his way to the English court. Men would hardly be inclined to draw the distinction which justice required to be drawn between Eustace of Boulogne and William of Rouen. And yet, under any other circumstances, England, or any other land, might have been proud to welcome such a guest as the already illustrious Duke. Under unparalleled difficulties he had displayed unrivalled powers; he had shone alike in camp and in council; he had triumphed over every enemy; he had used victory with moderation; he was fast raising his Duchy to a high place among European states, and he was fast winning for himself the highest personal place among European Princes. Already, at the age of twenty-three, the Duke of the Normans might have disputed the palm of personal merit even with the great prince who then filled the throne of the world. He had, on a narrower field, displayed qualities which fairly put him on a level with Henry himself. But, in English eyes, William was simply the most powerful, and therefore the most dangerous, of the greedy Frenchmen who every day flocked in greater numbers to the court of the English King. William came with a great following; he tarried awhile in his cousin’s company; he went away loaded with gifts and honours.^[907] 296|Eadward’s alleged promise of the Crown to William probably made at this time.| And we can hardly doubt that he also went away encouraged by some kind of promise, or at any rate by some kind of implied hope, of succeeding to the Kingdom which |General appearance of things favourable to William.| he now visited as a stranger. There was indeed everything to raise the hope in his breast. He landed in England; he journeyed to the court of England; his course lay through what were in truth the most purely English parts of England; but the sons of the soil lay crushed without a chief. On the throne sat a King of his own kin, English in nothing but in the long succession of glorious ancestors of whom he showed himself so unworthy. His heart was Norman; his speech was French; men of foreign birth were alone welcome at his court; men of foreign birth were predominant |Norman predominance in England.| in his councils. The highest places of the Church were already filled by Norman Prelates. The Norman Primate of all England, the choicest favourite of the King, the man at whose bidding he was ready to believe that black was white, would doubtless be the first to welcome his native sovereign to his province and diocese. The great city which was fast becoming the capital of England, the city beneath whose walls Eadward had fixed his chosen dwelling, had been made to own the spiritual rule of another Norman priest. A short journey, a hunting-party or a pilgrimage, would bring King and Duke within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of a third Norman, the unworthy stranger who disgraced the episcopal throne of Dorchester. Among the temporal chiefs of the Kingdom there was already one French Earl, kinsman alike of William and of Eadward, who would not fail in showing honour to the most renowned of his speech and kindred. Norman 297Stallers, Treasurers, personal officers of every kind, swarmed around the person of the King. Norman Thegns were already scattered through the land, and were already filling the land with those threatening castles, of which the wise policy of William had destroyed so many within his own dominions. Robert the son of Wymarc, Richard the son of Scrob, and the whole herd of strangers who were fattening on English soil, would flock to pay their duty to a more exalted countryman who came on the same errand as themselves. They would tell him with delight.and pride how the insolence of the natives had been crushed, how the wrongs of Count Eustace had been avenged, and how the rebel leaders had been driven to flee from justice. They would speak of England as a land which Norman influences had already conquered, and which needed only one exertion of the strong will and the strong hand to enable the Norman to take formal possession. The land was fast becoming their own. Some wild tribes, in parts of the island to which William’s journey was not likely to extend, might still remain under aged chieftains of English or Danish birth. But even these rude men had been found, whether through fear or policy, ready to fall in with the plans of the Norman faction, and to range themselves against the champions of the national cause. And the richest and most civilized parts of the land, the very parts which had been so lately held by the sturdiest champions of Norman innovations, had now become one great field for Normans of every class to settle in. From Kent to Hereford they might enrich themselves with the lands and largesses which a gracious King was never weary of showering upon them. That King was childless; he had no heir apparent or presumptive near to him;^[908] he had had 298a brother, but that brother had been done to death by English traitors, with the fallen captain of traitors at their |Lack of direct heirs in the royal house.| head. Not a single near kinsman of the royal house could be found in England. The only surviving male descendant of Æthelred was the banished son of Eadmund, who, far away in his Hungarian refuge, perhaps hardly occurred to the minds of Norman courtiers. William was Eadward’s kinsman; it was convenient to forget that, though he was Eadward’s kinsman, yet not a single drop of royal or English blood flowed in his veins. It was convenient to forget that, even among men of foreign birth, there were those who were sprung, by female descent at least, from the kingly stock of England. Ralph of Hereford was the undoubted grandson of Æthelred, but the claims of the timid Earl of the Magesætas could hardly be pressed against those of the renowned Duke of the Normans. It |Constitutional aspect of the promise.| was convenient to forget that, by English Law, mere descent gave no right, and that, if it had given any right, William had no claim by descent to plead. It was easy to dwell simply on the nearness by blood, on the nearness by mutual good offices, which existed between the English King and the Norman Duke. There was everything to suggest the thought of the succession to William’s own mind; there was everything to suggest it to the foreign counsellors who stood around the throne of Eadward. Probably William, Eadward, and Eadward’s counsellors were alike ignorant or careless of the English Constitution. They did not, or they would not, remember that the Kingdom was not a private estate, to be passed from man to man 299either according to the caprice of a testator or according to the laws of strict descent. They did not remember that no man could hold the English Crown in any way but as the free gift of the English people. The English people would seem to them to be a conquered race, whose formal consent, if it needed to be asked at all, could be as easily extorted as it had been by Swend and Cnut. If they dared to refuse, they might surely be overcome by the Norman no less easily than they had been overcome by the Dane. It would probably seem to them that the chances were all in favour of William’s being able to succeed quietly as the heir or legatee of Eadward. If those chances failed, it would still be open to him to make his entry by arms as the avenger of the blood of Ælfred and his companions.

The moment was thus in every way favourable for suggesting to William on the one hand, to Eadward on the other, the idea of an arrangement by which William should succeed to the English Crown on Eadward’s death. We have no direct evidence that any such arrangement took place at this time, but all the probabilities of the story lead irresistibly to the belief that such was the case. The purely English writers are silent, but then they are silent as to any bequest or arrangement in William’s favour at any time. They tell us nothing as to the nature of his claim to the Crown; they record his invasion, but they record nothing as to its motives.^[909] The Norman writers, on the other hand, so full of Eadward’s promise to William, nowhere connect it with William’s visit to England, which one only among them speaks of at all.^[910] But Norman writers, Norman records, the 300general consent of the age, confirmed rather than confuted |Negative evidence of the English writers.| by the significant silence of the English writers, all lead us to believe that, at some time or other, some kind of promise of the succession was made by Eadward to William. The case of Eadward’s promise is like the case of Harold’s oath. No English writer mentions either; but the silence of the English writers confirms rather than disproves the fact of both. All those Norman calumnies which they could deny, the English writers do most emphatically deny.^[911] The fact then that they never formally deny the reports, which they must have heard, that Harold swore an oath to William, that Eadward made a promise in favour of William, may be accepted as the strongest proof that some kind of oath was sworn, that some kind |Some promise of Eadward, and some oath of Harold, historical, but the Norman details untrustworhy.| of promise was made. Had either Eadward’s promise or Harold’s oath been a pure Norman invention, William could never have paraded both in the way that he did in the eyes of Europe; he could never have turned them to the behoof of his cause in the way that he so successfully did. I admit then some promise of Eadward, some oath of Harold. But that is all. The details, Eadward and some oath of Harold, historical, but the Norman details untrustworthy. as they are given by the various Norman writers, are so different, so utterly contradictory, that we can say nothing, on their showing, as to the time, place, or circumstances of either event. We are left with the bare fact, and for anything beyond it we must look to the probabilities of the case. The oath of Harold I shall discuss at the proper time; at present 301we are concerned with the bequest of the English Crown said to have been made by Eadward in favour of William.

Every one who has grasped the true nature of the English Constitution, as it stood in the eleventh century, |No power of bequest in the King, only of recommendation.| will fully understand that, strictly speaking, any bequest of the kind was altogether beyond the power of an English King. The Law of England gave the King no power to dispose of a Crown which he held solely by the free choice of the Witan of the land. All that Eadward could constitutionally do was to pledge himself to make in William’s favour that recommendation to the Witan which the Witan were bound to consider, though not |Eadward’s change of purpose; his final recommendation of Harold.| necessarily to consent to.^[912] That, when the time came, Eadward did make such a recommendation, and did not make it in favour of William, we know for certain. The last will of Eadward, so far as such an expression can be allowed, was undoubtedly in favour of Harold. We shall see, as we go on, that there is the strongest reason to believe that Eadward at one time designed his namesake the Ætheling as his successor. It is even possible that his thoughts were at one time directed towards his nephew Ralph of Hereford. In a weak prince like Eadward changes of purpose of this kind are in no way wonderful. And in truth the changes in the condition of the country were such that a wiser King than Eadward might well have changed his purpose more than once between the visit of William and his own death. Now there is not the slightest sign of any intention on behalf of William during the later years of Eadward; first the Ætheling, and then the great Earl, are the persons marked out in turn for the succession. And yet, as we have seen, it is impossible not to believe that some promise was, at some time or other, made in 302William’s favour. The details of the Norman stories are |Impossibility of the Norman accounts.| indeed utterly incredible.^[913] The version which is least grotesquely absurd represents Eadward as promising the Crown to his dear cousin and companion William, when they were both boys or youths living together in Normandy. It is enough to upset this tale, taken literally, if we remember that Eadward, who is here represented as the familiar and equal companion of the boy William, was, when he left Normandy, nearly forty years old, some five and twenty years older than his cousin. He is moreover made to dispose of a Crown which was not yet his, and which he afterwards assumed with a good deal of unwillingness. Yet this story is distinctly less absurd than the other versions. It is even possible that William or his advisers may have begun to look on the succession to the English Crown as a matter within the scope of their policy, from the time when the English embassy came to bring the King-elect Eadward from Normandy to his own Kingdom.^[914] It is a far wilder story which describes Archbishop Robert as going over to announce to William the decree of the English Witan in his favour, a decree confirmed by the oaths of the Earls Leofric, Siward, and—Godwine! But even this story is less marvellous than that which represents Harold himself, at a time when he was the first man in England, and when his own designs on the Crown must have been perfectly well known, as sent by Eadward into Normandy to announce to the Duke the bequest which the King had made in his favour. All these stories are simply incredible; they are simply instances of that same daring power of invention by virtue of which Dudo of Saint Quintin describes William Longsword and Richard the 303Fearless as reigning over half the world,^[915] by virtue of which Guy of Amiens describes Robert the Devil |William’s visit the only opportunity for the promise.| as the actual conqueror of England.^[916] Yet some promise must be accepted, and some time and some place must be found for it. What time and place are so obvious William’s visit the only opportunity for the promise. as the time and place when Eadward and William, once and once only during their joint reigns, met together face to face? Every earlier and every later time seems utterly impossible; this time alone seems possible and probable. At the moment everything would tend to suggest the idea both to the King and to the Duke. The predominance of the Norman faction, the actual presence of the Norman Duke, the renown of his exploits sounding through all Europe, the lack of any acknowledged English heir, the absence of any acknowledged English leader, all suggested the scheme, all seemed |Later circumstances unfavourable to William.| to make it possible. Everything at that moment tended in favour of William’s succession; every later event, every later change of circumstances, tended in favour of the succession of any one rather than of William. At that moment the Norman party were in the full swing of power. Before another year had passed, the cause of England had once more triumphed; Eadward had Englishmen around him; he gradually learned to attach himself to men of his own race, and to give to the sons of Godwine that confidence and affection which he never gave to Godwine himself. He either forgot his promise to William, or else he allowed himself to be convinced that such a promise was unlawful to make and impossible to fulfil. But William never forgot it. We may be sure that, from that time, the Crown of England was the great object of all his hopes, all his thoughts, all his policy. Even in his marriage it may not have been 304left quite out of sight. The marriage of William and Matilda was undoubtedly a marriage of the truest affection. But it was no less undoubtedly a marriage which was prompted by many considerations of policy. And, among other inducements, William may well have remembered that his intended bride sprang by direct, if |Matilda’s descent from Ælfred.| only by female, descent from the stock of the great Ælfred.^[917] His children therefore would have the blood of ancient English royalty in their veins. Such a descent would of course give neither William, nor Matilda, nor their children, any real claim; but it was a pretension one degree less absurd than a pretension grounded on the fact that Eadward’s mother was William’s great-aunt. |Nature of William’s claims.| And William knew as well as any man that, in politics, a chain is not always of the strength only of its weakest link. He knew that a skilful combination of fallacious arguments often has more practical effect on men’s mind than a single conclusive argument. He contrived, in the end, by skilfully weaving together a mass of assertions not one of which really proved his point, to persuade a large part of Europe that he was the true heir of Eadward, kept out of his inheritance by a perjured usurper. That all these schemes and pretensions date from the time of William’s visit to Eadward, that the Norman Duke left the English court invested, in his own eyes and in those of his followers, with the lawful heirship of the English Crown, is a fact which seems to admit of as little doubt as any fact which cannot be proved by direct evidence.^[918]

305In short, it marks one of the most important stages of our history, when “William Earl came from beyond sea with mickle company of Frenchmen, and the King him received, and as many of his comrades as to him seemed good, and let him go again.”^[919] From that day onwards, we feel that we have been brought nearer, by one of the longest stages of our journey, to the fight of Senlac and the coronation of Westminster.

William then visited England at the moment while Godwine was sheltered at the court of Bruges, while Harold was planning vengeance at the court of Dublin, while Eadgyth was musing on the vanity of earthly things in her cell at Wherwell. He therefore met none of the family who were most steadily hostile to all his projects. But we ask in vain, Did he meet the stout warrior Siward? Did he meet the mediator Leofric? Did he meet the Primate who was, fifteen years later, to place the Crown on his own brow, or that more stout-hearted Primate who either refused or was deemed unworthy to bear any part in that great ceremony? And we cannot but ask, Did he meet the now aged Lady, through whom came all his connexion with England or English royalty, the wife and mother of so many kings, the victim of so many spoliations? With what grace could Eadward 306bring his kinsman into the presence of the parent through whom alone William could call him kinsman, but between whom and himself there had been so little love? At all events, if Eadward was now for a season set free from the presence of his wife, he was soon set free for ever from the |Death of Emma. March 6, 1052.| presence of his mother. Early in the next year died Ælfgifu-Emma, the Old Lady, the mother of Eadward King and of Harthacnut, and her body lay in the Old Minster by Cnut King.^[920]

The course of our story has thus brought us once more to the shores of our own island. In our next Chapter we shall have to begin the picture of the bright, if brief, regeneration of England. We shall have to listen to the spirit-stirring tale, how the champions of England came back from banishment, how the heart of England rose to welcome her friends and to take vengeance on her enemies, how for fourteen years England was England once again under the rule of the noblest of her own sons.