Danes, Saxons and Normans; or, Stories of our ancestors

V.

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR

While Duke William was overcoming his enemies in Normandy, and Earl Godwin was putting an end to the domination of the Danes in England, there might have been observed about the Court of Rouen a man of mild aspect and saintly habits, who had reached the age of forty. He was an exile, a Saxon prince, and one of the heirs of Alfred.

It was about the opening of the eleventh century that King Ethelred, then a widower, and father of Edmund Ironsides, espoused Emma, sister of Richard, Duke of Normandy. From this marriage sprung two sons and a daughter. The sons were named Edward and Alfred; the name of the daughter was Goda.

Edward was a native of England, and drew his first breath, in the year 1002, at Islip, near Oxford. At an early age, however, when the massacre of the Danes on the day of St. Brice resulted in the exile of Ethelred, Edward, with the other children of Ethelred and Emma, found refuge at the Court of Normandy. It was there that the youth of Edward was passed; it was there that his tastes were formed; and it was there that, brooding over the misfortunes of his country and his race, he sought consolation in those saintly theories and romantic practices which distinguished him so widely from the princes of that fierce and adventurous period which preceded the first Crusade.

When Ethelred the Unready breathed his last, in 1016, and Canute the Great demanded the widowed queen in marriage, and Emma, delighted at the prospect of still sharing the throne of England, threw herself into the arms of the royal Dane, her two sons, Edward and Alfred, remained for a time securely in Normandy. Indeed, they do not appear to have been by any means pleased at the idea of their mother uniting her fate with a man whom they had regarded as their father's mortal foe. However, as years passed over, the sons of Ethelred received an invitation from Harold Harefoot to visit their native country, and they did not think fit to decline. At all events, it appears that Alfred proceeded to England, and that he went attended by a train of six hundred Normans.

On arriving in England, Alfred was immediately invited by Harold Harefoot to come to London, and, not suspecting any snare, he hastened to present himself at court. No sooner, however, had the Saxon prince reached Guildford than he was met by Earl Godwin, conducted under some pretence into the Castle, separated from his attendants – who were massacred by hundreds – and then put in chains, to be conveyed to the Isle of Ely, where he was deprived of his sight, and so severely treated that he died of misery and pain.

Edward, who had remained in Normandy, soon learned with horror that his brother had been murdered; and when Hardicanute succeeded Harold Harefoot, he hastened to England to demand justice on Godwin. Hardicanute received his half-brother with kindness, promised that he should have satisfaction, and summoned the Earl of Wessex to answer for the murder of Prince Alfred. But Godwin's experience was great, and his craft was equal to his experience. Without scruple, he offered to swear that he was entirely guiltless of young Alfred's death, and at the same time presented Hardicanute with a magnificent galley, ornamented with gilded metal, and manned by eighty warriors, every one of whom had a gilded axe on his left shoulder, a javelin in his right hand, and bracelets on each arm. The young Danish king looked upon this gift as a most conclusive argument in favour of Godwin's innocence – and the son of Wolwoth was saved.

Edward returned to Normandy, and passed the next five years of his life in monkish austerities. But when the Danish domination came to an end, and the Grand Council was held at Gillingham, Godwin, as if to atone for consigning one of the sons of Ethelred to a tomb, hastened to place the other on a throne. Edward, then in his fortieth year, was accordingly elected king, and, on reaching England, was crowned at Winchester, in that sacred edifice where his illustrious ancestors and their Danish foes reposed in peace together.

It is related by the chroniclers of this period, that when Edward, arrayed in royal robes, and accompanied by bishops and nobles, was on the point of entering the church to be crowned, a man afflicted with leprosy sat by the gate.

"What do you there?" cried the king's friends. "Move out of the way."

"Nay," said Edward, meekly, "suffer him to remain."

"King!" cried the leper, in a loud voice, "I conjure you, by the living God, to have me carried into the church, that I may pray to be made whole!"

"Unworthy should I be of heaven if I did not," Edward replied; and, stooping forward, he raised the leprous man on his back, bore him into the church, and prayed earnestly, and not in vain, for his restoration. Roger Hoveden even asserts that the king's prayers were heard, and that the leper was made whole from that hour. But, in any case, there can be no doubt that on the fierce nobles and people of his realm such a scene as this must have produced a strange impression. It was believed that Edward's sanctity gave him the power to heal; and belief in the influence which his hand was in this way supposed to have, led to the custom of English sovereigns touching for the king's evil.

In fact, however, people soon discovered that Edward was more of a monk than a monarch; and far happier would he have been if he had remained in Normandy, and sought refuge from the rude and wicked world in the quiet of a cloister. It soon appeared, moreover, that the son of Ethelred was intended to be king but in name; and that the son of Wolwoth was to be virtually sovereign of England. The plan was not unlikely to succeed. Indeed, Edward was so saintly and so simple, that Godwin might, to the hour of his death, have exercised all real power, had he not, with the vulgar ambition natural to such a man, risked everything for the chance of his posterity occupying the English throne.

It appears that Godwin, by his marriage with Githa, the Danish princess, had, besides six sons, two daughters, Edith and Thyra. Edith, at the time of the restoration of the Saxon monarchy, is described as having been young, beautiful, and remarkable for her learning. It can hardly be doubted that her character and disposition contrasted favourably with the other members of the family that then domineered in England; and she was praised for not resembling them. "As the thorn produces the rose," people said, "so Godwin produced Edith."

The idea of making his daughter the wife of a king, and perhaps living to see his grandson wear a crown, fired Godwin's imagination; and it is even said that Edward, before leaving Normandy, was forced to swear, in the most solemn manner, that, if elected, he would marry Edith. But however that may have been, the imperious Earl insisted on the meek king becoming his son-in-law; and a man who, even in the days of his youth, had been much too saintly to think of matrimony, was compelled, when turned of forty, to espouse a woman on the hands of whose father was his brother's blood, and to whose family he had, naturally enough, a thorough aversion.

VI.

THE KING AND THE KING-MAKER

It was 1042 when Edward – afterwards celebrated as the Confessor – found himself placed by the hand of Godwin on the throne of his ancestors, and provided with a wife and queen in the person of Edith, Godwin's daughter. At first, matters went pleasantly enough, and, indeed, appeared promising. But no real friendship could exist between the Anglo-Saxon king and the man whom he regarded as his brother's murderer. Ere six years passed, Godwin and the king were foes, and England was the scene of discord and disorder.

At that time the prejudice of the Anglo-Saxons against foreigners was peculiarly strong. Before returning to the land of his birth, therefore, Edward was under the necessity of promising that he should bring with him no considerable number of Normans. The condition was observed in so far that few Normans did accompany Edward to England. But no sooner was he seated on the throne, and in a position to grant favours, than his palace was open to all comers; and guests from the court of Rouen flocked to the court of Westminster.

When Edward's Norman friends presented themselves, they met with the most cordial welcome; and being, for the most part, men of adventurous talents, they soon began to look upon the country as their property, and grasped at every office which the king had to bestow. Ere long, Norman priests found themselves bishops in England; Norman warriors figured as governors of English castles; and the court became so thoroughly Normanized, that the national dress, language, and manners, went wholly out of fashion.

The Anglo-Saxon nobles do not appear to have manifested any jealousy of the king's friends. In fact, their inclination was quite the reverse. The polish and refinement of their new associates excited their admiration, and they hastened to adopt the Norman fashions. Throwing aside their long cloaks, they assumed the short Norman mantle, with its wide sleeves; they neglected their native tongue to imitate, as well as they could, the language spoken by Norman prelates and warriors; and, instead of signing their names, as of old, they began to affix seals to their deeds. The Anglo-Saxon dress, manners, and language were no longer accounted worthy of men who pretended to rank and breeding.

Meanwhile, Godwin not only steadily abstained from adopting the Norman fashions, but looked upon the king's foreign friends as mortal foes, and regarded everything about them with hatred. He felt, with pain, that they kept alive the memory of Prince Alfred and their murdered countrymen, and he perceived with uneasiness that each new arrival had the effect of weakening his influence with the king. It was under such circumstances that he set his face against foreigners, and found means of exciting the popular prejudices against the man whom, for selfish purposes, he had, to the exclusion of the true heir, placed on the English throne. The multitude, ever ready to be deluded, took precisely the view Godwin wished, and began to speak of the pampered and overgrown adventurer as a neglected and long-suffering patriot.

"Is it astonishing," said one, "that the author and support of Edward's reign should be indignant at seeing new men from a foreign nation raised above him?"

"And yet," observed another, "never does he utter a harsh word to the man whom he himself created king."

"Curse all Norman favourites!" exclaimed a third.

"And," cried a fourth, "long life to the great chief – to the chief magnanimous by sea and land!"

While such was the situation of affairs, Eustace, Count of Boulogne, happened, in the year 1048, to come as a guest to England. Eustace was husband of Edward's sister, Goda; and the king naturally strove to make the visit of his brother-in-law as pleasant as possible. After remaining for some time at the English court, however, Eustace prepared to return home; but on reaching Dover, where he intended to embark, an awkward quarrel took place between his attendants and the townsmen. A fray was the consequence; and in a conflict which took place, twenty of the count's men were unfortunately slain. Angry and indignant at the slaughter of his followers, Eustace, instead of embarking, turned back to demand redress, and hastened to lay his complaint before the king, who was then keeping his court in the castle of Gloucester.

Edward, ashamed of the riot, and horrified at the bloodshed, promised that condign punishment should be inflicted on the perpetrators of the outrage, and deputed the duty to Godwin, in whose earldom the town of Dover was included.

"Go without delay," said Edward, "and chastise by a military execution, those who have attacked my relative with arms in their hands, and who have disturbed the peace of the country."

"Nay," said Godwin, "it is not right to condemn, without hearing, men whom it is your duty to protect."

Nettled by the tone of Godwin's refusal, and aware of the refractory spirit by which the earl was animated, Edward gave way to anger, and convoked a great council at Gloucester. Before this assembly Godwin was summoned to answer for his conduct. Instead of appearing, the Earl of Wessex mustered an army with the object of setting Edward at defiance. England seemed on the verge of a civil war, but a peace was patched up by the mediation of Siward, Earl of Northumberland, and Leofric, Earl of Mercia, husband of that Godiva whose equestrian feat at Coventry the grateful citizens have since so often commemorated. But the efforts of Siward and Leofric proved vain. The king and Godwin indeed pretended to be reconciled. But neither was sincere. Ere long, the quarrel broke out afresh with great bitterness; and the earl, finding the king much more resolute than could have been expected, consulted his safety by escaping with his wife and family to Flanders.

Freed from the presence of his imperious father-in-law, and feeling himself at length a king in reality, Edward passed sentence of outlawry on Godwin and his sons, seized on their earldoms, and confiscated their property. Even Edith, the queen, did not escape her share of the adversity of her house. After being deprived of her lands and money she was sent to a convent in Hampshire, and condemned in a cloister to sigh with regret over the ambition that had united her fate with that of a man who had regarded her with a sentiment akin to horror.

"It is not meet," said Edward's Norman friends, ironically, "that while this woman's family undergo all the evils of exile, she herself should sleep upon down."

"But the King's wife!" remonstrated the Anglo-Saxon nobles.

"Tush!" answered the Normans, significantly; "she is his wife only in name."

While Godwin was an exile in Flanders, William, Duke of Normandy, paid a visit to the King of England. Edward received his kinsman with great affection, entertained him magnificently, and treated him with such distinction as encouraged the Norman Duke's most ambitious hopes. Indeed, it has been said that "William appeared in England more a king than Edward himself, and that his ambitious mind was not slow in conceiving the hope of becoming such in reality." Nor did William return to Normandy without tokens of Edward's good will. Magnificent presents of armour, horses, dogs, and falcons were the substantial pledges with which the monk-king accompanied his assurances of friendship for the warrior-duke.

But, meantime, Godwin grew weary of exile and eager for revenge. Impatient to return to England, and to wreak his fury on the Norman favourites, the banished earl resolved, at all hazards, on leaving Flanders. Having obtained ships from Count Baldwin, he sailed from Bruges; and, soon after Edward had witnessed the departure of his martial kinsman for Normandy, the fleet of his outlawed father-in-law sailed up the Thames and anchored at Southwark.

Edward was in London when Godwin's fleet appeared in this menacing attitude; and, assembling his council, the king, with a flash of ancestral spirit, evinced a strong desire to oppose force to force. But, though the Norman courtiers were anxious to come to blows with their mortal foe, the king was the only Englishman who participated in their sentiments. Not only were the citizens of London all ready to take up arms for the outlawed earl; but even Siward and Leofric, the chiefs who had ever stood in opposition to Godwin, were in favour of his restoration; and the soldiers who formed the royal army were animated by such an antipathy to the foreign favourites, that it was felt they could not be depended on in the event of matters being pushed to extremity. In these circumstances, the king reluctantly consented to refer the question to a council of nobles; and this council, presided over by Robert Stigand, Bishop of East Anglia, decided that the whole case should be submitted for judgment to the Witenagemote, the National Council of the Anglo-Saxons.

On learning what had occurred, the Norman courtiers perceived that there was no hope for them but in escape. Without hesitation, therefore, they mounted their horses, and spurred from the palace of Westminster. Headed by Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William, Bishop of London, a troop of Norman knights and gentlemen dashed eastward, fought their way through the city, and, making for the coast, embarked in fishing-boats; others fled to northern castles, held by Hugh the Norman, and Osbert, surnamed Pentecost; and thence, with Hugh and Osbert, made for the north, crossed the Tweed, and sought security on Scottish soil. No mercy, they well knew, could be expected at the hands of Godwin, and quite as little at the hands of a multitude believing in his patriotism and exasperated against his foes.

Meanwhile, the Witenagemote having been convoked, and all the best men in the country having assembled to take part in the deliberations, Godwin spoke in his own defence. The proceedings, as had been foreseen from the beginning, resulted in the revocation of the sentence of outlawry against the earl and his sons, and restoration to their lands and honours. An exception was, indeed, made in the case of Godwin's eldest son, Sweyn, who, having debauched the abbess of Leominster, and murdered his kinsman, Earl Beorn, was deemed unworthy of the company of Christians and warriors. But Sweyn relieved his family from all awkwardness on this point by voluntarily undertaking a penitential pilgrimage on foot to the Holy Sepulchre.

Matters having been thus arranged, the king accepted from Godwin the oath of peace; and Godwin, as hostages for his good faith, placed his youngest son, Wolnoth, and Haco, the son of Sweyn, in the hands of the king, who sent them to the court of Rouen. At the same time, William, the Norman Bishop of London, was, by the king's wish, recalled to England; but Robert, the Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, was not so fortunate. Stigand, instituted as Robert's successor, took possession of the pallium which the Norman prelate had left behind in his sudden flight.

When her kinsmen were restored to England, Edith, the queen, brought from her convent in Hampshire, once more appeared at the palace of Westminster; and the house of Godwin seemed more firmly established than ever. The king, ceasing to struggle against the earl's influence, occupied his attention with completing the abbey which he had been building at Westminster, and Leofric and Siward seemed to bow to their great rival's power and popularity. But the days of Godwin were numbered.

It was the spring of 1054; Edward was holding his court in the castle of Winchester; and Godwin and his sons were among the guests. One day, when the feast was spread, and the king and the earl were seated at the board, an attendant, who was stepping forward to pour wine into a cup, happened to stumble with one foot, and quickly recovered himself with the other. Edward smiled; and Godwin, willing to give a hint to his sons, who were perpetually brawling with each other, turned towards them.

"Well," remarked the earl, "you see how the brother has come to the support of the brother."

"Ay," said the king, in a significant tone; "brother needs the aid of brother; and would to God my brother Alfred yet lived to aid me!"

"Oh, king!" exclaimed Godwin, startled and irritated, "why is it that, on the slightest recollection of your brother, you ever look so angrily on me?"

Edward deigned no reply; but his pale brow grew stern, and his withered cheek flushed with resentm