Chapter VI (3)

[Sidenote: Norman Conquest of Apulia and Sicily. 1016–1090.]

The exploits of the Normans in Italy, which began in the reign of Richard, form a theme of the highest interest, but one on which it is dangerous to enter, lest I should be drawn too far away both from my central subject and from those which directly bear upon it. On English, and even on Norman, affairs the influence of these great events was [Sidenote: The Conquest of England perhaps partly suggested by it.] merely indirect. One can hardly doubt that the wonderful successes of their countrymen in the South of Europe did much to suggest to the minds of those Normans who stayed at home that a still greater conquest nearer home was not wholly hopeless. The unsuccessful attempt of Duke Robert, which we shall presently have to mention, and the successful attempt of his greater son, may well have been partly suggested by the exploits of the sons of Tancred in Apulia. When private adventurers thus grew into sovereigns, what might not be done by the sovereign of Normandy himself, wielding the whole force of the land which gave birth to men like them? For it must be remembered that the Norman conquest of Apulia was no national enterprise, no conquest made in regular warfare waged by the Duke of the Normans against any other potentate. Private Norman adventurers, pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, Norman subjects under the displeasure of their own Duke,[1023] gentlemen of small estate whom the paternal acres could no longer maintain, gradually deprived the Roman Empire of the East[1024] of the remnant of its Western possessions, and won back the greatest of Mediterranean islands from the dominion of Mahomet to that of Christ. The sons of Tancred of Hauteville began as wikings who had changed their element; they gradually grew into Counts, Dukes, Kings, and Emperors. And, when the first horrors of conquest were over, no conquerors, not even Cnut himself, ever deserved better of the conquered. The noble island of Sicily, so long the battle-field of Europe and Africa, the land which Greece, Rome, Byzantium, had so long striven to guard or to recover from the incursions of the Carthaginian and the Arab, became, under her Norman Kings, the one example of really equal and tolerant government which the world could then show. Under the Norman sceptre the two most civilized races of the world,[1025] the Greek and the Saracen, could live together in peace, and could enrich their common country with the results of skill [Sidenote: Conquest of Sicily by Henry the Sixth. 1194–5.] and industry such as no Northern realm could rival. For once we are driven to blush for our common Teutonic blood, when we see how this favoured portion of the world, the one spot where contending creeds and races could display their best qualities under the sway of a common and impartial ruler, was enslaved and devastated and trodden under foot by the selfish ambition of a Teutonic invader.

The relations of Richard with England, his war with Æthelred,[1026] his dealings with Swegen,[1027] his reception of his fugitive brother-in-law and his children,[1028] have been already [Sidenote: Unbroken peace between Richard and Cnut.] spoken of. With Cnut he seems to have maintained perfect peace. His nephews, the sons of Æthelred and Emma, found shelter at his court, but only shelter. Of any attempt on their behalf, of any interference in the internal affairs of England, the wary Duke seems never to have thought. We must hasten on to the reign of another Norman prince, whose relations to our island were widely different.

[Sidenote: Death of Richard. 1026.]

Richard died after a reign of thirty years. Before his death he assembled the chief men of his duchy, and by their advice he settled the duchy itself on his eldest son Richard, and the county of Hiesmes on his second son [Sidenote: Reign of Richard the Third.] Robert as his brother’s vassal.[1029] Disputes arose between the brothers; Robert was besieged in his castle of Falaise, and when peace was made by the submission of Robert, the Duke did not long survive his success. After a reign of two years he died by poison,[1030] as was generally believed, [Sidenote: Robert succeeds. 1028.] and was succeeded by his brother.[1031] Robert, known as the Magnificent,[1032] is most familiar to us in English history as the father of the Conqueror. But he has no small claims on our notice on his own account. What the son carried out, the father had already attempted. Robert was in will, though not in deed, the first Norman conqueror of England.[1033] In the early part of his reign he had to struggle against several revolts in his own dominions. [Sidenote: He suppresses revolts at home.] We are not directly told what were the grounds of opposition to his government; but we are at least not surprised to hear of revolts against a prince who had attained to his sovereignty under circumstances so suspicious. But Robert overthrew all his domestic enemies,[1034] and he is at least not charged with any special cruelty in the reestablishment [Sidenote: He reduces Britanny to submission.] of his authority. With Britanny he did not remain on the same friendly terms as his father. His cousin Alan refused his homage, but he was brought to submission.[1035] In this warfare Neal of Saint-Saviour, who had so valiantly beaten off the English in their invasion of the Côtentin, appears side by side with a warrior whose name of Ælfred raises the strongest presumption of his English birth. The banishments of the earlier days of Cnut will easily account for so rare an event as that of an Englishman taking service under a foreign prince.[1036] But it was as the protector of unfortunate princes that Robert seems to have been most anxious to appear before the [Sidenote: He restores Baldwin of Flanders.] world. Baldwin of Flanders, driven from his dominions by his rebellious son, was restored by the power of the Norman Duke.[1037] A still more exalted suppliant presently implored his help. His liege lord, Henry, King of the French, was driven to claim the support of the mightiest of his vassals against foes who were of his own household. [Sidenote: King Robert and his sons.] King Robert had at first designed the royal succession for his eldest son Hugh, whom, according to a custom common in France, though unusual in England, he caused [Sidenote: Hugh is crowned and dies before him.] to be crowned in his lifetime.[1038] Hugh, a prince whose merits, we are told, were such that a party in Italy looked to him as a candidate for the Imperial crown,[1039] was, after some disputes with his father, reconciled to him, and died before him. Robert then chose as his successor his second son Henry, who was already invested with the [Sidenote: Henry crowned in his father’s lifetime.] duchy of Burgundy. Henry was accordingly accepted and crowned at Rheims.[1040] But the arrangement displeased Queen Constance, who was bent on the promotion of her [Sidenote: Death of King Robert.] third son Richard. On King Robert’s death, Constance and Richard expelled Henry, who took refuge with his [Sidenote: Henry expelled, and restored] Norman vassal, and was restored by his help, Richard being allowed to receive his brother’s duchy of Burgundy.[1041] [Sidenote: by Duke Robert. 1031.] The policy of Hugh the Great had indeed won for his house a mighty protector in the descendant of the pirates.

[Sidenote: The English Æthelings in Normandy.]

But there were other banished princes who had a nearer claim upon Duke Robert than his Flemish neighbour, a nearer personal claim than even his lord at Paris. The English Æthelings, his cousins Eadward and Ælfred, were still at his court, banished from the land of their fathers, while the Danish invader filled the throne of their fathers. Their mother had wholly forgotten them; their uncle had made no effort on their behalf; Robert, their cousin, was the first kinsman who deemed it any part of his business to assert their right to a crown which seemed to [Sidenote: Contradictory evidence as to the relations between Cnut and Robert.] have hopelessly passed away from their house. That Robert did make an attempt to restore them, that the relations between him and Cnut were unfriendly on other grounds, there seems no reason to doubt. But when we ask for dates and details, we are at once plunged into every kind of confusion and contradiction. The English writers are silent; from the German writers we learn next to nothing; the Scandinavian history of this age is still at least half mythical; the Norman writers never held truth to be of any moment when the relations of Normandy and England were concerned. That Robert provoked Cnut by threats or attempts to restore the Æthelings, and also by ill-treating and repudiating Cnut’s sister, seem to be facts which we may accept in the bare outline, whatever we say as to their minuter details. That Cnut retaliated by an invasion of Normandy, or that the threat of such an invasion had an effect on the conduct of the sovereigns of Normandy, are positions which are strongly asserted by various authorities. But their stories are accompanied by circumstances which directly contradict the witness of authorities which are far more trustworthy. In fact, the moment we get beyond the range of the sober contemporary Chronicles of our own land, we find ourselves in a region in which the mythical and romantic elements outweigh the historical, and moreover, in whatever comes from Norman sources, we have to be on our guard against interested invention as well as against honest error.

[Sidenote: Marriages of Estrith with Ulf and Robert.]

We have seen that Estrith, a sister of Cnut, was married to the Danish Earl Ulf, the brother-in-law of Godwine, to whom she bore the famous Swegen Estrithson, afterwards King of the Danes, one of the most renowned princes in Danish history. We are told by a crowd of authorities that, besides her marriage with Ulf, Estrith was married to the Duke of the Normans, that she was ill-treated by him in various ways, and was finally sent back with ignominy to her brother. Most of the writers who tell this story place this marriage before her marriage with Ulf, and make the Danish Earl take the divorced [Sidenote: Supposed wars between Cnut and Robert.] wife of the Norman Duke. With this story several writers connect another story of an invasion, or threatened invasion, of Normandy undertaken by Cnut in order to redress his sister’s wrongs. The most popular Danish writer even makes Cnut die, in contradiction to all authentic history, while besieging Rouen. We read also how the Norman Duke fled to Jerusalem or elsewhere for fear of the anger of the lord of six Northern kingdoms. Details of this kind are plainly mythical; but they point to some real quarrel, to some war, threatened if not actually waged, between Cnut and Robert. And chronology, as well as the tone of the legends, shows that the whole of these events must be placed quite late in Cnut’s reign. [Sidenote: Robert probably married Estrith.] The natural inference is that the marriage between Robert and Estrith took place, not before Estrith’s marriage with Ulf, but after Ulf’s death. The widow was richly [Sidenote: after Ulf’s death. c. 1026.] endowed; her brother had atoned for the slaughter of her husband by territorial grants which might well have moved the greed of the Norman. A superior attraction nearer his own castle may easily account for Robert’s neglect of his Scandinavian bride, a bride no doubt many years older than the young Count of Hièsmes. Within three years after Estrith’s widowhood, Robert became the father of him who was preeminently the Bastard.[1042]

[Sidenote: Robert’s intervention on behalf of the Æthelings. 1028–1035.]

It seems impossible to doubt that Robert’s intervention on behalf of his English cousins was connected with these events. The reign of Robert coincides with the last seven years of the reign of Cnut, so that any intervention of Robert in English affairs must have been in Cnut’s later days. Each prince would doubtless seize every opportunity of annoying the other; the tale clearly sets Robert before us as the aggressor; but as to the order of events we are left to guess. It would be perfectly natural, in a man of Robert’s character, if the repudiation of Estrith was accompanied, or presently followed, by the assertion of the claims of the Æthelings to her brother’s crown. The date then of the first contemplated Norman invasion of England can be fixed only within a few years; but the story, as we read it in the Norman accounts, seems credible enough in its general outline.[1043] The Duke sends an embassy to Cnut, demanding, it would seem, the cession of the whole kingdom of England to the rightful heir. That Cnut refused to surrender his crown is nothing wonderful, though the Norman writer seems shocked that the exhortation of the Norman ambassadors did not at once bring conviction to [Sidenote: Robert’s unsuccessful attempt] the mind of the usurper.[1044] The Duke then, in great wrath, determines to assert the claims of his kinsmen by force of [Sidenote: to invade England.] arms. An assembly of the Normans is held, a forerunner of the more famous assembly at Lillebonne, in which the invasion of England is determined on. A fleet is made ready with all haste, and Duke Robert and the Ætheling Eadward embark at Fécamp. But the wind was contrary; instead of being carried safely to Pevensey, the fleet was carried round the Côtentin and found itself on the coast of Jersey.[1045] All attempts were vain; the historian piously adds that they were frustrated by a special Providence, because God had determined that his servant Eadward should make his way to the English crown without the shedding of blood.[1046] The Duke accordingly gave up his enterprise on behalf of his cousin of England, and employed his fleet in a further harrying of the dominions of his cousin of Britanny.[1047] At last Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, the common uncle of Robert and Alan,[1048] reconciled the two princes, and the fleet seems now to have sailed to Rouen.[1049] Thus far we have a story, somewhat heightened in its details, but which may be taken as evidence that Robert, who had restored the fugitive sovereigns of France and Flanders, really thought of carrying on his calling of King-maker beyond the sea. Robert, a thorough knight-errant, doubtless designed the restoration of his cousin in perfect good faith, and with no more intention of any gain to himself than he had shown in the [Sidenote: Probable results of the success of such an invasion.] restorations of Baldwin and Henry. But if a Norman army had once landed in England, it would not have been so easy to bring it home again as it was to bring home an army which had simply marched into France or Flanders. Cnut, with no Tostig, no Harold Hardrada, to divert him from the main danger, and with the force of his other kingdoms ready to back him, would most likely have speedily crushed the invader. But had it been otherwise, one can hardly fancy that the results of the English expedition would have been of as little moment as the results of the French and the Flemish expedition. In France and Flanders Robert had simply turned the scale between two princes of the same house. But if a Norman army had set one of the sons of Æthelred on the English throne, the result would have been something more than a mere personal change of sovereign. Had Eadward held his crown by virtue of a victory won by Norman troops over Cnut’s Danes and Englishmen, the practical aspect of such a revolution could have hardly differed at all from the revolution which did take place under William. The prince thus established in his kingdom would have been, according to formal pedigrees, the _cyne-hlaford_, the descendant of Ælfred, Cerdic, and Woden. But half-Norman by birth, wholly Norman in feeling, raised to his throne by Norman swords, Eadward would have reigned still more thoroughly as a Frenchman than he did reign when, a few years later, he came to the crown in a more peaceable way. The storm, or whatever it was, which kept back Duke Robert from his invasion of England, put off the chances of a Norman Conquest for nearly forty years.

[Sidenote: Cnut said to have offered the succession of Wessex to the
Æthelings.]

The Norman writers wind up their story with an assertion which is much less credible than their account of the expedition itself. Robert, on his return from his Breton expedition, was met in the very nick of time[1050] by ambassadors from Cnut offering half of the kingdom of England to the sons of Æthelred. The lord of Northern Europe was sick, and felt himself near his end; he therefore wished for peace during the remnant of his days.[1051] Of course this is not to be understood as an offer of an immediate surrender of any part of his dominions. What is meant is that Cnut offered to secure peace with Normandy by acknowledging Eadward as his successor in the kingdom of Wessex. The Norman and the Danish accounts may be set one against another. Any number of embassies may have passed between the two princes; any amount of mutual threatenings may have been exchanged; but Cnut’s fear of Robert and Robert’s fear of Cnut may [Sidenote: Improbability of the story.] be set aside as equally mythical. The Norman story is utterly improbable. Nothing could be more unlikely than a disposition made by Cnut in favour of either of his stepsons. He could have no personal motive for alienating any portion of his dominions from his own children. In almost any other case the influence of his wife would supply a natural and sufficient motive for such an arrangement. But all that we hear of Emma leads us to believe that her whole heart was set on Harthacnut and Gunhild, and that she was not at all likely to use her influence on behalf of her sons by Æthelred. And had Cnut made any such disposition in favour of Eadward or Ælfred, it could hardly have failed to leave some trace in English history. But among all the disputes which followed on the death of Cnut, we hear not a word of the claims of the Æthelings, we hear nothing of any single voice raised in their favour.[1052] Still that tale may have been the distortion of something which really happened. We must not forget that Harthacnut was Robert’s cousin no less than Eadward. It may be that some announcement or confirmation of Cnut’s intentions in his favour, as opposed to the succession of Harold or Swegen, may have been made by Cnut to the Norman Duke. Such an announcement might easily have been mistaken by Norman writers, ill informed about English affairs, for a disposition in favour of another son of Emma.

[Sidenote: Deaths of Cnut and Robert.]

Whatever the relations between Cnut and Robert may have been, the two princes died in the same year.[1053] When Cnut made his pilgrimage to Rome, religious motives were doubtless the leading cause of his journey. But the politic King knew how to make use of the errand which was to profit his soul in order to advance at once his own power and credit and the interests of the many nations over which he ruled. A fit of purer religious enthusiasm, a fierce impulse of penitence for past sins, carried Robert of Normandy on the more distant pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[1054] On his return he died at the [Sidenote: Robert dies at Nikaia. July 2, 1035.] Bithynian Nikaia; some say by the same fate by which he was suspected of having made away with his own brother.[1055] In his lifetime he had begun to rear the noble abbey of Cerisy, where, after many changes and mutilations, some parts still remain to witness to the severe grandeur of the taste of Robert and his age.[1056] But the bones of its founder were not destined to rest among its massive pillars or beneath the bold arches which span the width of its stately nave. The relics which he had collected in the East were borne by his chamberlain Toustain to the sanctuary which he had founded,[1057] but the great Duke of the Normans[1058] himself found his last home in the lands beyond the Hellespont, beneath the spreading cupolas of a Byzantine basilica at Nikaia.[1059] The Norman thus died a stranger and a pilgrim in a land of another tongue [Sidenote: Cnut dies at Shaftesbury. November 12, 1035.] and another worship. The Dane too ended his days in a land which was not his by birth; but it was in a land in which, if he had entered it as a destroyer, he had truly reigned as a father. Cnut, Emperor of six kingdoms, but in a special manner King of the old West-Saxon realm, died within the West-Saxon border, at a spot hallowed by memories of Ælfred, beneath the shadow of his minster at Shaftesbury.[1060] As an English King by adoption, if not by birth, he found a grave among the English Kings who had gone before him, in the Old Minster of his West-Saxon capital. The two rivals, if rivals they were, passed from the Western world almost at the same moment; the death of Cnut happened about the time when the death of Robert must have become known in England and in Normandy. The dominions of both rulers passed away to their spurious or doubtful offspring. The son of Herleva succeeded in Normandy; the supposed son of “the other Ælfgifu” succeeded in [Sidenote: Contrast between their successors.] England. But if there be a wide difference between the fame of the two fathers, it is far more than overbalanced by the difference between the fame of their sons. A reign of a few obscure years of crime and confusion forms the sole memory of the Bastard of Northampton, while the world has ever since rung, and while it lasts it can hardly ever fail to ring, with the mighty name of the Bastard of Falaise.

§ 3. _The Reign of Harold the Son of Cnut._ 1035–1040.

[Sidenote: Extent of Cnut’s Empire.]

The good fortune of Cnut had raised him up an Empire in Northern Europe to which there was no parallel before or after him. Setting aside descriptions of his power which are manifestly gross exaggerations, he united the kingdom of England and its dependencies with the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway. As to his intentions with regard to the disposition of these vast dominions after his death our information is unfortunately most [Sidenote: Comparison between the partition of the Empire of Cnut and that of Charles.] meagre. It seems clear that, like Charles the Great, he designed a partition among his children; it is not clear whether, like Charles, he designed to keep up any kind of connexion among his various kingdoms, by the investiture of one among his sons with any Imperial superiority over the others.[1061] Like Charles, he had established his sons as kings during his lifetime in his subordinate [Sidenote: England the centre of Cnut’s Empire.] kingdoms. I say subordinate kingdoms, because nothing can be plainer than that, in Cnut’s eyes, Denmark and Norway were little more than dependencies of England. [Sidenote: The Scandinavian States ruled by Under-kings.] England was the seat of his own dominion, while the Scandinavian kingdoms were entrusted to viceroys or Under-kings. Swegen, with his mother Ælfgifu, had reigned in Norway; Denmark, it would seem, had been placed at one time under Harold and at another under Harthacnut. In both countries we see signs of disaffection towards Cnut’s government, while we see none such in England. The rule of Swegen and his mother is said to have been highly oppressive in Norway. In Denmark we even hear of an attempt, headed by Earl Ulf and said to be favoured by Queen Emma, to displace Cnut in favour of Harthacnut. The reason assigned is the preference shown [Sidenote: Impossibility of retaining the connexion between England and Scandinavia.] by Cnut to England and Englishmen. If then Cnut had any idea of permanently annexing his Scandinavian possessions to his English Empire, any idea, in short, of reducing Denmark and Norway to the condition of Wales and Scotland, such schemes had very little chance of any lasting success. Wales and Scotland were part of the same island with England, yet to keep them in any lasting subjection was always hard; to keep countries so remote as [Sidenote: Ephemeral nature of such] Denmark and Norway was hopelessly impossible. Empires like those of Alexander, Charles, and Cnut are in their own [Sidenote: Empires in general.] nature ephemeral. The process of their formation may, as in the cases of Alexander and Charles, leave results behind it which affect the whole later history of the world; but the Empires themselves are ephemeral. As united dominions, swayed by a single will, they last only as long as there is an Alexander or a Charles at their head; they fall to pieces as soon as the sceptre of the great conqueror passes into weaker hands. So it was with the Anglo-Scandinavian Empire of the great Cnut. With our scanty knowledge, we cannot positively either assert or deny that he dreamed of preserving any kind of union [Sidenote: Cnut’s designs not carried out.] among his vast and widely severed dominions. If he did entertain such thoughts, his designs were scattered to the winds immediately upon his own death. When he died, Swegen was in possession of Norway, and Harthacnut in possession of Denmark. It appears that England also was designed for the son of Emma, Cnut’s specially royal offspring, the one son who was the child of a crowned King and his Lady. What provision, if any, was made for Harold by his father’s last dispositions does not appear. But things turned out far otherwise than Cnut had [Sidenote: Swegen expelled from Norway. 1036.] intended. Swegen was almost immediately driven out of Norway, and Magnus, the son of Saint Olaf, was received as King. In Denmark Harthacnut kept possession, though the aspect of Magnus was threatening. In England, as usual, all attempts to influence the free choice of the Witan before the vacancy came to nothing. If Cnut tried to do more than exercise that vague power of recommending a successor which the law vested in him, his bequest went for as little as the older bequest of Æthelwulf had gone.[1062]

[Sidenote: State of England on the death of Cnut.]

The events which immediately followed the death of Cnut are told with much contradiction and confusion; but, by closely attending to the most trustworthy authorities, it is not very hard to make out the general order [Sidenote: The West-Saxons for Harthacnut.] of events.[1063] It appears that the will of the late King in favour of Harthacnut was upheld by the West-Saxons with Godwine their Earl at their head. That the English were divided, some being for Harthacnut and some for one of the sons of Æthelred, is a statement which seems hardly to rest on sufficient authority.[1064] On the other hand, Harold, the supposed son of Cnut and of Ælfgifu of Northampton, also appeared as a candidate. [Sidenote: Northumberland, Mercia, and London for Harold.] He seems to have been supported by Earl Leofric of Mercia, by the great body of the thegns north of the Thames, and by the “lithsmen,” the sea-faring folk, of London. It would even seem that he ventured on a daring act, whether we call it an act of sovereignty or [Sidenote: Harold spoils Emma.] of violence, before the election was held. He sent to Winchester and despoiled the Lady Ælfgifu-Emma of the treasures which had been left her by Cnut.[1065] Personally, as the event proved, both candidates were equally worthless; but each had strong political motives on his side, and it is clear that men’s passions were deeply stirred by the struggle. As far as we can see, Harold was the candidate of the North, Harthacnut of the South; Harold was the candidate of the Danes, Harthacnut of [Sidenote: Apparent motives of the two parties.] the English. At first sight this division of parties seems exactly opposite to what might have been expected. Harthacnut, the son of a Danish father and a Norman mother, had not a drop of English blood in his veins. Harold, if he was what he professed to be, the son of Cnut by the other Ælfgifu, was English at least by the mother’s side; if he was what scandal asserted him to be, the son of a shoemaker by some nameless mother, he was doubtless English on both sides. The election of Harthacnut involved the continuation of the connexion with Denmark; the election of Harold would again make England an independent and isolated kingdom. Yet English feeling lay with Harthacnut, Danish feeling lay [Sidenote: Attachment of the West-Saxons to Harthacnut as the legatee of Cnut.] with Harold. The explanation is probably to be found in the personal position of Cnut towards his West-Saxon subjects. He had lived more habitually among them than among the people of any other part of his dominions; the greatest of living Englishmen had been his minister and representative; he had in every way made Wessex his home, and Wessex had flourished under his government as it had never flourished before. It was no wonder then if the wishes of Cnut with regard to the succession or to anything else were looked on by the West-Saxon people as a sacred law. Harthacnut too, if not the descendant of their ancient rulers, was at least a kingly bairn, the son of a crowned King and his Lady. Who was Harold the bastard, whose parents no one knew for certain, that he should rule over them? If Harthacnut was at this moment in Denmark, his earliest days had been spent in England, while we have seen reason to believe that the earliest days of Harold had been spent in [Sidenote: Aspect of the connexion with Denmark.] Denmark. The continued connexion with Denmark which was implied in the choice of Harthacnut might even appear to patriotic Englishmen as an argument in favour of the Danish King.[1066] In the later days of Cnut the connexion with Denmark had taken a form which must have been distinctly gratifying to English, and above all to West-Saxon, national feeling. The lord of all Northern Europe had worn his Imperial crown in the old West-Saxon capital; he had thence sent forth his earls and his sons to govern his dependent realms of Denmark and Norway. As it had been in the days of Cnut, so men deemed that it would be in the days of Harthacnut. Denmark, like Mercia or Northumberland, would be only another earldom whence homage, and perhaps tribute, would be paid to the Imperial court and the Imperial treasure-house at Winchester. The sons of Æthelred were strangers; no man in England had seen them since their childhood; their claims had been made the pretext for a threatened foreign invasion; no sentiment attaching to their remoter ancestry could at all counterbalance the sentiment which attached to the undoubted, the royal, the chosen, son of the King who had given England eighteen years of peace, prosperity, and foreign dominion. West-Saxon feeling therefore took the shape of loyalty to the undoubted son of the late King, of obedience to his declared wishes as to the succession. Earl Godwine and all the men of his earldom were for Harthacnut.

[Sidenote: Motives in favour of Harold among the Danes and Northern
English.]

On the other hand, it is not hard to see how Harold might appeal to a very intelligible line of feeling in the minds of the Danish and half-Danish inhabitants of Northern England. His bastardy would in their eyes be no objection. Whether we look on his mother as a mere concubine or as bound to Cnut by an irregular or uncanonical marriage, her children would, according to Danish notions, be as fit to reign as the children of the Norman Lady. Indeed a powerful vein of Northumbrian sentiment might not unnaturally attach to the grandson of the murdered Earl Ælfhelm. Harold’s election might seem to be the overthrow of the West-Saxon dominion over Danes and Angles; a day might seem to be coming in which Winchester would have to bow to York. And if the son of Ælfgifu thus had a local connexion with Northumberland, he had also a local connexion with Mercia. Whether by birth, by residence, or by maternal descent, the daughter of Ælfhelm was in some way Ælfgifu of Northampton, and her son might call on Mercian local feeling to support the claims of a countryman. Again, if Harold, after having been designed for the crown of Denmark and brought up in Denmark as a future Danish King, had been deprived by his father’s later arrangements of any share in either England or Denmark, Danish and Northumbrian feelings would centre round him still more strongly. He would become the embodiment of any jealousies which had been called forth by Cnut’s open preference of England to Denmark, by his preference of the Saxon part of England to the Anglian and Danish lands. It was better to have a King who should reign over England without Denmark, better to have a King who should reign over Northumberland and Mercia without Wessex, than for a West-Saxon King, of whatever ancestry, to hold both Northumberland and Denmark as dependencies. The old provincial feelings, often concealed but never completely stifled, ever ready to break out on any strong provocation, now broke out in their fulness. The Danish provinces sided with Harold. And with them we find a new element, the “lithsmen,” the nautic multitude [Sidenote: Danish settlement in London.] of London. The great city still kept her voice in the election of Kings, but that voice would almost seem to have been handed over to a new class among her population. We hear now, not of the citizens, but of the sea-faring men.[1067] Every invasion, every foreign settlement of any kind within the kingdom, has in every age added a new element to the population of London. As a Norman colony settled in London later in the century, so a Danish colony settled there now. Some accounts tell us, doubtless with great exaggeration, that London had now almost become a Danish city.[1068] But it is certain that the Danish element in the city was numerous and powerful, and that its voice strongly helped to swell the cry in favour of Harold. Northumberland, Mercia, and London thus demanded that the son of Ælfgifu of Northampton should, if possible, be King over all England; in the worst case they would have him, like Eadgar and like Cnut, for King over all Northumberland and Mercia.

There was perhaps no country except England in which such a question could have been settled in that age otherwise than at the cost of a civil war. But the firmly rooted principles of English law, the habit of constant meeting and discussion, had already produced some germs of the feeling to which the great English historian of Greece has [Sidenote: The controversy peacefully decided in the Witenagemót.] given the name of “constitutional morality.”[1069] The controversy was a sharp one; but it was decided, not on the field of battle, but in the debates of the Witenagemót. The usual midwinter meeting may, or may not, have been [Sidenote: Gemót of Oxford. Christmas, 1035?] forestalled by a few weeks; certain it is that, soon after the death of Cnut, the Witan of all England met in full Gemót at Oxford. That town was, no doubt, on this as on other occasions, recommended for the purpose by its position on the frontiers of the two great divisions of the kingdom. The national council proceeded to debate [Sidenote: Godwine maintains the claims of Harthacnut.] the claims of the two candidates. The great Earl of the West-Saxons, supported by the whole force of his earldom, strove to play the same part which Dunstan had played in the last recorded debate of the kind in a full and free Assembly of the Wise.[1070] His eloquent tongue set forth the claims of Harthacnut, the candidate recommended alike by undoubted kingly birth and by the wishes of the glorious sovereign whom they had lost. But this time the charmer charmed in vain. All that Godwine could gain for the son of the Lady was a portion of his father’s [Sidenote: The division of the kingdom proposed by Leofric,] kingdom. The proposal of a division seems to have come from Leofric, now Earl over all Mercia,[1071] who on all occasions appears as a mediator between the extreme parties of the North and the South. To this course he was prompted alike by his personal temper and by the geographical position of his earldom. Godwine and his party withstood for a while even this proposal; but the majority [Sidenote: and voted by the assembly.] was against them; the assembly decreed the division of England between the two candidates.[1072] Once more, but now for the last time in English history, the land had two [Sidenote: Harthacnut reigns in Wessex; Harold reigns north of Thames,] acknowledged Kings. Harold reigned to the north of the Thames and Harthacnut to the south. We are not distinctly told whether the two Kings were to be perfectly independent of each other, or whether, as in the case of Cnut and Eadmund, any Imperial supremacy was reserved [Sidenote: seemingly as superior lord.] to either of the half-brothers.[1073] But several indications seem to show that such a supremacy was reserved to Harold, and this supposition may perhaps help to explain some of the difficulties in the narrative which follows. Nor are we told of any stipulations as to the succession. It would follow, almost as a matter of course, that, if either of the brothers died childless, the survivor would be elected to [Sidenote: Rumoured refusal of Archbishop Æthelnoth to crown Harold.] his share of the kingdom. According to one account, Archbishop Æthelnoth, the friend of Cnut, still refused to consecrate Harold as King. He placed the crown and sceptre on the altar; Harold might seize them if he dared; but while a son of Emma lived, he, Æthelnoth, would crown no King but a son of Emma, and every Bishop of his province was equally forbidden to perform the rite. If this tale be true, it was an assertion of independence on the part of the ecclesiastical power for which we might in vain seek a parallel in the English history of those times. Æthelnoth, as a member of the Gemót, might give his vote for whichever candidate he thought good; but when the election was once made, he had clearly no right as Archbishop to refuse to consecrate the King chosen by the majority. But the tale is most likely a fiction. There seems to be little doubt that Harold was regularly crowned at Oxford by Æthelnoth, either now or after his later election to the whole kingdom.[1074] But, if the tale be true, and if it belongs to this time, it plainly implies the Imperial supremacy of Harold. With a mere King of the Mercians and Northumbrians, whether an Under-king or an altogether independent sovereign, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a West-Saxon subject, could have nothing to do.

[Sidenote: Harthacnut remains in Denmark.]

The kingdom was thus divided. The King-elect of the West-Saxons was in no hurry—the affairs of his Northern kingdom did not allow him to be in a hurry—to take personal possession of the fragment of a realm which was [Sidenote: Regency of Emma and Godwine in Wessex. 1035–1037.] all that Godwine had been able to keep for him. Emma appears to have been invested with a kind of regency in her son’s name, while Godwine still held his office as Earl, and with it the administration of the West-Saxon kingdom. It is specially mentioned that Harthacnut’s housecarls remained with Emma.[1075] The housecarls of Harthacnut had doubtless been the housecarls of Cnut; their loyalty was personal to their master, and it would naturally pass to his widow and her son. But that their presence was allowed in the West-Saxon kingdom and capital under the administration of Godwine clearly shows that they had not been employed during the late reign as instruments of oppression, and that they were not looked on with any general hatred by the people at large.

It was in the course of the next year that an event happened of which advantage has ever since been taken by hostile tongues and pens to stain the character of the great Earl of the West-Saxons with a charge of the blackest treachery. But even in the period on which we are now entering, a period in which we have at every step to weigh the conflicting statements of national and political partizanship, there is no event as to which the various versions of the tale are more utterly at variance with each other. The story is told with every conceivable variety of time, place, and person, and even our earliest and best authorities contain statements which cannot be reconciled [Sidenote: Attempt in favour of the Æthelings. 1036.] with one another. Thus much seems certain; first, that, about this time, one or both of the sons of Æthelred and Emma made an attempt to recover their father’s kingdom; secondly, that Ælfred, the younger of the two Æthelings, fell into the power of Harold and was cruelly put to death; thirdly, that Godwine was suspected of being an accomplice. [Sidenote: Conflicting versions of the story.] But beyond this, there is hardly a detail of the story which can be asserted with any confidence.[1076] The first point, that the attempt, whatever was its nature, took place soon after the death of Cnut and the first election of Harold, is placed beyond all doubt by the complete agreement of the best authorities. But very respectable secondary authorities have altogether misplaced the date, and they have thus given occasion for a lower class of compilers to load the story with endless mythical and [Sidenote: _Norman Version._] calumnious details. According to the Norman account, both the Æthelings had a share in the attempt. As soon as the death of Cnut was known in Normandy, Eadward [Sidenote: Invasion of England by Eadward.] set sail with forty ships and landed at Southampton. But the English, whether for love or for fear[1077] of their Danish King Harold, met them as enemies. Eadward fought a battle and defeated the English with great slaughter. But, reflecting how great was the strength of England and how small was the force which he had brought with him, he presently sailed away, taking with him great plunder. Soon after Eadward’s return, Ælfred set sail from Wissant[1078] and landed at Dover. As he went onwards into the country, Godwine met him, received him friendly, and seemingly did homage to him.[1079] The Earl and the Ætheling supped together, and talked over their plans. But in the night Godwine seized Ælfred, tied his hands behind his back, and thus sent him and some of his companions to London to King Harold. Others he put in prison, others he embowelled.[1080] Among those who were sent to London, Harold caused Ælfred’s chief companions to be beheaded, and the Ætheling himself to be blinded. In that state he was sent to Ely, naked and with his legs tied under his horse’s belly. He had not been long at Ely when he died, as the weapon with which his eyes had been cut out had wounded the brain.[1081]

[Sidenote: In this version his coming is hostile.]

In this Norman version the coming of Ælfred is simply part of a Norman invasion. Eadward had come with a force large enough to fight a battle; Ælfred’s force, we [Sidenote: _Version in two of the Chronicles._] are told, was still larger.[1082] The oldest English version, which it must not be forgotten takes the form of a ballad, knows nothing of any warlike expedition, and speaks of [Sidenote: Ælfred’s companions slain [by Godwine].] Ælfred only. According to this account, Ælfred came to England, whence or under what circumstances we are not told, and wished to go to his mother at Winchester. In this purpose he was hindered by men who were powerful at the time, and who unjustly favoured Harold. In one version these men are nameless; in another Godwine is named as their chief.[1083] Then the Ætheling and his companions are seized; some are killed outright, some are put in bonds, some sold as slaves, others blinded or put to various tortures and horrible deaths.[1084] No worse deed had ever been done since the Danes came into the land.[1085] All this was done, according to one version, by Godwine, according to the other, by Harold. The Ætheling still lived; so he was taken to Ely in a ship, blinded while still on board, given thus blinded to the monks, with whom he lived till he died soon after, and then was buried honourably in the minster.[1086]

There is yet quite another version, that of the special panegyrist of Emma, according to whom, it must be remembered, Eadward and Ælfred are not sons of Æthelred, but younger sons of Cnut and Emma, sent over to Normandy [Sidenote: Harold forges a letter from Emma to the Æthelings.] for education.[1087] Harold, anxious to destroy his half-brothers, forges a letter to them in the name of their mother. She tells them that she is Lady, only in name; Harold has usurped the kingdom and is daily strengthening himself; he is winning over the chief men by gifts, threats, and prayers. Yet the feeling of the nation is still in their favour rather than in that of Harold. Let one of her sons come over to her quickly and secretly; she can then consult with him what is to be done.[1088] The Æthelings fell into the snare; Ælfred, the younger of the brothers, went with a few comrades into Flanders; there he stayed a short time with the Marquess Baldwin, and increased his company by some adventurers from Boulogne.[1089] He then set sail, and came near to some point of the English coast which is not further described. But, as the inhabitants came down to the shore with evidently hostile intentions, he changed his course to another point equally undetermined. There he landed, and tried to go to his mother; on the way he was met by Godwine, who swore oaths to him and became his man.[1090] By the Earl’s advice he turned [Sidenote: Ælfred received by Godwine,] aside from London,[1091] and lodged at Guildford. There Godwine quartered Ælfred’s comrades in different houses in the town, leaving a few only to attend on the Ætheling himself. He feasted Ælfred and his companions, and withdrew to his own house, evidently in or near Guildford, promising to return in the morning to do his due service [Sidenote: but seized by the agents of Harold.] to his lord.[1092] But in the night the emissaries of Harold suddenly appeared in the town, seized the comrades of Ælfred, and sold, slew, or tortured them according to the usual story. The Ætheling was taken to Ely; there he was first mocked by the soldiers, then loaded with heavy fetters, brought before some kind of tribunal, and, by its sentence, blinded and finally put to death.[1093] The monks of Ely took his body and buried it, and miracles were of course wrought at his tomb.

[Sidenote: Estimate of the evidence.]

These are the main versions of the tale, the details of which, as well as some other accounts, I shall discuss elsewhere. Now when we come to compare them with one another, what is the judgement to which we ought to come? That Ælfred landed, that he and his comrades were cruelly put to death, there can be no doubt; but had Godwine any share in the deed? Before we examine the evidence, we must first try and understand what the real state of the case was. The unhappy fate of Ælfred caused him, according to the universal English instinct, to be looked on as a martyr; his tale became a piece of hagiology, to which, as to other pieces of hagiology, ordinary ways of thinking were not to be applied. This way of looking at the matter began very early; but, in order really to get to the bottom of the question, we must try and understand how things must have looked at the moment of Ælfred’s landing.

[Sidenote: Statement of the case.]