Chapter IX (2)

The disposal of the Bishopricks which had become vacant by the flight of their foreign occupants was a more important matter, at least it led to more important consequences in the long run. At the moment of Godwine’s restoration, it probably did not occur to any Englishman to doubt that they were vacant both in fact and in law. Robert and Ulf had fled from their sees; they had been declared outlaws by the highest authority of the nation, or rather by the nation itself. Our forefathers most likely thought very little about canonical subtleties. They would hardly argue the point whether the Bishops had resigned or had been deprived, nor would they doubt that the nation had full power to deprive them. In whatever way the vacancies had occurred, the sees were in fact vacant; there was no Archbishop at Canterbury and no Bishop at Dorchester. That the King and his Witan would be stepping beyond their powers in filling those sees was not likely to come into [Sidenote: Relation of Church and State at the time. Identity of the two bodies.] any man’s head. We must remember how thoroughly the English nation and the English Church were then identified. No broad line was drawn between ecclesiastical and temporal causes, between ecclesiastical and temporal offices. The immediate personal duties of an Earl and of a Bishop were undoubtedly different; but the two dignitaries acted within their shire with a joint authority in many matters which, a hundred years later, would have been divided between a distinct civil and a distinct ecclesiastical tribunal. In appointing a Bishop, though we have seen that canonical election was not shut out, we have also seen that the Witan of the land had their share in the matter, and that it was by the King’s writ that the Bishoprick was formally bestowed.[1020] What the King and his Witan gave, the King and his Witan could doubtless take away, and they accordingly proceeded to deal with the sees of the outlawed Bishops exactly as they would have dealt [Sidenote: Vacancy of Canterbury filled by Stigand. 1052.] with the Earldoms of outlawed Earls. It might almost seem that the see of the chief offender, the Norman Primate, was at once bestowed by the voice of the great Assembly which restored Godwine.[1021] It was at all events bestowed within the year, while the Bishopricks of London and Dorchester were allowed to remain vacant some time longer. It may perhaps be thought that the appointment which was actually made to the see of Canterbury bears signs of being an act of the joyous fervour with which the nation welcomed its deliverance. It might have been expected that the claims of Ælfric to the Primacy would have revived on the expulsion of Robert. Ælfric had been canonically elected by the monks of Christ Church; no one seems to have objected to him except the King and his Frenchmen; he possessed all possible virtues, and he was moreover a kinsman of Earl Godwine. But, in the enthusiasm of the moment, there was one name which would attract more suffrages than that of any other Prelate or Priest in England. On that great Holy Cross Day the services of Stigand to the national cause had been second only to those of Godwine himself. As Robert had been the first to make strife, so Stigand had been the first to make peace, between the King and the great Earl. For such a service the highest place in the national Church would not, at the moment, seem too splendid a reward. Ælfric was accordingly forgotten, and Stigand was, either in the great Gemót of September or in the regular Gemót of the following Christmas, appointed to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury. With the Primacy, according to a practice vicious enough in itself, but which might have been defended by abundance of precedents, he continued to hold the see of Winchester in plurality.

[Sidenote: Importance of this appointment.]

This appointment of Stigand was one of great moment in many ways. Amongst other things, it gave an [Sidenote: Handle given to the Normans by Robert’s expulsion.] excellent handle to the wily Duke of the Normans, and thus became one of the collateral causes of the Norman Conquest. The outlawed Robert retired in the end to his own monastery of Jumièges, and there died and was buried. But he did not die till he had made Europe resound with the tale of his wrongs. The world soon heard how a Norman Primate had been expelled from his see, how an Englishman had been enthroned in his place, by sheer secular violence, without the slightest pretence of canonical form. Robert told his tale at Rome;[1022] we may be sure that he also told it at Rouen. William treasured it up, and knew how to use it when the time came. In his bill of indictment against England, the expulsion of Archbishop Robert appears as a prominent count.[1023] It is bracketted with the massacre of Saint Brice, with the murder of Ælfred, and with all the other stories which, though they could not make William’s claim to the Crown one whit stronger, yet served admirably to discredit the cause of England in men’s minds. No one knew better than William how to make everything of this sort tell. The restoration of Godwine was an immediate check to all his plans; it rendered his hopes of a peaceful succession far less probable. But the expulsion of Robert and the other Normans was a little sweet in the cup of bitterness. The English, and Earl Godwine himself, in their insular recklessness of canonical niceties, had unwittingly put another weapon into the hands of the foe who was carefully biding his time.

[Sidenote: Doubtful ecclesiastical position of Stigand.]

Even in England the position of Stigand was a very doubtful one.[1024] He was _de facto_ Archbishop, he acted as such in all political matters, and was addressed as such in royal writs. We hear of no opposition to him, of no attempt at his removal, till William himself was King. He was undoubtedly an able and patriotic statesman, and his merits in this way doubtless prevented any direct move against him. And yet even Englishmen, and patriotic Englishmen, seem to have been uneasy as to his ecclesiastical position. For six years he was an Archbishop without a pallium; it was one of the charges against him [Sidenote: He receives the pallium from the Antipope Benedict. 1058.] that he used the pallium of his predecessor Robert. At last he obtained the coveted ornament from Rome, but it was from the hands of a Pontiff whose occupation of the Holy See was short, and who, as his cause was unsuccessful, was not looked on by the Church as a canonical Pope. In fact, in strict ecclesiastical eyes, Stigand’s reception of the pallium from Benedict the Tenth seems only to have [Sidenote: His ministrations commonly avoided.] made matters worse than they were before. At any rate, both before and after this irregular investiture, men seem to have avoided recourse to his hands for any great ecclesiastical rite. Most of the Bishops of his province were, during his incumbency, consecrated by other hands.[1025] Even Harold himself, politically his firm friend, preferred the ministry of other Prelates in the two great ecclesiastical ceremonies of his life, the consecration of Waltham and his own coronation. One of our Chroniclers, not indeed the most patriotic of their number, distinctly and significantly denies Stigand’s right to be called Archbishop.[1026] One cannot help thinking that all this canonical precision must have arisen among the foreign ecclesiastics who held English preferment, among the Lotharingians favoured by Godwine and Harold, no less than among the King’s own Normans. But at all events the scruple soon became prevalent among Englishmen of all classes. An ecclesiastical punctilio which led Harold himself, on the occasion of two of the most solemn events of his life, to offer a distinct slight to a political friend of the highest rank, must have obtained a very firm possession of the national mind.

[Sidenote: Ulf succeeded by Wulfwig. 1053–1067.]

The case of Stigand is the more remarkable, because no such difficulties are spoken of as arising with regard to the position of another Prelate whose case seems at first sight to have been just the same as his own. If Robert was irregularly deprived, Ulf was equally so. Yet no objection seems to have been made to the canonical character of Wulfwig, who, in the course of the next year, succeeded Ulf in the see of Dorchester.[1027] It is possible that the key to the difference may be found in the fact of the long vacancy of Dorchester. This suggests the idea of some application to Rome, which was successful in the case of Wulfwig and unsuccessful in the case of Stigand. We can well conceive that the deprivation of Ulf may have been confirmed, and that of Robert, as far as the Papal power could annul it, annulled. It must be remembered that Ulf, on account of his utter lack of learning, had found great difficulty in obtaining the Papal approval of his first nomination. The sins of Robert, on the other hand, seem to have been only sins against England, which would pass for very venial errors at Rome. This difference may perhaps account for the different treatment of their two successors. At any rate, Wulfwig seems to have found no opposition in any quarter to his occupancy of the great Mid-English Bishoprick. And he seems to have himself set the example of the scruple which has been just mentioned against recognizing Stigand in any [Sidenote: Leofwine Bishop of Lichfield. 1053–1067.] purely spiritual matter. Along with Leofwine, who in the same year became Bishop of Lichfield, he went beyond sea to receive consecration, and the way in which this journey is mentioned seems to imply that their motive was a dislike to be consecrated by the hands of the new Metropolitan.[1028]

[Sidenote: William of London retains his Bishoprick.]

The see of London was treated in a different way from those of Canterbury and Dorchester, and a way certainly most honourable to its Norman occupant. We have seen that it is not certain whether Bishop William accompanied Robert and Ulf in their escape from England.[1029] It is certain that, if he left England, he was before long invited to return and to reoccupy his see. This may have been the act of Harold after the death of his father. It is an obvious conjecture that Harold would be somewhat less strict in such matters than his wary and experienced parent, and that he would listen with somewhat more favour to the King’s requests for the retention or restoration of some of his favourites.[1030] But it is certain that a Norman whom either Godwine or Harold allowed either to retain, or to return to, the great see of London must have been a man of a very different kind from Robert and Ulf. We are expressly told that William’s Bishoprick was restored to him on account of his good character.[1031] Indeed the character which could obtain such forbearance for a Norman at such a moment must have been unusually good, when we remember that he actually had an English competitor for the see. Spearhafoc, it will not be forgotten, had been regularly nominated to the Bishoprick, and though refused consecration, had held its temporalities till the outlawry of Godwine allowed a Norman to be put in his place.[1032] But the claims of Spearhafoc on the see of London seem to have been as wholly forgotten as the claims of Ælfric on the see of Canterbury. William retained the Bishoprick throughout the reigns of Eadward and Harold, and he died, deeply honoured by the city over which he [Sidenote: 1070.] ruled, four years after the accession of his namesake.

[Sidenote: Normans allowed to remain or return.]

William was the only Norman who retained a Bishoprick, as Ralph was the only stranger of any nation—for we can hardly count Siward as a stranger—who retained an Earldom, after the restoration of Godwine. But, under the terms of the exception to the general outlawry of Normans, a good many men of that nation retained or recovered inferior, though still considerable, offices. We have a list of those who were thus excepted, which contains some names which we are surprised to find there. The exception was to apply to those only who had been true to the King and his people. Yet among the Normans who remained we find Richard the son of Scrob,[1033] [Sidenote: Osbern of Richard’s castle.] and among those who returned we find his son Osbern. These two men were among the chief authors of all evil. Osbern was so conscious of guilt, or so fearful of popular vengeance, that, in company with a comrade named Hugh, he threw himself on the mercy of Earl Leofric. Osbern and Hugh surrendered their castles, and passed with the Earl’s safe-conduct into Scotland, where, along with other exiles, they were favourably received by the reigning King Macbeth.[1034] Yet it is certain that Osbern afterwards returned, and held both lands and offices in Herefordshire.[1035] Others mentioned are Robert the Deacon, described as the father-in-law of Richard, and who must therefore have been an old man,[1036] Humphrey Cocksfoot, whom I cannot further identify, and Ælfred the King’s stirrup-holder.[1037] The list might be largely extended on the evidence of Domesday and the Charters. Some of the most remarkable names are those of the Stallers, Robert the son of Wymarc and Ralph,[1038] and the King’s Chamberlain, Hugh or Hugolin, a person who has found his way from the dry entries in the Survey and the Charters into the legend of his sainted master.[1039] Altogether the number of Normans who remained in England during the later days of [Sidenote: Some of them probably restored after Godwine’s death.] Eadward was clearly not small. And, as some at least were evidently restored after flight or banishment, the suggestion again presents itself that their restoration was owing to special entreaties of the King after the death of Godwine. Harold, in the first days of his administration, may hardly have been in a position to refuse such entreaties. And, in any case, though we may call it a weakness to allow men, some of whom at least were dangerous, to remain in, or return to, the country, yet for a subject newly exalted to give too willing an ear to the prayers of his sovereign, is a weakness which may easily be forgiven.

The revolution was thus accomplished, a revolution of [Sidenote: Estimate of Godwine’s conduct.] which England may well be proud. In the words of a contemporary writer, the wisdom of Godwine had redressed all the evils of the country without shedding a drop of blood.[1040] The moderation of the Earl, the way in which he kept back his ardent followers, the way in which he preserved his personal loyalty to the King,[1041] are beyond all praise. He had delivered his country, he and his had been restored to the favour of their prince, and he now again entered on his old duties as Earl of the West-Saxons and virtual ruler of the Kingdom of England. We may be sure that his popularity had never been so high, or his general authority so boundless, as it was during the short remainder of his life. For Godwine was not destined to any long enjoyment of his renewed honour and prosperity; England was not destined to look much longer [Sidenote: Godwine’s illness.] upon the champion who had saved her. Soon after his restoration the Earl began to sicken;[1042] but he still continued his attention to public affairs, and we can see the working of his vigorous hand in the energetic way in [Sidenote: Christmas Gemót at Gloucester. 1052–1053.] which a Welsh marauder was dealt with at the Christmas Gemót of this year, held as usual at Gloucester. Rhys, the brother of Gruffydd King of the South-Welsh, had been guilty of many plundering expeditions at a place called Bulendún, the position of which seems to be unknown. Early in the year the Northern Gruffydd had ravaged the border at pleasure; now we read, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, that a decree of the Witan—a bill of attainder we may call it—was passed for the [Sidenote: Rhys beheaded and his head brought to Eadward. January 5, 1053.] execution of the Welsh prince.[1043] The decree was duly carried out, and the Christmas festivities were not over, when the head of Rhys was brought to King Eadward, on the vigil of the Epiphany, exactly thirteen years before his [Sidenote: Arnwig resigns the Abbey of Peterborough. Leofric succeeds.] own death.[1044] It was seemingly in the same Gemót that Arnwig, Abbot of Peterborough, resigned his abbey, “and gave it to Leofric the monk by the King’s leave and that of the monks.”[1045] This expression is remarkable, as illustrating that union of royal, capitular, and we may add parliamentary, action, which we have already noticed as prevailing in the appointment of English Prelates in those days.[1046] The process was no doubt the same as that by which it had been attempted to raise Ælfric to the see of Canterbury. The monks, at the suggestion of Arnwig, elected Leofric as his successor. They petitioned the King and his Witan to confirm the election. In this case the [Sidenote: Leofric Abbot of Peterborough. 1053–1066.] confirmation was granted, whereas in the case of Ælfric it had been refused. Abbot Leofric, a nephew of his namesake the Earl, was a man of high birth and of high spirit.[1047] He ruled the great house of Saint Peter with all honour for thirteen years; he enriched the monastery with lands and ornaments of all kinds, and won for it the favour of the King and all the great men of the land. Peterborough, under his rule, became so rich in the precious metals that men called the house Gildenborough.[1048] But, in the eyes of English patriots, Abbot Leofric has won a still higher fame by an act less clearly coming within the range of his ecclesiastical duties. He was one of those great Lords of the Church who did not feel that they were hindered by their monastic vows from marching by the side of Harold to the great battle.[1049]

[Sidenote: Easter Gemót at Winchester. 1053.]

The next great festival of the Church, the next great assembly of the English Witan, beheld the death of the most renowned Englishman of that generation. The King kept the Easter festival at Winchester, and on the Monday of that week of rejoicing, the Earl of the West-Saxons, with his sons Harold, Tostig, and Gyrth, were admitted [Sidenote: Godwine’s illness, April 12,] to the royal table. During the meal Godwine fell from his seat speechless and powerless. His sons lifted him from the ground, and carried him to the King’s own bower, in hopes of his recovery. Their hopes were in vain; the Earl [Sidenote: and death, April 15.] never spoke again, and, after lying insensible for three days, he died on the following Thursday. Such is the simple, yet detailed, account which a contemporary writer gives us of an event which has, perhaps even more than any other event of these times, been seized upon as a subject for Norman romance and calumny. There was undoubtedly something striking and awful in the sight of the first man in England, in all the full glory of his recovered power, thus suddenly smitten with his death-blow. He had been, as we have seen, ailing for some months, but the actual stroke, when it came, seems to have been quite unlooked for. It is not wonderful that, in such a death at such a moment, men saw a [Sidenote: Norman fictions about the death of Godwine.] special work of divine judgement. It is not wonderful that Norman enemies brought the old scandals up again, and decked out the tale of the death of the murderer of Ælfred with the most appalling details of God’s vengeance upon the hardened and presumptuous sinner. I shall elsewhere discuss their romantic inventions, which in truth belong less to the province of the historian than to that of the comparative mythologist.[1050] It is more important to note here that one English writer seems to see in Godwine’s death the punishment of his real or supposed [Sidenote: Bounty of Gytha.] aggressions on the property of the Church.[1051] On this last score however the bounty of his widow did all that she could to make atonement for any wrongdoings on the part of the deceased. The pious munificence of Gytha is acknowledged even by those who are most bitter against her husband, and it now showed itself in lavish offerings for the repose of the soul of Godwine.[1052] His place of burial [Sidenote: Godwine buried in the Old Minster.] need hardly be mentioned. The man who was greater than a King, the maker and the father of Kings, found his last resting-place among Kings. His corpse was laid by that of the King under whom he had risen to greatness, by that of the Lady whose rights he had so stoutly defended, by that of the first King whom he had placed on the West-Saxon throne, by that of the murdered nephew whose death had cast the first shade of gloom upon his house. The Earl of the West-Saxons, dying in the West-Saxon capital, was buried with all pomp in the greatest of West-Saxon sanctuaries, in the Old Minster of Winchester.[1053] That renowned church was enriched with lands [Sidenote: General grief of the nation.] and ornaments in memory of the dead. But the noblest offering of all was the grief of the nation which he had saved. His real faults, his imaginary crimes, were all forgotten. Men remembered only that the greatest man of their blood and speech was taken from them. They thought of the long years of peace and righteous government which they had enjoyed under his rule; they thought of the last and greatest of his great deeds, how he had chased the stranger from the land, and had made England England once again. Around the bier of Godwine men wept as for a father; they wept for the man whose hand had guided England and her people through all the storms of so many years of doubt and danger.[1054] They little deemed that, ages after his death, calumnies would still be heaped upon his name. They deemed not that the lies of the stranger would take such root that the deliverer for whom they mourned would live in the pages of pretended history as Godwine the traitor. The time is now come to redress the wrong, and to do tardy justice to the fair fame of one of the greatest of England’s worthies. [Sidenote: True estimate of Godwine’s character.] To know what Godwine was, we have but to cast away the fables of later days, to turn to the records of his own time, to see how he looked in the eyes of men who had seen and heard him, of men who had felt the blessings of his rule and whose hearts had been stirred by the voice of his mighty eloquence. No man ever deserved a higher or a more lasting place in national gratitude than the first man who, being neither King nor Priest, stands forth in English history as endowed with all the highest attributes of the statesman. In him, in those distant times, we can revere the great minister, the unrivalled parliamentary leader, the man who could sway councils and assemblies at his will, and whose voice, during five and thirty years of political life, was never raised in any cause but that of the welfare of England. Side by side with all that is worthiest in our later history—side by side with his own counterpart two ages afterwards, the second deliverer from the yoke of the stranger, the victor of Lewes, the martyr of Evesham—side by side with all who, from his day to ours, have, in the field or in the senate, struggled or suffered in the cause of English freedom—side by side with the worthies of the thirteenth and the worthies of the seventeenth century—will the voice of truthful history, rising above the calumnies of ages, place the name of the great deliverer of the eleventh, the Earl of happy memory,[1055] whose greatness was ever the greatness of England, whose life was one long offering to her welfare, and whose death came fittingly as the crown of that glorious life, when he had once more given peace and freedom to the land which he loved so well.

§ 2. _From the Accession of Harold to the Earldom of the West-Saxons to
his first War with Gruffydd._ 1053–1056.

The great Earl was dead, and the office which he had held, an office which no man had ever held before him,[1056] was again at the disposal of the King and his Witan. As Godwine’s death had happened at the Easter festival, the Great Council of the nation was doubtless still in session. We may therefore assume, with perfect safety, that the appointments which the Earl’s death rendered needful [Sidenote: Nature of the succession to Earldoms.] were made at once, before the Assembly dispersed. The nature of the succession to these great governments must by this time be perfectly well understood. The King and his Witan might nominate whom they would to a vacant Earldom; but there was a strong feeling, whenever there was no special reason to the contrary, in favour of appointing the son of a deceased Earl. In Earldoms, like those of Mercia and Northumberland, where an ancient house had been in possession for several generations, this sort of preference had grown into the same kind of imperfect hereditary right which existed in the case of the Crown itself. It would have required a very strong case indeed for King and Witan to feel themselves justified in appointing any one but a son of Leofric to succeed Leofric in the government of Mercia. But in the case of [Sidenote: Special position of East-Anglia.] Wessex and East-Anglia no such inchoate right could be put forward by any man. The old East-Anglian house had probably become extinct, either through the slaughter of Assandun, or through the executions in the early days of Cnut.[1057] If not extinct, it had, at all events, sunk into insignificance, and had become lost to history. The Danish Thurkill had founded no dynasty in his Earldom. We cannot even make out with certainty the succession of Earls between [Sidenote: and Wessex.] him and Harold. The Earldom of the West-Saxons was a mere creation of Cnut himself. It would have broken in upon no feeling of ancient tradition, if the office had been abolished, and if the King had taken into his own hands the immediate government of the old cradle of his [Sidenote: Reasons for retaining the West-Saxon Earldom.] house. But such a step would have been distinctly a backward step. The King of the English was now King in every part of his realm alike. Certain parts of his realm might enjoy more of his personal presence than others; certain parts might even be practically more amenable to his authority than others; each great division of the Kingdom might still retain its local laws and customs; but there was still only one English Kingdom; no part of that Kingdom was a dependency of any other part; the King was King of the West-Saxons in no other sense than that in which he was King of the Northumbrians. But, if the local West-Saxon Earldom had been abolished, instead of a King of the English, reigning over one united Kingdom, there would again have been a King of the West-Saxons, holding East-Anglia, Mercia, and Northumberland as dependent provinces. Here then were good political reasons for retaining the institution of the Great Cnut, and for again appointing an Earl of the West-Saxons. Reverence also for the memory of the great man who was gone pleaded equally for the same course. An Earl of the West-Saxons had done more for England than any other subject had ever done. With Godwine and his great deeds still living in the minds and on the tongues of men, there could be little doubt as to giving him a successor; there could be hardly more of doubt as to who that successor should be.

[Sidenote: Harold Earl of the West-Saxons. Easter, 1053.]

The choice of the King and his Witan fell upon the eldest surviving son of the late Earl.[1058] Harold was removed from the government of the East-Angles to the greater government of the West-Saxons. This was, under such a King as Eadward, equivalent to investing him with the practical management of the King and his Kingdom. Harold then, when he could not have passed the age of thirty-two,[1059] became the first man in England. His career up to this time had been stained by what in our eyes seems to be more than one great fault, but it is clear that, in the eyes of his contemporaries, his merits far outweighed his errors. He had perhaps been guilty of selfishness in the matter of his brother Swegen;[1060] he had certainly been guilty of [Sidenote: Joy of the nation.] needless violence in the affair at Porlock. But the universal joy of the nation at his new promotion[1061] shows that the general character of his East-Anglian government must have given the brightest hopes for the future. Grief for the loss of Godwine was tempered by rejoicing at the elevation of one who at once began to walk in his father’s [Sidenote: Character of his government.] steps. From henceforth, as Earl and as King, the career of Harold is one of vigorous and just government, of skill and valour in the field, of unvarying moderation towards political foes. He won and he kept the devoted love of the English people. And, what was a harder task, he won and kept, though in a less degree than another of his house, the personal confidence and affection of the weak and wayward prince with whom he had to deal.

[Sidenote: Ælfgar Earl of the East-Angles.]

The translation of Harold to the greater government of Wessex made a vacancy in his former Earldom of the East-Angles. It would probably have been difficult to refuse the post to the man who had already held it for a short space, Ælfgar, the son of Leofric of Mercia. His appointment left only one of the great Earldoms in the House of Godwine, while the House of Leofric now again ruled from the North-Welsh border to the German Ocean.[1062] But it quite fell in with Harold’s conciliatory policy to raise no objection to an arrangement which seemed to reverse the positions of the two families. The possession of Wessex was an object paramount to all others, and all the chances of the future were in favour of the rising House. Ælfgar accordingly became Earl of the [Sidenote: Character of Ælfgar and his sons.] East-Angles.[1063] His career was turbulent and unhappy. The virtues of Leofric and Godgifu seem not to have been inherited by their descendants.[1064] We hear of Ælfgar and of his sons mainly as rebels in whom no confidence could be placed, as traitors to every King and to every cause, as men who never scrupled to call in the aid of any foreign enemy in order to promote their personal objects. Rivalry towards Harold and his house was doubtless one great mainspring of their actions, but the Norman Conqueror and the last male descendant of Cerdic found it as vain as ever Harold had found it to put trust in the grandsons of Leofric.

[Sidenote: Probable restoration of Bishop William and other Normans.]

I have already suggested that it was probably in consequence of the death of Godwine and the succession of Harold that the restoration of some of the King’s Norman favourites, especially of William Bishop of London, was allowed.[1065] This may have taken place at this same Easter festival; but it is more natural to refer it to some later Gemót of the same year. It is certain that, during this second portion of the reign of Eadward, a considerable number of Normans, or others bearing Norman or French [Sidenote: Position of the Normans in the later days of Eadward.] names, were established in England.[1066] It is equally certain that their position differed somewhat from what it had been before the outlawry of Godwine. The attempts to put them in possession of the great offices of the Kingdom were not renewed. Ralph retained his Earldom, William was allowed to return to his Bishoprick. The royal blood of the one, the excellent character of the other, procured for them this favourable exception, which, in the case of Ralph the Timid, proved eminently unlucky. But we hear of no other Norman or French Earls, Bishops, or Abbots. [Sidenote: Political office forbidden,] Excepting a few of the favoured natives of Lotharingia, none but Englishmen are now preferred to the great posts of Church and State. No local office higher than that of Sheriff, and that only in one or two exceptional cases,[1067] [Sidenote: but Court office allowed.] was now allowed to be held by a stranger. But mere Court preferment, offices about the King’s person, seem to have been freely held by foreigners to whom there was no manifest personal objection. The King was allowed to have about him his Norman stallers, his Norman chaplains, and, an officer now first beginning· to creep into a little importance, his Norman chancellor. And those Normans who were tolerated at all seem to have been looked on with less suspicion than they had been during the former period. They are now freely allowed to witness the royal charters, which implies their acting as members of the national assemblies.[1068] Their position is now clearly one of personal favour, not of political influence. They are hardly mentioned in our history; we have to trace them out by the light of entries [Sidenote: English character of Eadward’s later policy.] in Domesday and of signatures to Charters. Once only shall we have any reason to suspect that the course of events was influenced by them. And in that one case their influence is a mere surmise, and if it was exercised at all, it must have been exercised in a purely underhand way. The policy of Eadward’s reign is from henceforth distinctly an English policy. In other words, it is the policy of Harold.

[Sidenote: Difference between the position of Godwine and that of
Harold.]

It is easy to understand that the feelings of Harold with regard to the foreigners differed somewhat from those of his father. They belonged to different generations. Godwine’s whole education, his whole way of looking at things, must have been purely English. It is hardly needful to make any exception on behalf of influences from Denmark. The rule of Cnut was one under which Danes became Englishmen, not one under which Englishmen became Danes. We can hardly conceive that Godwine understood the French language. Such an accomplishment would in his early days have been quite useless. We can well believe that, along with his really enlightened and patriotic policy, there was in the old Earl a good deal of mere sturdy English prejudice against strangers as strangers. But every act of Harold’s life shows that this last was a feeling altogether alien to his nature. His travels of inquiry abroad, his encouragement of deserving foreigners at home, all show him to have been a statesman who, while he maintained a strictly national policy, rose altogether above any narrow insular prejudices. That he understood French well it is impossible to doubt.[1069] If he erred at all, he was far more likely to err in granting too much indulgence to the foreign fancies of his wayward master. His policy of conciliation would forbid him to be needlessly harsh even to a Norman, and he had every motive for dealing as tenderly as possible with all the wishes and prejudices of the King. Harold stood towards Eadward in a position wholly different from that in which Godwine had stood. Godwine might claim to dictate as a father to the man to whom he had given a crown and a wife. Harold could at most claim the position of a younger brother. That Harold ruled Eadward there is no doubt, but he very distinctly ruled by obeying.[1070] Habit, temper, policy, would all lead him not to thwart the King one jot more than the interests of the Kingdom called for. The [Sidenote: Compromise between Harold and the King.] position of the strangers during the remaining years of Eadward’s reign is a manifest compromise between Eadward’s foreign weaknesses and Harold’s English policy. They were to be allowed to bask in the sunshine of the court; they were to be carefully shut out from political power. If Harold erred, his error, I repeat, lay in too great a toleration of the dangerous intruders.

[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical appointments. Christmas, 1053–1054.]

The remaining events of the year of Godwine’s death are some ecclesiastical appointments, which must have been made at the Christmas Gemót, and a Welsh inroad, which seems to have happened about the same time. In the one month of October three Prelates died,[1071] Wulfsige, Bishop of Lichfield, and the Abbots Godwine of Winchcombe and [Sidenote: Leofwine of Lichfield. 1053.] Æthelweard of Glastonbury. The see of Lichfield was bestowed on Leofwine, Abbot of Earl Leofric’s favourite monastery of Coventry.[1072] In this appointment we plainly see the hand of the Mercian Earl, of whom, considering his name, the new Bishop is not unlikely to have been a kinsman.[1073] [Sidenote: Wulfwig of Dorchester. 1053.] At the same time, it would seem, the see of Dorchester was at last filled by the appointment of Wulfwig, and the two Bishops, as we have seen, got them beyond sea for consecration.[1074] [Sidenote: Æthelnoth of Glastonbury. 1053–1082.] The new Abbot of Glastonbury was Æthelnoth, a monk of the house, who bears an ill character for dilapidation of the revenues of the monastery, but who continued to weather all storms, and to die in possession of [Sidenote: Bishop Ealdred holds Winchcombe.] his Abbey sixteen years after the Norman invasion.[1075] The disposition of Winchcombe is more remarkable. Ealdred, the Bishop of the diocese, who seems never to have shrunk from any fresh duties, spiritual or temporal, which came in his way, undertook the rule of that great monastery in addition to his episcopal office.[1076] This may have been mere personal love of power or pelf; but it may also have been a deliberate attempt, such as we shall see made in other cases also, to get rid of a powerful, and no doubt often troublesome, neighbour, by annexing an abbey to the Bishoprick. If such was the design of Ealdred, it did not prove successful. [Sidenote: He resigns it to Godric. July 17, 1054.] After holding Winchcombe for some time, he next year, willingly or unwillingly, resigned it to one Godric, who is described as the son of Godman, the King’s Chaplain.[1077]

Of the Welsh inroad, recorded by one Chronicler only, all that is said is that many of the “wardmen” at Westbury were slain.[1078] This is doubtless Westbury in Gloucestershire, on the Welsh side of the Severn. The expression seems to imply the maintenance of a permanent force to guard that exposed frontier.

[Sidenote: Position of Macbeth in Scotland.]

The next year was marked by a military and a diplomatic event, both of which were of high importance. The former is no other than the famous Scottish expedition of Earl Siward, an event which has almost passed from the domain of history into that of poetry. Macbeth, it will be remembered, was now reigning in Scotland.[1079] Like Siward himself,[1080] he had risen to power by a great crime, the murder of his predecessor, the young King Duncan. And, like Siward, he had made what atonement he could by ruling his usurped dominion vigorously and well. We have seen that there is no reason to believe that Macbeth had, since he assumed the Scottish Crown, renewed the fealty which he had paid to Cnut when he was under-King,[1081] or, in more accurate Scottish phrase, Maarmor of Moray. We have also seen that he had been striving, in a remarkable way, to make himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness in the quarter where that mammon was believed to have the greatest influence, [Sidenote: Siward’s designs against Macbeth.] namely at the threshold of the Apostles.[1082] We may be sure that Earl Siward, the kinsman, probably the guardian, of the young prince whom Macbeth shut out from the Scottish Crown,[1083] had all along looked on his formidable northern neighbour with no friendly eye. It is not easy to see why the attack on Macbeth, if it was to be made at all, was so long delayed. It may be that the internal troubles of England had hitherto forbidden any movement of the kind, and that Siward took advantage of the first season of domestic quiet to execute a plan which he had long cherished. It may be that the scheme fell in better with the policy of Harold than with the policy of Godwine. Between Godwine and Siward, between the West-Saxon and the Dane, there was doubtless a standing rivalry, partly national, partly personal. But it would fall in with the conciliatory policy of Harold to help, rather than to thwart, any designs of the great Northern Earl which were not manifestly opposed to the public welfare. At all events, in this year the consent of Eadward[1084] was given, a consent which certainly implies the decree of a Witenagemót, and which almost certainly implies the good will of [Sidenote: Siward’s expedition against Macbeth. 1054.] Earl Harold. An expedition on a great scale was undertaken against the Scottish usurper.[1085] That it was undertaken on behalf of Malcolm, the son of the slain Duncan, can admit of no reasonable doubt. To restore the lawful heir of the Scottish Crown was an honourable pretext for interference in Scottish affairs on which any English statesman would gladly seize. And to Siward it was more than an honourable pretext; it was asserting the rights and avenging the wrongs of a near kinsman. The Earl of the Northumbrians accordingly attacked Scotland at the head of a great force both by land and by sea. The army was largely composed of the Housecarls of the King and of the Earl, picked and tried soldiers, Danish and English. [Sidenote: Macbeth’s alliance with Thorfinn.] Macbeth was supported[1086] by a Prince who had now become a neighbour of England, and one probably quite as dangerous as himself. This was Thorfinn, the famous Earl of the Orkneys, who had established his power over the whole of the Western Islands, and even over the coast of Scotland and Strathclyde as far south as Galloway. With his help, the Scottish King ventured to meet the host of [Sidenote: Defeat of Macbeth. July 27, 1054.] Siward in a pitched battle. He was encouraged by the presence of a body of the Normans who had been driven out of England at the return of Godwine. They are spoken of as if their number was large enough to form a considerable contingent of the Scottish army. The fight was an obstinate one. The Earl’s son Osbeorn and his sister’s son Siward were slain, and with them a large number of the Housecarls, both those of the Earl himself and of the King. The slaughter on the Scottish side was more fearful still. Dolfinn, seemingly a kinsman of the Earl of Orkney, was killed,[1087] and the Norman division, fighting no doubt with all the gallantry of their race, enhanced by all the desperation of exiles, were slaughtered to a man. We thus see that the battle was a most stoutly contested one, and that, as usual, the slaughter fell mainly on the best troops on both sides, the Normans on the Scottish side and the Housecarls on the English. But the fortune of England prevailed; the Scots, deprived of their valiant allies, were utterly routed, and King Macbeth escaped with difficulty from the field. The plunder was of an amount which struck the minds of contemporary writers with wonder.[1088]

[Sidenote: Legends of Siward.]

Siward was a hero whose history has had a mythical element about it from the beginning;[1089] it would have been wonderful indeed if this, the last and greatest exploit of so renowned a warrior, had not supplied the materials for song and legend. The tale is told how Siward, hearing of the death of his son, asked whether his wounds were in front or behind. Being told that all were in front, the old warrior rejoiced; he wished no other end for either his son or himself. The story is eminently characteristic; but, as it is told us, it is difficult to find a place for it in the authentic narrative of the campaign. But fiction has taken liberties with the facts of Siward’s Scottish campaign in far more important points. As we have seen, the English victory was complete, but Macbeth himself [Sidenote: Malcolm King of Scots. 1054.] escaped. Malcolm was, as King Eadward had commanded, proclaimed King of Scots, and a King of Scots who was put into possession of his Crown by an invading English force most undoubtedly held that Crown as the sworn [Sidenote: The war continued by Macbeth.] man of the English Basileus. It took however four years before Malcolm obtained full possession of his Kingdom. Macbeth and his followers maintained their cause in the North, being, it would seem, still supported by help from

Thorfinn. Malcolm, on the other hand, was still supported by help from England, and we shall find that he deemed it expedient to enter into a very close relation with Siward’s successor in the Northumbrian Earldom. At last [Sidenote: Macbeth finally defeated and slain. 1058.] Macbeth was finally defeated and slain at Lumfanan in Aberdeenshire. An attempt was made to perpetuate the Moray dynasty in the person of Lulach, a kinsman, or perhaps a stepson, of Macbeth, a son of his wife Gruach [Sidenote: Ephemeral reign of Lulach, and final establishment of Malcolm. 1058.] by a former marriage. But this prince, who bears the surname of the Fool, could not long resist the power of Malcolm; in a few months’ time he was hunted down and slain. The rival dynasty was now crushed; all Scotland came into the hands of Malcolm, who was solemnly crowned at Scone. The power of Thorfinn was broken no less than the power of Macbeth, and Malcolm apparently recovered the full possession of Cumberland, possibly on the death of Thorfinn, when Malcolm married his widow Ingebiorg, a marriage of whose results we shall hear again.

[Sidenote: Erroneous belief that Macbeth was killed in Siward’s
campaign.]

These Scottish affairs had but little interest for our English writers, who were satisfied with recording the brilliant victory of Siward and the rich booty which he won, without going on to dwell on events which were almost purely Scottish. As their narrative ends with the defeat of Macbeth and Malcolm’s first proclamation as King, it naturally passed out of mind that that proclamation did not at once give him full possession of all Scotland. The two defeats of Macbeth were confounded together, and it was believed that the usurper met his death in the battle which he fought against Siward. The error began very early, and it obtained prevalence enough to become enshrined in the poetry which, far more than any historical record, has made the name of Macbeth immortal.