Chapter X (2)

as a man of noble birth and of consummate prudence in all matters human, some add in matters divine also.[1358] One paossession of a see which he had so long administered, and wrt at least of his character was not belied by his actions. We shall find that he lived in high favour equally under Eadward, Harold, and William, and died in full possession of his Abbey eleven years after the Conquest.[1359] He was not unnaturally anxious to succeed to the full possession of a see which he had so long administered, and with whose affairs he must have been thoroughly conversant.[1360] Ealdred himself doubted for a while whether the see would be more safely entrusted to the worldly wisdom of Æthelwig or to the simple piety of Wulfstan the Prior.[1361] [Sidenote: WULFSTAN [Prior and] Bishop of Worcester. Sept. 8, 1062–Jan. 18, 1095. Born about 1012. His life and character.] Wulfstan, the friend of Harold, was a man now of about fifty years of age.[1362] He was the son of Æthelstan,[1363] a Thegn of Warwickshire, and his wife Wulfgifu, and he must have been born among the horrors of the later years of Æthelred. Brought up, not as a monk, but as a secular student, in the Abbey of Peterborough, he made great proficiency in the learning of the time under a master whose name Ervenius seems to imply a foreign origin.[1364] His parents, as they grew old, took monastic vows by mutual consent, but Wulfstan for some while lived as a layman, distinguished for his success in bodily exercises as well as for his virtuous and pious demeanour. His chastity especially was preserved unsullied under unusually severe trials.[1365] At last, when he still could not have been above twenty-six years old,[1366] he received ordination as a Presbyter at the [Sidenote: 1033–1038.] hands of Brihtheah, Bishop of Worcester. This was somewhat against his own will, as he shrank from the responsibilities of the priesthood. The friendly Prelate vainly pressed on him a good secular living in the neighbourhood of the city.[1367] But the determination of Wulfstan was fixed, and Brihtheah had soon to admit him as a monk of the cathedral monastery, where, after a while, he was promoted by Ealdred to the rank of Prior.[1368] Here he distinguished himself by every monastic perfection; he was eminent as a preacher, and it is still more interesting to read of his habit of going through the country to baptize the children of the poor, to whom—so our monastic informants tell us—the greedy secular clergy refused the first sacrament except on payment of a fee.[1369] The virtues of Wulfstan attracted the notice of many of the great men of the realm. The famous Godgifu, the wife of Leofric, was his devoted admirer.[1370] But the same virtues gained him a still nobler and more powerful votary; he became, as we have seen, the special friend of Earl Harold.[1371] Ealdred now hesitated between Wulfstan and Æthelwig as his successor at Worcester. The King, we are told, was determined that the see should be filled by a canonical election, which however of course did not exclude the right of the Witan to confirm or to reject the choice of the ecclesiastical electors. The Papal Legates soon discerned the virtues of Wulfstan, and became eager on his behalf. They spent their Lent in efforts to secure his election, especially in exhortations to the clergy and people of Worcester, an expression which may perhaps show that something of the ancient popular character of [Sidenote: Wulfstan elected Bishop.] episcopal elections still lingered on.[1372] But whoever were the electors, Wulfstan was elected, and the choice of the local body came before the Witan of the realm for confirmation. The Legates appeared before the Gemót; the diplomacy of the time doubtless required that their business with the King should not be decided without the national approval. The succession to the see of Worcester came on among the other business of the Assembly, and the Legates themselves took on [Sidenote: His election approved by the Witan, Easter, 1062.] them to speak on behalf of the holy Prior.[1373] Not a voice was raised in opposition; every speaker bore his testimony to the incomparable merits of Wulfstan. Both Archbishops, Stigand and Ealdred, spoke in his favour; so did Ælfgar, the Earl of the province, and Wulfstan’s personal friend Earl Harold.[1374] The approval of the Gemót was unanimous. The only difficulty was to be found in the unwillingness of Wulfstan himself to take upon him the cares and responsibilities of the episcopal office. As soon as the vote was given, messengers were sent to ride at full speed to Worcester, and to bring the Prior in person before the Assembly. Wulfstan obeyed the summons, but, amid general shouts of dissent, he pleaded his unfitness for the vacant office.[1375] He declared, even with an oath, that he had rather lose his head than become a Bishop.[1376] His scruples were at last shaken by the Legates and the Archbishops, who pleaded the duty of obedience to the Holy See, and finally by the exhortations and reproofs of a holy anchorite named Wulfsige, who had been for forty years removed from the society of men.[1377] But the process of persuasion in the mind of Wulfstan was evidently a long one. The formalities of his ecclesiastical confirmation and of the final rite of consecration were not completed till the month of September. One is half disappointed to read that he refused the ministrations of Stigand, and sought for consecration at the hands of Ealdred. The distinct Roman influence, embodied in the persons of Roman Legates, doubtless taught Wulfstan that Stigand was a schismatic. Ermenfrid and his colleague seem even to have been the bearers of a distinct Papal [Sidenote: Wulfstan makes canonical profession to Stigand, but is consecrated by Ealdred.] decree of suspension against the Archbishop. Wulfstan however drew a distinction, which the facts of the case amply bore out. Stigand, whether canonically appointed or not, was, in law and in fact, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Bishop-elect therefore did not scruple to make his profession of canonical obedience to him.[1378] He did not scruple thus far to recognize the legal primacy of an Archbishop appointed by the King and Witan of England. It was only the sacramental rite of consecration which he sought at the hands of a Primate whose canonical position [Sidenote: Wulfstan is consecrated by Ealdred. Sept. 8, 1062.] was open to no cavil. For this he went to the newly appointed Metropolitan of Northumberland, and was consecrated by him at York. Ealdred had however to declare, perhaps before the assembled Witan,[1379] that he claimed no authority, ecclesiastical or temporal, over the Bishop of Worcester, either on the ground of his having been consecrated by him or on that of his having formerly been a monk under his obedience.[1380] Scandal however added that Ealdred contrived to attach a large portion of the estates of the see of Worcester to his own Archbishoprick.[1381]

[Sidenote: The King’s Charter to Waltham. Easter? 1062.]

The other ecclesiastical event of this purely ecclesiastical year has been mentioned already. Earl Harold’s minster at Waltham had been consecrated two years earlier. By this time he had settled the details of his foundation and of its endowments. His gifts and regulations were now confirmed in due form by a royal charter.[1382] As the signature of Wulfstan is not attached to the document, we may suppose that the charter was granted in the same Easter [Sidenote: Ælfwig, Abbot of New Minster. 1063.] Gemót in which Wulfstan’s election was approved. And one more ecclesiastical appointment must, at some slight sacrifice of chronological order, be recorded in this section. In the following year it seems that Harold procured the appointment of a near kinsman, seemingly a brother of his renowned father, to the office of Abbot of the New Minster at Winchester, the great house raised by Eadward the Unconquered in memory of his father Ælfred. It seems strange that a brother of Godwine, if he desired preferment at all, should have had to wait for it so long. But such seems to have been the case, and the name of the new Prelate, Abbot Ælfwig, the uncle of King Harold, will be met with again in the very crisis of our history.[1383]

§ 2. _The Welsh War and its Consequences._ 1062–1065.

[Sidenote: Renewed ravages of Gruffydd. 1062.]

But the year of this last appointment, or rather the last days of the year of the consecration of Wulfstan, carries us at once among scenes of a widely different kind from ecclesiastical ceremonies at Rome, York, Waltham, or Winchester. The peace of the land is again threatened, and the great Earl of the West-Saxons again stands forth as the one champion in whose hands England could trust her destinies. In the course of the year of Wulfstan’s consecration the ravages of Gruffydd of Wales seem to have begun again with increased fury. He entered the diocese of the new Prelate, and seems to have carried his arms even beyond the Severn,[1384] renewing his earlier exploit of Rhyd-y-Groes. [Sidenote: Witenagemót of Gloucester. Christmas, 1062–1063.] The damage which he had done to the English territory, and the insults which he had thus offered to his lord King Eadward, formed the main subject of discussion at the Christmas Gemót, which was held as usual at Gloucester.[1385] It is to be noticed that we now hear [Sidenote: Death of Ælfgar of Mercia; his son Eadwine succeeds. 1062?] nothing of Gruffydd’s old ally and father-in-law, Earl Ælfgar. His last recorded acts are the peaceful ones of recommending Wulfstan for the Bishoprick of Worcester and of signing the Waltham charter. Two years later we find his son Eadwine in possession of his Earldom. It is therefore not improbable that he died about this time, and the appointment of Eadwine is not unlikely to have taken place in this very Christmas Gemót. But it is certain that Ælfgar, if living, was not deemed trustworthy enough to be commissioned to act against his old ally; nor was his young successor, if he were dead, deemed fit to grapple with so dangerous an enemy, one against whom it was now determined to strike a decisive blow. The ravages of Gruffydd had probably again fallen heavy upon Herefordshire, and Herefordshire was now under the government of Harold. But it was doubtless not as Earl of this or that Earldom, but as the first man of the Kingdom, as something like an elected Ætheling, that Harold now undertook to rid England once for all of this ever recurring [Sidenote: Harold’s march to Rhuddlan. Christmas, 1062–1063.] plague. Notwithstanding, perhaps because of, the time of the year, it was determined to strike a sudden blow, in the hope of seizing or putting to death the turbulent under-King. Harold set forth with a small force, all mounted, therefore probably all of them Housecarls,[1386] and hastened with all possible speed to Rhuddlan on the [Sidenote: 1283.] north-east frontier of Wales. The spot is famous in our history as the seat of a Parliament of the great Edward, and its military position is important, as standing at no great distance from the sea, and commanding the vale of Clwyd, the southern Strathclyde. There Gruffydd had a palace, the rude precursor no doubt of the stately castle whose remains now form the chief attraction of Rhuddlan. The Welsh King heard of the approach of the English; he had just time to reach the shore and to escape by sea. Earl Harold was close in pursuit, and the escape of Gruffydd was a narrow one; but he did escape, and the main object of this sudden expedition was thwarted. Harold’s force was not strong enough to endure a long winter campaign in so wild a country; so he contented himself with burning the palace and the ships which were in the haven. The same day on which this destruction was done, he set out on his return march to Gloucester.[1387]

[Sidenote: Harold’s great campaign of 1063.]

Harold’s attempt at a sudden blow had thus, through an unavoidable accident, been unsuccessful. It was therefore determined to open a campaign on a great scale, which should crush the power of Gruffydd for ever. It was in this campaign that the world first fully learned how great a captain England possessed in her future King. Never was a campaign more ably planned or more vigorously [Sidenote: Its permanent effect on men’s minds.] executed. The deep impression which it made on men’s minds is shown by the way in which it is spoken of by writers who lived a hundred years later, when men had long been taught to look on Harold and his house as [Sidenote: Testimony of John of Salisbury and Giraldus Cambrensis.] a brood of traitors and perjurers. John of Salisbury, writing under the Angevin Henry, chooses this campaign of Harold’s as the most speaking example of the all-important difference between a good general and a bad one. The name of Harold could of course not be uttered without some of the usual disparaging epithets, but he allows that the faithless usurper was a model of every princely and soldier-like excellence.[1388] He compares the days of Harold with his own, and wishes that England had captains like him to drive back the marauders who, in his own time, harried her borders with impunity.[1389] Another writer of the same age, the famous Giraldus, attributes to this campaign of Harold the security which England enjoyed on the side of the Welsh during the reigns of the three Norman Kings.[1390] These two writers, evidently speaking quite independently of each other, give us several details of the campaign. These are fully confirmed by the witness of Eadward’s Biographer, and all their accounts fit without difficulty into the more general narrative given by the Chroniclers.

[Sidenote: Harold and Tostig invade Wales. May 26, 1063.]

The campaign opened in the last days of May. Its general plan was a combined attack on the Welsh territory from both sides. Harold sailed with a fleet from Bristol, the haven from which he had set sail on so different an errand twelve years before; Tostig set forth with a mounted land force from Northumberland.[1391] The brothers met, probably at some point of central Wales, and began a systematic ravaging of the country. The military genius of Harold was now conspicuously shown in the way in which he adapted himself to the kind of warfare which he had to wage. Nothing could be better suited than the ancient English tactics for a pitched battle with an equal enemy. But here there was no hope or fear of pitched battles, and the enemy to be dealt with was one whose warfare was of a very different kind. The English Housecarls, with their heavy coats of mail and huge battle-axes, were eminently unfitted to pursue a light-armed and active foe through the hills and valleys of Wales. Ralph the Timid had brought himself and his army to discomfiture by compelling his Englishmen suddenly to adopt the tactics of France;[1392] the valiant [Sidenote: Harold adopts the Welsh tactics.] Earl of the West-Saxons proved his true generalship by teaching his army to accustom themselves to the tactics and the fare[1393] of Welshmen. The irregular English troops, the _fyrd_, the levies of the shires, did not differ very widely from the Welsh mode of fighting. But it is not likely that Harold would enter on such a campaign as this without the help of at least a strong body of tried and regular soldiers. We must therefore conclude that Harold actually required his Housecarls to follow the tactics suitable to the country. They gave up the close array of the shield-wall; they laid aside their axes and coats of mail; clothed in leathern jerkins, they retained their swords, but they were to trust mainly to the nimble and skilful use of the [Sidenote: Harold ravages and subdues all Wales.] javelin for attack and of the shield for defence.[1394] Thus attired, the English, under their great leader, proved more than a match for the Welsh at their own weapons. Unhappily we have no geographical details of the campaign, but we have a vivid picture of its general nature, and we can see that it must have extended over a large portion of the country. There were no pitched battles; but the English, in their new array, everywhere contended with success against the enemy. Every defensible spot of ground was stoutly contested by the Britons; but even the most inaccessible mountain fastnesses proved no safeguard against the energy of Harold.[1395] He won skirmish after skirmish, and each scene of conflict was marked, we are told, by a trophy of stone, bearing the proud legend, “Here Harold conquered.”[1396] Such a warfare was necessarily merciless. The object was to reduce the Welsh to complete submission, to disable them from ever again renewing their old ravages. Harold was fighting too with an enemy who knew not what mercy was, who gave no quarter, who, if they ever took a prisoner, instead of putting him to ransom, cut off his head.[1397] We are not therefore surprised to hear that every male who resisted was put to the sword.[1398] One of our informants is even driven to the rhetoric of the East to express the greatness of the slaughter.[1399] Such [Sidenote: The Welsh submit.] terrible execution soon[1400] broke the spirit of the Welsh. They submitted and gave hostages, they bound themselves to tribute, and pronounced sentence of deposition and outlawry upon Gruffydd.[1401] The King who had reigned over all the Welsh kin,[1402] the warrior who had been hitherto [Sidenote: Gruffydd murdered by his own people. Aug. 5, 1063.] invincible, the head and shield and defender of Britons,[1403] was now thoroughly hated by his own people. The war and its results were laid upon him as a crime,[1404] though we cannot doubt that, in the days of success, the Welsh people had been as eager as their King to carry spoil and slaughter along the Saxon border. But now outlawry was not a doom hard enough for the fallen prince; death alone was the fitting punishment for his crimes. In the month of August in this year, Gruffydd the son of Llywelyn, the last victorious hero of the old Cymrian stock, the last British chief whose name was really terrible in Saxon ears, was put to death by men of his own race, and his head was sent to the conqueror.[1405]

[Sidenote: The Welsh kingdom granted to Bleddyn and Rhiwallon.]

In this crime Harold had no share. He had been merciless as long as resistance lasted, but as soon as the foe submitted, he displayed the same politic and generous lenity which he always displayed towards both foreign and domestic enemies. The head of Gruffydd and the beak of his ship[1406] were brought as trophies to King Eadward. His kingdom was granted to his two brothers or kinsmen, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon,[1407] who received the land as under-Kings of the English Emperor. They swore oaths and gave hostages to King Eadward, and to Earl Harold, seemingly as his destined successor.[1408] They engaged also to pay the tribute which had been accustomed in past times, but which, we may be sure, had been very irregularly paid in the days of Gruffydd.[1409]

[Sidenote: Legislation about Wales.]

Two pieces of legislation are said to have followed the conquest of Wales. Harold is said to have ordained that any Welshman found in arms on the English side of Offa’s Dyke should lose his right hand.[1410] If this was anything more than a temporary military regulation, Harold’s ordaining it can only mean that it was he who proposed the enactment to the Witan. The other decree is attributed to the special indulgence of Eadward himself. The slaughter of the male population of Wales had been so great that there was no chance of the widows and daughters of the slain finding husbands among their own people. Lest the whole race should die out, the King allowed them to marry Englishmen, which we must infer had hitherto been unlawful.[1411] Stories like these must be taken at what they are worth. Though coming from the same source, they do not bear about them the same stamp of truth as the military details of the campaign.

[Sidenote: Harold marries Ealdgyth. 1064?]

If any law was now passed authorizing the marriage of Englishmen and Welshwomen, the greatest of living Englishmen was not slow to take advantage of it, so far as it could be considered as extending to an Englishwoman who had become Welsh by adoption. We have now reached a year which stands bare of events in the Chronicles. It may have been the year of Harold’s fatal visit to Normandy; it can hardly fail to have been the year of his marriage. There is nothing to imply that the great Earl had ever been married before. Putting together such indications as we have, it seems that Harold’s connexion with his East-Anglian mistress Eadgyth Swanneshals, if it still existed, now came to an end.[1412] The bride of Harold was in some sense the prize of his own sword and spear. The fallen Gruffydd had once, like eastern Kings, taken the wife of a conquered enemy to be his wife.[1413] Her successor, now in her present widowhood, met, willingly or unwillingly, with the like fate. The fair Ealdgyth, the daughter of Ælfgar, the sister of Eadwine, the widow of Gruffydd, became the wife of the rival of her father, the conqueror of her husband. Harold’s enemies are of course scandalized at a marriage between Harold and the widow of a man of whom they choose to call him the murderer.[1414] But it is hard to see any objection to the union, except the possible wrong done to the forsaken Eadgyth. Of the circumstances we know nothing. Ealdgyth may, like an earlier namesake in a somewhat similar case,[1415] have inspired her conqueror with [Sidenote: The marriage probably a political one.] a sudden passion. But it is far more likely that Harold’s marriage was a sacrifice of love to policy, and that his main object was to win to his side the interest of the great Mercian house which had stood so long in rivalry against himself and his father. Harold in short, with a Crown in prospect, acted after the manner of crowned heads. Eadgyth was perhaps forsaken, Ealdgyth was almost certainly married, in order to secure Mercian votes in the Gemót which should finally dispose of the Kingdom. Harold doubtless flattered himself that by this marriage he had extended his influence over the whole Kingdom. He himself ruled in Wessex; one brother ruled in Northumberland, another in East-Anglia, another in the South-Eastern shires. And now the one remaining Earldom was in the hands of the brother of his wife. But, as events turned out, Harold would have done better to cleave to his earlier and humbler love, whose love for him survived desertion and death. He gained little by seeking political support in an union with the widow of a foe and the sister of a traitor. Of Ealdgyth personally we know hardly anything;[1416] but we know what her brothers were, and, when the day of trial came, she seems to have sided with her brothers rather than with her husband.

Wales was thus, to all appearance, thoroughly conquered. North Wales, the original Kingdom of Gruffydd, seems to have remained fairly quiet; but elements of disturbance still lingered in the South. King Eadward was growing old, but he still retained his love of hunting, and a new field seemed to be opened for the royal sport in the wild lands which had been lately brought into fuller [Sidenote: Harold builds a hunting-seat at Portskewet. August 1, 1065.] subjection to the royal authority. In the low lands of Gwent, near one of the usual places of crossing the mouth of the Severn from England into Wales, the Earl chose out a place called Porth-iscoed or Portskewet as well suited for his sovereign’s diversions.[1417] One of the great Gemóts of each year was now so regularly held at Gloucester that a place at no very great distance from that city might seem well convenient for the purpose. But besides this, it was an obvious policy thus to take _seizin_, as it were, of the conquered lands, and to show to their inhabitants that the English Emperor was to be for the future a really present master. At Portskewet then Earl Harold began to build a house, and he had gathered together a large number of workmen and an abundant store of provisions and other good things. We see how thoroughly subdued the whole country was held to be, even this corner which did not belong to the immediate realm of the conquered Gruffydd, and which is not likely to have been the actual seat of warfare. It shows also the half-kingly position of Harold that he is described as acting in this way in a district not belonging to his own Earldom, but included in the dominions of a vassal prince. We do not read that Eadward ordered the building of the house; it seems rather like a voluntary act of Harold’s own, rising out of his personal consideration for his royal brother-in-law’s pleasure. Nor do we hear anything of discontent on the part of the newly appointed princes of the country. But there was one to whom a Saxon settlement on the soil of Gwent was far more irksome than it [Sidenote: Caradoc son of Gruffydd of South Wales kills the workmen. August 24, 1065.] could be to any prince of Powys or Gwynedd. A disinherited and dispossessed chieftain still looked on the land as his own, and probably deemed Harold and Bleddyn to be equally intruders. This was Caradoc ap Gruffydd, the son of that Gruffydd of South Wales who had been slain, and his Kingdom seized, by the more famous Gruffydd whose career had so lately come to an end.[1418] According to one account, he had been himself outlawed by order of Harold.[1419] At any rate, the sight of the palace of the English overlord, rising in a district which had once been his father’s, rankled in his soul. He gathered as large a band as he could, he came suddenly on the unfinished building, he slew nearly all the workmen, and carried off all the good things which had been provided for them and for the King.[1420] Such a raid was doubtless common in the desolating border warfare which was ever going on between the English and Welsh, but it is clear that a special political importance attached to this act of Caradoc. One of the Chroniclers adds significantly, “We know not who this ill counsel first devised.”[1421] These words, taken with a fact which we shall have presently to speak of, may perhaps suggest the idea that this lesser disturbance in South Wales was not without connexion with the more important events in England which presently followed it.

§ 3. _The Revolt of Northumberland._ 1065.

If Eadward or Harold made any preparations to avenge the insult offered by Caradoc to the Imperial authority, their attention was soon called off from that corner of the Empire to a far greater movement in the Earldom of [Sidenote: Oppression of Tostig in Northumberland.] Northumberland. However righteous may have been the intentions with which Tostig set out, however needful a wholesome severity may have been in the then state of his province, it is clear that his government had by this time degenerated into an insupportable tyranny. This is not uncommonly the case with men of his disposition, a disposition evidently harsh, obstinate, and impatient of opposition. Rigid justice, untempered by mercy, easily [Sidenote: Revolt of the Northhumbrians against him. October 3, 1065.] changes into oppression. The whole province rose against him. His apologist tries to represent the leaders of the movement as wrong-doers whom the Earl’s strict justice had chastised or offended.[1422] Such may well have been the case, but the long list of grievances put forth by the Northumbrians, though it may easily have been exaggerated, [Sidenote: Charges against Tostig.] cannot have been wholly invented. He had robbed God;[1423] elsewhere Tostig bears a high reputation for piety, and, in any case, the charge must be taken with the same allowance as the like charges against his brother. But he had also robbed many men of land and of life,[1424] he had raised up unjust law,[1425] and had laid on the Earldom a tax wholly beyond its means to bear.[1426] A list of particular [Sidenote: Murder of Gamel and Ulf. 1064.] crimes is added. Two Thegns, Gamel the son of Orm and Ulf the son of Dolfin, had, in the course of the last year, been received in the Earl’s chamber under pretence of peace, and had been there treacherously slain by his order.[1427] That is to say, Tostig had repeated one of the worst deeds of Harthacnut,[1428] and of Cnut himself before his reformation.[1429] These men may have been criminals; Tostig may have persuaded himself that he was simply doing an act of irregular justice in thus destroying men who were perhaps too powerful to be reached by the ordinary course of law. But, whatever were the crimes of Ulf and Gamel, Tostig, by this act, degraded himself to their level. If even the most guilty were to be cut off in such a way as this, even the most innocent could not feel themselves safe. Another charge aimed yet higher than the Earl himself. An accomplice of his misdeeds is spoken of, whom we should certainly never have been expected to find charged with [Sidenote: Murder of Gospatric. December 28, 1064.] bloodshed. A Thegn named Gospatric had been, at the last Christmas Gemót, treacherously murdered in the King’s court. The deed was said to have been done by order of the Lady at the instigation of her brother.[1430] As there were other bearers of the name, we may at least hope that this Gospatric was not the one who had so nobly jeoparded his life to save the life of Tostig on his return from his Roman pilgrimage.[1431] To avenge these crimes, the chief men of both divisions of Northumberland, at the head of the whole force of Bernicia and Deira,[1432] rose in arms.[1433] [Sidenote: Rebel Gemót at York. October 3, 1065.] Soon after Michaelmas, two hundred Thegns[1434] came to York, and there held what they evidently intended to be a Gemót of the ancient Kingdom of Northumberland. They were headed by several of the greatest men of Northern England, by Gamel-bearn, doubtless a kinsman of the slain son of Orm, by Dunstan the son of Æthelnoth, and Glonieorn the son of Heardulf.[1435] The names seem to show that both English and Danish blood was represented in the Assembly. Tostig was now absent from his Earldom; he was engaged with the King in his constant diversion of hunting, in some of the forests of Wiltshire or Hampshire.[1436] But the rebels needed not his presence, and they began at once to pass decrees in utter defiance of the royal authority. [Sidenote: Constitutional position of Northumberland.] Earls had hitherto always been appointed and removed by the King and his Witan, and any complaints of the Northumbrians against Tostig ought legally to have been brought before a Gemót of the whole realm. But nowhere was the feeling of provincial independence so strong as in the lands north of the Humber. The Northumbrians remembered that there had been a time when they had chosen and deposed Kings for themselves, without any reference to a West-Saxon overlord. The West-Saxon King was now no longer an overlord, but an immediate sovereign; Northumberland was no longer a dependency, but an integral part of the Kingdom; the men of Deira and Bernicia shared every right which was enjoyed by the men of Wessex and East-Anglia. But the old feelings still lingered on, and they were probably heightened by the constant absence of the King and even of his lieutenant. Eadward had never shown himself further north than Gloucester, or possibly Shrewsbury;[1437] there is no record of any Gemót of his reign being held at York or Lincoln. [Sidenote: Frequent absence of Tostig.] And the frequent absences of Tostig, whom Eadward loved to have about him, are clearly implied to have been reckoned among the grievances of his province.[1438] While he was busied in the frivolities of Eadward’s court, the care of [Sidenote: Copsige, deputy Earl.] Northumberland was entrusted to a Thegn of the country, Copsige by name. He is described as a prudent man and a benefactor to the Church of Durham. It does not appear how far he now shared the unpopularity of his master, but it is certain that, at a later time, he incurred equal unpopularity by his own acts. He seems afterwards to have borne the title of Earl,[1439] and it is possible that he may even have borne it now as Tostig’s deputy. This systematic government by proxy was no doubt highly offensive to Northumbrian local patriotism. It was, in a marked way, dealing with the land as a mere dependency. The Danes of the North were indignant that their ancient realm should be deemed unworthy of the presence, not only of the King but of its own Earl. They had no mind to be governed by orders sent forth from some West-Saxon town or hunting-seat. The Northumbrians therefore, without presence or licence of King or Earl, took upon them to hold a Gemót, doubtless an armed Gemót, of the revolted lands.

[Sidenote: Acts of the Gemót at York. October 3, 1065.]

The Assembly thus irregularly got together did not indeed venture on the extreme step of renouncing all allegiance to the King of the English. But everything short of this extreme step was quickly done. The Merciless Parliament of later days could not surpass this Northhumbrian Gemót in violent or in blood-thirsty decrees. [Sidenote: Vote of deposition and outlawry against Tostig. Morkere elected Earl.] The rebels passed a vote of deposition against their Earl Tostig; they declared him an outlaw,[1440] and elected in his place Morkere, the younger son of Ælfgar of Mercia.[1441] Waltheof, the son of Siward, was passed by, and they may have felt the danger of the rivalries which were sure to arise if they chose one of the ordinary Thegns of the country.[1442] Still the election of Morkere, and the whole circumstances of the story, seem to show that, along with the real grievances of Northumberland, the intrigues of the Mercian brothers had a good deal to do with the stirring up of this revolt. The old rivalry between the houses of Godwine and Leofric had now taken the form of a special enmity between Tostig and the sons of Ælfgar.[1443] The marriage of Ealdgyth with Harold doubtless protected her husband from any open hostility on the part of her brothers, though it certainly did not save him from their [Sidenote: Treasons of Eadwine.] secret cabals. Eadwine, in short, was now entering on that series of treasons which he had, within a very few years, the opportunity of practising against four sovereigns in succession. Eadward, Harold, Eadgar, and William all found in turn that no trust was to be put in the allegiance or the oaths of the Earl of the Mercians. The treasons of Eadwine were often passive rather than active; they never reached the height of personal betrayal; otherwise the last Mercian Earl was no unworthy representative of his predecessors [Sidenote: His policy; the division of the Kingdom.] Ælfric and Eadric. Still the policy of the sons of Ælfgar was at any rate more intelligible than the policy of the arch-traitor. Their object evidently was to revive the old division of the Kingdom, as it had been divided between Cnut and Eadmund, or between Harold and Harthacnut. When the death of Eadward should leave the throne vacant, they were ready to leave Wessex, and probably East-Anglia, to any one who could get them, but Mercia and Northumberland were to form a separate realm under the house of Leofric. This view of their policy explains all their later actions. They dreamed of dividing the Kingdom with Harold; they dreamed of dividing it with Eadgar; they even dreamed, one can hardly doubt, of dividing it with William himself. They were ready enough to accept West-Saxon help in their own hour of need, but they would not strike a blow on behalf of Wessex in her greatest extremity. The present movement in Northumberland, above all the election of Morkere to the Earldom, exactly suited their purposes. It was more than the mere exaltation of one of the brothers; it was more than the transfer of one of the great divisions of the Kingdom from the house of Godwine to the house of Leofric. The whole land from the Thames to the Tweed was now united under the rule of the two brothers. There was now a much fairer hope of changing the northern and central Earldoms into a separate Kingdom, as soon as a vacancy of the throne should occur. When therefore the Northumbrians sent for Morkere, offering him their Earldom, he gladly accepted the offer. He took into his own hands the government of Deira, or, as it is now beginning [Sidenote: Oswulf in Bernicia.] to be called, Yorkshire. But he entrusted the government of the Northern province, the old Bernicia, now beginning to be distinctively called Northumberland,[1444] to the young Oswulf, the son of Siward’s victim Eadwulf.[1445] We have no account of the motives of this appointment. It may have been a condition of Morkere’s election; it may have been a popular act done of his own accord. But in either case this appointment seems to show that the Northumbrians bore no special love to Siward or his house, but that they rather looked with affection on the more direct representative of their ancient Earls. Oswulf is spoken of as a youth at this time, but as it was now [Sidenote: 1041.] twenty-four years since the murder of his father, he must have been a grown man. Waltheof, the son of Siward, so [Sidenote: 1067.] eminent only two years later, could not have been much younger. If Siward’s memory had been at all popular in Northumberland, Waltheof, rather than Oswulf, would surely have been chosen for this important subordinate government, even if it was not thought proper to entrust him with the command of the whole of the ancient Kingdom.

Thus far the Northumbrian Assembly, however irregularly called together, had acted in something like the character of a lawful Gemót. To depose and elect an Earl was a stretch of power beyond the constitutional authority of a local Gemót; still the unconstitutional character of the act consisted solely in the Gemót of a single Earldom taking upon itself functions which lawfully belonged only to a Gemót of the whole Kingdom. But the Thegns who were assembled at York went on to acts which showed that, however guilty Tostig may have been, they at least had small right to throw stones at him. Slaughter and plunder were soon shown to be quite as much their objects as the redress of grievances or the punishment of offenders. [Sidenote: The Northumbrians slay Amund and Ravenswart. October 3.] On Monday, the first day of the Assembly, two of Tostig’s Danish Housecarls, Amund and Reavenswart, who had fled from York, were overtaken, and were put to death without the walls of the city.[1446] How far these men deserved their doom, how far their doom was the sentence of anything which even pretended to be a lawful tribunal, we have no [Sidenote: General massacre of Tostig’s followers, and plunder of his treasury. October 4.] means of knowing. But it is hardly possible that there can have been even the shadow of lawful authority for the acts of the next day. As many of Tostig’s personal followers, English and Danish, as could be found, two hundred in number, were massacred.[1447] The Earl’s treasury was next broken open, and all its contents, weapons, gold, silver, and other precious things, were carried off. This may have been a rough and ready way of repaying themselves for the unjust tax of which they complained; otherwise any notion of policy would rather have bidden them to hand over the treasures of their enemy untouched to the chief whom they had themselves chosen.[1448]

[Sidenote: Morkere’s march southwards.]

The real character of the revolt, as far at least as the sons of Ælfgar were concerned, soon showed itself. Morkere did not sit down quietly to reign in Northumberland; he does not seem to have even demanded the consent of the King and of the national Witan to his usurpation. He at once marched southwards. On his march he was joined by the men of the shires of Lincoln, Nottingham, and Derby.[1449] These were districts in which the Danish element was strong, especially in their three chief towns, which [Sidenote: Morkere at Northampton.] were reckoned among the famous Five Boroughs.[1450] At the head of this force he reached Northampton. This town was probably chosen as the head-quarters of the rebels, as being, like Northumberland itself, under the government of Tostig. Whatever were their designs as to the Earldoms of Northampton and Huntingdon, it was in any case important to win over their inhabitants to the cause of the revolt. At Northampton Morkere was met by his brother Eadwine, at the head of the men of his [Sidenote: Presence of Welshmen in Eadwine’s army.] Earldom, together with a large body of Welsh.[1451] Were these last simply drawn thither by the chance of plunder? Were they followers of the last Gruffydd, faithful to the old connexion between Ælfgar and their slain King? Or are we to see something deeper in the matter? It may well be that the movement in Gwent and the movement in Northumberland were both of them parts of one scheme devised in the restless brain of the Mercian Earl. The way in which one event followed on the other, the significant remark made by the Chronicler on the deed of Caradoc,[1452] the suspicious appearance of Welshmen in the train of Eadwine, all look the same way. Caradoc and Gamel-bearn are not likely to have had any direct communication with one another; but it is quite possible that both of them may have been little more than puppets moved by a single hand. At all events, a great force, Northumbrian, Mercian, and Welsh, was now gathered [Sidenote: Ravages of the Northumbrians about Northampton.] together at Northampton. The Northumbrians were in what they doubtless expected to be a friendly country, but it would seem that they found the men of Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire less zealous in the cause than they had hoped. At least we find that Morkere’s Northern followers dealt with the country about Northampton as if it had been the country of an enemy. They slew men, burned corn and houses, carried off cattle, and at last led captive several hundred prisoners, seemingly as slaves.[1453] The blow was so severe that it was remembered even when one would have thought that that and all other lesser wrongs would have been forgotten in the general overthrow of England. Northamptonshire and the shires near to it were for many winters the worse.[1454]

[Sidenote: Harold carries messages from the King to the insurgents.]

It seems to have been at Northampton that the first attempts at negotiation began between the King and the insurgents.[1455] Eadward and Tostig were still in their woodland retreats, enjoying the slaughter of unresisting animals, while half England was in confusion, and while whole shires were being laid waste. The Earl of the West-Saxons was most likely as keen a hunter as either of them, but he at least did not let his sport interfere with his duty to his country. While his brother and brother-in-law still remained in the woods, Earl Harold hastened to Northampton with a message from the King. Eadward, who had once been so wrathful at Godwine’s appeal to Law on behalf of the men of Dover,[1456] had now, under Harold’s guidance, better learned the duties of a constitutional [Sidenote: Demands of Eadward.] King. Through the mouth of the great Earl, he called on the men of Northumberland to lay down their arms, to cease from their ravages, and, if they had any matter against their own Earl, to bring it forward for discussion in a lawful Assembly. We may conceive the feeling of triumph with which Harold put into the King’s mouth the very words which, in the mouth of Godwine, had led to the temporary overthrow of himself and his house. But [Sidenote: Answer of the Northumbrians.] the Northumbrians would not yield to any proposal which implied even the possibility of Tostig’s return to power. They were freemen born and bred, they would not bow to the pride of any Earl;[1457] they had learned from their fathers to bear no third choice besides freedom or death. If the King wished to retain Northumberland in his allegiance, he must confirm the banishment of Tostig from Northumberland and from all England, he must confirm the election of Morkere to the Northern Earldom. If he persisted in forcing Tostig upon them, they would deal with him as an enemy; if he yielded to their demands, he would see what loyal subjects Northumbrians could be, when they were gently ruled by a ruler of their own choice.[1458] Brave words truly, if they really came from the heart of the Northumbrian people, and were not simply put into their mouths by two ambitious Earls. More than one message passed to and fro; messengers from the rebel camp accompanied Harold to the royal presence;[1459] but there was no sign of yielding on the part of the host encamped at Northampton. At last the matter became so serious that Eadward left his hunting to apply himself [Sidenote: Eadward holds a Gemót at Bretford.] personally to the affairs of his Kingdom. At a royal abode called Bretford, near Salisbury, a place whose name suggests memories of the warfare of five hundred years before, Eadward called an Assembly together. It probably professed to be a Witenagemót of the whole realm, but it must rather have been a meeting of the King’s immediate counsellors, or at most, of the local Witan of Wessex. [Sidenote: Debate in the Council; accusations against Tostig.] This Assembly at once proceeded to discuss the state of the nation;[1460] and the record of their debates at least shows what full freedom of speech was allowed in our ancient national Councils. Some speakers boldly accused Tostig of cruelty and avarice; his severities had been caused, not by any love of justice, but by a wish to seize on the wealth [Sidenote: Tostig charges Harold with stirring up the revolt.] of the rich men of Northumberland.[1461] It was affirmed, on the other hand, that the revolt against Tostig had been simply got up by the secret machinations of Harold. No charge could be more unjust, and we may suspect that it was brought forward by no mouth but that of Tostig himself.[1462] Harold throughout tried in vain to reconcile the [Sidenote: Improbability of the charge.] revolters to his brother.[1463] Up to this time there is not the slightest sign in any trustworthy account of any quarrel between the two brothers.[1464] Now that the revolt had broken out, it was undoubtedly Harold’s interest to settle matters without bloodshed, even at the expense of his brother; but he had no interest, but quite the contrary, in stirring up the revolt in the first instance. It was prudent, under the circumstances, to yield to the demands of the Northumbrians, and to allow the aggrandizement of the rival house; but Harold could have no motive for seeking, of his own accord, to transfer Northumberland from a son of Godwine to a son of Ælfgar. But Tostig doubtless expected his brother to support him, right or wrong, at all hazards and against all foes, and he could not understand any cause for Harold’s hesitating so to do except his being art and part with his enemies. Before the King and all his Court, Tostig so vehemently charged Harold with having kindled the Northumbrian revolt, that Harold [Sidenote: Harold denies it on oath.] thought it necessary to deny the charge, in the usual solemn form, upon oath.[1465] It appears that the Earl’s own oath was thought enough, and that compurgators were not called for. But the question how to quell the revolt was still more urgent than the question how the revolt [Sidenote: Eadward’s eagerness for war.] arose. The King was as vehement against the real rebels of Northumberland as he had been, fourteen years before, against the fancied rebels of Dover. He was as eager to avenge the wrongs of his English favourite Tostig as he had then been to avenge the wrongs of his foreign favourite Eustace. He would, doubtless by deputy, chastise their insolence with the edge of the sword; it would almost seem that the royal summons went out, calling the whole force of England to the royal standard.[1466] But Eadward had counsellors about him who were wiser than himself. They, Harold doubtless at their head, shrank as soldiers from a winter campaign and as patriots from a civil war. They pleaded that, with these two great difficulties in the way of immediate action, it would be impossible to collect an army able to cope with the insurgents.[1467] The Housecarls of the King and of the Earl were doubtless ready to march at their command; but, of all courses in the world, none could be so unpopular as to employ this force to put down a popular insurrection. It would be a renewal of the days [Sidenote: 1041.] of Harthacnut and of the march against Worcester.[1468] The King was so eager for battle that his advisers could not, [Sidenote: He is prevented by Harold and others.] after all, persuade him formally to revoke his orders for war; but they took means to prevent the expedition from actually taking place.[1469] So to do would be no very difficult task, when the feeling of the chiefs and of the people was doubtless exactly the same. So great was Eadward’s wrath and excitement of mind that he fell into the illness of which he never recovered. He complained bitterly before God that he was hindered from chastising the unrighteous, and called for divine vengeance seemingly alike upon the original offenders, and on those who stood in the way of their punishment.[1470] But the wrath of the Saint, if violent for the time, was not always lasting,[1471] and however vigorous he may have been in curses and prophecies, he seems to have practically allowed Harold to act in his name, and to settle matters as he chose.[1472]

[Sidenote: Position of Harold. His public duty in the controversy.]

The course for Harold to take was obvious, whether looked at from the point of view of his own interest or from that of the interest of his country. The dictates of the two were exactly the same; both alike prompted him to secure a real and great advantage at the cost of a certain sacrifice of pride and passion. The revolt of the Northumbrians could not be justified on any showing. They had undoubtedly suffered great wrongs, but they had not taken the right means to redress them. Their proper course would undoubtedly have been that which Harold himself suggested, to bring their charges against their Earl for public inquiry in a Witenagemót of the whole realm. The Gemót at York had usurped functions which did not belong to it; the deposition and outlawry of Tostig, and the election of Morkere, were utterly illegal proceedings. The massacre and plunder at York, above all the ravages in Northamptonshire, were still more thoroughly unjustifiable. All these were doings which, in one man or in a few men, would have called for exemplary punishment. But in a case like this, where the guilty parties were the great bulk of the people of all Northumberland and of several shires of Mercia, it was absurd to talk of punishment. The question was not a question of punishment, but one of peace or war. Was it either right or expedient, in the general interest of the Kingdom of England, for Wessex and East-Anglia to make war upon Northumberland and Mercia? The object of such a war would have been simply to force on Northumberland an Earl whom the Northumbrian people had rejected, and who had shown himself utterly unfit for his post. The royal authority would undoubtedly suffer some humiliation by yielding to demands which had been supported by armed force; still such humiliation would be a less evil than a civil war, the issue of which would be very doubtful, and whose results, in any case, would prove most baneful, if not ruinous, to the country. As a brother, Harold had done all for his brother that could be asked of him, in his proposal made in the first conference at Northampton. It could not be his duty—I quote the judgement of a writer of the next age not specially favourable to Harold[1473]—to bring such untold evils on his country merely for the chance of restoring his brother to the authority which he had so deeply abused. Harold therefore, as a statesman and a patriot, rightly determined to yield to the demands of the insurgents.

[Sidenote: His private interest. Complete agreement of the two.]