No More Learning

His first act accordingly, on reaching Abingdon, was to dispatch his
friend Osgar, another of Dunstan's pupils, to Fleury, so that he might
be furnished with first-hand knowledge of what was being done on the
Continent, and then make his abbey a model for England. Backed
by Eadred's patronage Abingdon soon grew to be a large and well
endowed foundation, observing the rule of St Benedict in its most
stringent form. Nor was its progress hindered under Eadwig, who went on
showering benefactions on it notwithstanding Aethelwold's connexion with
Dunstan and the curtailment of his own resources by the revolt of Mercia.
The acceptance of Edgar by the West Saxons gave the advocates of
reform a much freer hand, as the young king from the first relied on
Dunstan as his principal adviser. In 960 he promoted him to the see of
Canterbury, and shortly afterwards proclaimed himself definitely one of
the reforming party by appointing Oswald, Oda's nephew, to the see of
Worcester and Aethelwold to that of Winchester. Though all three
prelates were equally pledged to reform, they set about it in different
ways. Dunstan, though he had a hand in the reform of Westminster
and Malmesbury and perhaps of Bath, thought most of raising the tone
of the laity and the parish priests, and consequently spent much of
his energy in warring against drunkenness and immorality. Aethelwold
on the other hand, holding that the state of the monasteries was the most
crying evil, did little for the laity, and pressed on with a ruthless crusade
throughout Wessex, beginning with Chertsey and the two minsters at
Winchester, by which he hoped to set monks in the shoes of the collegiate
clergy. He seems to have offered the clerks, whether married or not, only
two alternatives, either complete acceptance of a most stringent monastic
vow or instant expulsion, and at the old Minster, when argument proved
of no avail, he actually resorted to violence, calling in lay assistance to
expropriate his opponents from their property. In the Severn valley,
the course pursued by Oswald was more tactful. Relying on example, he
left the clerks of Worcester and Gloucester undisturbed, and merely
established a small house for monks near Bristol at Westbury-on-Trym.
Meanwhile the king started a movement in the Danelaw to refound some
of the great abbeys which had been destroyed in the Danish wars and
a


## p. 375 (#421) ############################################

Oswald's Land Loans. Drift towards Feudalism 375
which still lay in ruins. The chief of these were Ely, Medeshamstede
and Thorney. Thanks to Aethelwold, these were all re-established and
filled with monks, Medeshamstede taking the name of Peterborough. A
new model abbey also arose at Ramsey in Huntingdonshire about 969.
This was the joint work of Bishop Oswald and Duke Aethelwin of East
Anglia, a son of Aethelstan Half-king; and it was from Ramsey a few
years later that Oswald brought monks first to Winchcombe and ulti-
mately to his cathedral church at Worcester, establishing them in his
“familia” side by side with the clerks, whose life interests he respected.
Finally, to set the seal on these activities, Aethelwold at Edgar's request
translated the Rule of St Benedict into English for the benefit of those
who were weak in Latin. He also, with the object of introducing uni-
formity of practice into the daily life of the monasteries, composed a new
rule for English monks, known as the “Regularis Concordia Anglicae
Nationis,” founded partly on the custom of Fleury and Ghent and partly
on the “Capitula” issued in 817 by Benedict of Aniane.
Another side of the ecclesiastical awakening which characterised
Edgar's reign is seen in the care with which the reforming prelates set
about developing and managing the estates which the laity, encouraged
by the king, on all sides pressed upon them. The best evidence of this
is found at Worcester, where a number of records still survive shewing
how Bishop Oswald personally superintended the administration of the
demesnes belonging to his church. Among them are some seventy deeds
in which the bishop is seen granting out portions of the episcopal lands
to persons whom he describes as his thegns, knights or milites on condition
of faithful service, and side by side with these is preserved a letter,
addressed by the bishop to King Edgar, in which he reports in explicit
terms exactly what the nature of the bargain was and what were the services
which the tenants were to render for their holdings. For the most part
these leases, or “land-loans” as they are called, were for the period of three
lives, that is to say they were roughly tantamount to ninety-nine year
leases, the first tenant having the right to name two successors, after
which the land was to revert to the church ; but in the meantime the
tenants were to pay yearly church-scots, at the rate of a horse-load of
corn for each hide of land which they held, to pay toll to the bishop
when they bought or sold, to render pannage for their pigs when feeding
in the bishop's woods and help their lord in his hunting, to ride on the
lord's errands and fulfil all the duties of a knight or, as the letter
expresses it, fulfil the “lex equitandi quae ad equites pertinet. ” What
makes these curious records particularly interesting is the clear impli-
cation, which they convey, that already the estates of the great English
ecclesiastics were taking very much the shape of the baronies of a later
day, and that we can discern in these “knights,” though they cannot yet
be called military tenants, a class who held by a tenure which was almost
feudal, and which would easily become “tenure in chivalry” as soon as
CH. XV.


## p. 376 (#422) ############################################

376
Edgar's administrative measures
the tactics of war changed and the time-honoured method of fighting on
foot was replaced by reliance on heavy cavalry. These documents in fact
shew us how in Edgar's day, side by side with the religious reform, there
developed a further drift towards feudalism, an effect of the steady
accumulation of land into greater and greater estates. They shew also
how prominent a part in this economic evolution may be assigned to the
churchmen, for though no other records of estate management have
survived, as detailed as those of Worcester, there are plenty of indications
that all the ecclesiastical corporations were acting in these matters more
or less on uniform lines.
Though the social and religious movements are clearly the most
important things that happened in Edgar's reign, it must not be thought
that the king remained all his life a mere tool in the hands of the
ecclesiastics and had no policy of his own. Like most of his immediate
predecessors, he evidently, on coming to manhood, had closely at heart the
due maintenance of order in all parts of his realm, and kept constantly
amending and sharpening the machinery for enforcing the peace and
dispensing justice. His laws no doubt shew the influence of Dunstan in
the minuteness with which they deal with tithe and the observance of
fasts and festivals, but they are also remarkable for their precise rules as
to buying and selling and the pursuit of thieves, as to the maintenance
of the suretyship system of frithborhs and as to the periods when the
various courts were to be held. Specially famous is his ordinance as to
the local courts, which contains the first clear proof of a regular division
of the shires for judicial purposes into moderate sized units called
"hundreds," each with its own tribunal sitting every four weeks. A
further step of somewhat doubtful wisdom, as it tended to undermine
the royal authority, was to place some of the hundreds, so far as the
administration of justice was concerned, under the control of the re-
formed monasteries. Considerable districts thereby acquired the status
of ecclesiastical franchises, in which the local courts were no longer held
in the king's name, and in which the profits of justice went into the
coffers of some minster church and not into the king's treasury. The
first monastic houses to acquire these franchises, or "sokes” as they were
termed in the vernacular (from sócne, the Anglo-Saxon term for juris-
diction), were Peterborough and Ely; and there seems no reason to
doubt the local traditions, which tell us that they obtained them from
Edgar on their first foundation at the instance of Bishop Aethelwold.
No formal Latin charters from the king have come down to us attesting
these grants, but in either case there are some curious Anglo-Saxon
records? still existing which more or less explain their nature. From
these we can see that Peterborough obtained judicial control over a
block of eight hundreds in Northamptonshire, having Oundle as their
1 For Peterborough cf. Birch, Cart. Sax. No. 1130 and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E,
963. For Ely cf. Birch, Cart. Sax. No. 1267.


## p. 377 (#423) ############################################

Rise of ecclesiastical franchises
377
chief town, while Ely obtained similar control not only over the two
hundreds lying round the monastery, which made up the Isle of Ely,
but also over a district of five hundreds in East Suffolk, known as
“Wichlawa,” having Woodbridge on the Deben as its centre and also
comprising Sudbourne with the port of Orford, an estate which Edgar
had granted to Aethelwold as a reward for translating the Rule of
St Benedict into English. In the "sokes” thus created the essential
novelty was not merely the transfer of the king's rights to the monks,
but the fact that by the transfer great numbers of men, both small and
great, who were in no way the tenants of the monks or under their
patronage by “commendation,” nevertheless came thus to be subjected to
them for police and judicial purposes, and had, if charged with any
crime, to appear before officials appointed by them, and became liable
to pay to the monks fines whenever they were unfortunate enough to be
convicted. In other words the creation of the sokes also created a new
kind of lordship, so that the freemen of these districts for the future all had,
as it were, three lords over them; first their immediate personal lord, to
whom they were tied by commendation; secondly the lord of the hundred,
to whom they owed" soke"; and thirdly the king or supreme lord,
to whom they owed military service, and to whom they could still appeal
as a last resort in judicial matters if the lord of the hundred persistently
refused to do them adequate justice.
Here we see no small step taken, at the instance of the ecclesiastics,
in the direction of feudalism, one too which was certain to be regarded
by the lay magnates as a precedent justifying them in seeking similar
franchises for themselves. As yet, however, we have no reason to suppose
that Edgar had favoured any laymen in this way; and the only other
notable franchise which we can ascribe to him is one which was set up
in Worcestershire in favour of Oswald, but which differed from those
granted to Aethelwold's foundations in extending only to estates which
were already in the bishop's ownership, and to men who were under his
lordship as tenants of the see of Worcester. Here again we can produce
no genuine Latin charter in witness of Edgar's grant; but none the less
we may accept as credible the traditions enshrined in the celebrated but
suspect landbook known as Altitonantis, and vouched for in the main by
the account of Worcestershire given in the Domesday Survey? These
authorities, if read together, tell us that Oswald was given a seignorial
jurisdiction over about a third of the lands of his see, comprising 300 hides
lying scattered in various parts in the valleys of the Severn and the Avon,
and that he was further permitted to organise this special area into three
new hundreds, which together came to be known as the triple hundred of
“Oswaldeslau. ” The creation of this soke, though in extent of juris-
diction a much narrower one than those given to Peterborough and Ely,
1 Cf. Birch, Cart. Sax. No. 1135; Domesday Book, 1. 172 b. , and Maitland, Domes-
day Book und Beyond, pp. 267–269.
CH, XV.


## p. 378 (#424) ############################################

378
Reign of Edward the Martyr
had a very disturbing effect on the local organisation of Worcestershire;
for the new hundreds had little geographical coherence and were in every
case merely artificial aggregates of land, pieces of them lying inter-
spersed among estates belonging to other lords, and pieces of them being
even quite outside the proper bounds of the county and forming detached
islands in Gloucestershire. The net result, therefore, was that the hundreds
of Worcestershire became a sort of patchwork, and the respective juris-
dictions of the king and the bishop remained ever afterwards most
awkwardly intermixed. These administrative and legal changes, as well
as the general character of his dooms, plainly shew that Edgar was
an active ruler, and there can be little doubt that he deserves to
share with Dunstan the credit for the peacefulness and increase of
civilisation, which marked his reign and made such an impression
on his contemporaries. We cannot, however, altogether commend his
policy in the matter of the sokes which he created in favour of
Aethelwold and Oswald; for he thereby initiated a process which could
not fail in the long run to diminish the effectiveness of the central
government.
Edgar died in 975, prematurely like so many of his race, being not yet
thirty-three, and was buried by Dunstan at Glastonbury, He was twice
married and left two sons, Edward a boy of thirteen born of his first wife,
and Aethelred aged seven, the child of his second wife Aelfthryth'. This
Devonshire lady, the sister of the founder of Tavistock Abbey, was filled
with ambition for her family, and would not acquiesce in the kingdom
passing whole to her stepson, and helped by a party among the Mercian
nobility who still cherished a resentment for the hard treatment
that had been meted out to the clerks, attempted to obtain recognition
for Aethelred. Dunstan, however, with the help of Oswald, who had
become Archbishop of York in 971, though still retaining the see of
Worcester, supported Edward and caused him to be elected by a witan
and crowned at Kingston in Surrey. If the unity of England was be
maintained, this settlement was obviously a wise one, but it only drove
the discontented party into more violent action, led by Aelfhere, the
duke who had been placed in Edgar's day in control of the Severn valley.
Aelfhere probably was opposed to Dunstan's continued control of the
king, but his particular grievances seem to have been against Oswald,
who had handed over Winchcombe Abbey to Germanus, a monk from
Ramsey, and had also tried to displace the clerks from Pershore, a foun-
dation connected with Aelfhere's house. High-born canons, friends and
kinsmen of Aelfhere, had thereby lost their incomes and were clamouring
for restitution. In judging this movement no reliance can be placed on
the accounts of it which have survived, for they originate without
exception from the side of the monks and depict all sympathisers with
1 Aelfthryth had been previously married to the eldest son of Aethelstan Half-king.
Edgar probably improved his territorial position in East Anglia by marrying her.


## p. 379 (#425) ############################################

Minority of Aethelred the Unready
379
the clerks as the blackest scoundrels. The only point that stands out
clearly is that Aelfhere and his friends were strong enough to drive
out the monks from Evesham and replace their rivals in several of the
Worcestershire and Gloucestershire foundations. Meantime a somewhat
similar movement had developed in the eastern Midlands in connexion
with the lands that had been acquired by Ramsey, Ely and Peterborough.
It was alleged that many of them had been taken unjustly from their
former owners. Flushed by his successes in the west, Aelfhere came
over to support the malcontents, but the fenland abbeys had powerful
defenders in Aethelwin, who had founded Ramsey, and in Brihtnoth, the
duke of the East Saxons, who had been a liberal benefactor to Ely.
These nobles raised armed forces to defend the estates of the monasteries,
and eventually Aelfhere and his partisans had to retire discomfited,
Aethelwin being ever afterwards styled among the monks in gratitude
for his services “the Friend of God. ” These disputes exhibit Dunstan
as no longer equal to the task of maintaining order and were followed
almost immediately by his downfall from power. This was brought
about in 978 by the murder of the young Edward, a deed done in cold
blood at Corfe in Dorset, apparently at the instigation of the ambitious
Aelfthryth. If Dunstan had still retained his earlier vigour, he would
have promptly taken steps to punish the conspirators ; but the murder
went unavenged, and Aethelred, though only ten years old, commenced
unchallenged a reign which was fated to last for thirty-seven years (978–
1016) and bring England untold disasters.
Aethelred's minority was necessarily a long one, but so far as we
know without any striking incidents. The leaders of Edgar's time were
all ageing and one by one passing into the background. Dunstan lived till
988, but withdrew from court in 980 and spent the rest of his days in
dignified retirement, busied with ecclesiastical duties,
The rivalry
between the monks and clerks cooled down with the deaths of
Bishop Aethelwold and Duke Aelfhere some four years later, nor did
Oswald or Aethelwin again play parts of importance, although they
survived till 992. The ecclesiastical fight ended in a drawn battle, for the
canons retained possession of Canterbury and York, of London, Dor-
chester and Lichfield, of Bury St Edmunds, St Albans and Beverley,
and even in Wessex kept some important churches such as Wells and
Chichester. As to the king we hear that he was involved in a dispute
with Aelfhere's heir, but we do not even know who took charge of his
education. His minority in fact would be almost a blank, were it not for
some entries in the Chronicle which speak of renewed viking incursions.
These began in 980, when raiders made descents on Chester, Thanet and
Southampton. The first batch no doubt came from Ireland or Man, the
others more probably from Scandinavia ; but no one thought them
dangerous, even though they were followed by further raids in 982 on
Devon and Cornwall. In reality they were the opening of another
CH. XV.


## p. 380 (#426) ############################################

380
Renewal of Scandinavian Invasions
period of trial for England, and foreshadowed Danish and Norwegian
attacks not less dangerous to the security and freedom of Englishmen
than those captained by Ingwar and Guthrum in the ninth century.
The position of England about the year 990, when Aethelred attained
his majority, might seem at first sight less vulnerable than in Alfred's
day. The land was no longer split into rival kingdoms; it had fortresses
and ships and the confidence born of former victories. But this impression
of unity and strength is misleading. In reality, the West Saxon dynasty
had not succeeded in assimilating its conquests further north thạn the
river Welland. In the “Five Boroughs" and in Yorkshire, and still more
beyond the Tees, it was from every point of view extremely weak. There
is no evidence for example that Edgar, for all his popularity, ever
shewed his face in these parts, or that he had estates there bringing in
any appreciable revenue, or that he appointed any reeves. Jarls of Danish
descent ruled, quite uncontrolled, the half-Danish population in accord-
ance with Danish laws and customs, and only gave their allegiance to the
king because they were left alone. Even the Church had failed to
reassert itself among the “holds” and “socmen. " The sees of York,
Lincoln and Leicester were still, as it were, only appendages of Worcester
and Dorchester, rarely visited by their bishops, badly endowed and
honeycombed with heathen practices only thinly veiled. Nor beyond
the Welland had any attempt been made to found any monasteries of the
reformed pattern. Little reliance then could be placed on the patriotism
of these regions, for should Danish invaders once more get a foothold in
the country, the chief land-owners would have much in common with the
enemy, and might easily be enticed into joining them.
At the same time it must be remembered that the Scandinavian lands
had made in the last century even greater strides towards consolidation
than England. Norway under Harold Fairhair (850-933) and his
descendants had ceased to be a mere collection of warring chieftaincies,
while Denmark under Harold Bluetooth (950-986) had grown into a
fairly compact state, and imposed its sway on its neighbours. As stated
in the runic inscription on the Jellinge Stone, the famous monument in
Jutland which Harold erected in honour of his parents, Gorm and
Thyra, he had “won all Denmark and Norway and made the Danes
Christians. " He had made the “Wick" and the south of Norway a com-
ponent part of his realm; he had planted Danish outposts in Pomerania
and Prussia, he had founded the great stronghold of Jómsborg in Wendland,
and he had forced Hákon the Bad to hold northern Norway and the
Throndlaw as his vassal. More than this, by his successes he had
awakened again the old viking spirit, and set the dragon ships as of old
sailing the seas in search of adventure. His closing years were not so
successful as his prime. In 975 Hákon had revolted, and in 986 the
old king was himself slain fighting against his son Svein, who had thrown
off Christianity. His death, however, did not make the Danish power


## p. 381 (#427) ############################################

Olaf Tryggvason. The Massacre of St Brice's Day 381
less formidable. The undutiful Svein, Svein Forkbeard, as he was
nicknamed, was as able as his father, and bent on reconquering Norway,
or failing that extending his realm elsewhere. He had sailed all the seas
as a viking and already had his eye on England. There were plenty of
reasons then about 990 why Englishmen, had they been well informed
about the outside world, should have had forebodings as to the future,
and be wondering what manner of leader they had in the young
Aethelred.
The first raids, sufficiently serious to test Aethelred's capacity, began
in 991, when Olaf Tryggvason, a famous Norwegian exile, who had claims
on the throne of Norway, burned Ipswich and defeated and slew Brihtnoth,
the duke of the East Saxons, at Maldon. Instead of hastening with all
speed to avenge this disaster, Aethelred could think of no better counsel
than to bribe the invaders to depart by an offer of £10,000. This
was done with the advice of Sigeric, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
other magnates, and precedents could be found for it in Alfred's reign.
None the less it was a most unwise expedient, as it gave the raiders the
impression that the king was a weakling and that Englishmen were afraid
of fighting. Two years later Olaf went harrying along the coasts of
Northumberland and Lindsey, and in 994 was joined by Svein, who for
the moment had been driven from Denmark by Eric, the King of Sweden.
Their design was to pillage London. The citizens, however, put up such
a stout defence that the allied princes abandoned the enterprise and
betook themselves to Sussex and Hampshire. There they obtained
horses and ravaged far and wide. Again Aethelred and the witan
thought only of buying a respite, this time with £16,000 and an offer to
supply provisions. Having accepted these terms, Olaf came to Andover
on a visit to Aethelred in order to be baptised a Christian, and soon
afterwards sailed away to claim the throne of Norway. Successful in
this adventure, he never afterwards had leisure to trouble England.
Not so King Svein. He too sailed away to deal with the Swedes, and for
some years was busied in securing his power in Denmark ; but he still
kept England in mind, and was only biding his opportunity.
Meantime lesser men continued to make yearly attacks on the coasts
of Wessex, and always with such success owing to the quarrels and
incompetence of the English leaders that at last Aethelred in despair
determined to take some of the vikings into his pay to keep off the
remainder. The chief of these was Pallig, a high-born Danish jarl, who
had married Svein's sister, Gunnhild. The immediate result, it would
seem, was satisfactory, for we hear in the year 1000 of an expedition
being led by Aethelred against the Norsemen of Cumberland and the
Isle of Man, who had for years been a menace to Yorkshire and the land
betwixt the Mersey and the Ribble. The experiment nevertheless was a
very risky one, and a year later proved quite ineffective to stop a fresh
force of vikings landing in Devon, which ultimately was only bought
CH. XV.


## p. 382 (#428) ############################################

382
Svein of Denmark. Thorkil the Tall
off with a promise of £24,000 after a triumphant march from Teignton
and Exmouth through Somerset and Wiltshire to Southampton Water.
Instead of fighting this force Pallig actually joined it with all the ships
he could lay hold of, a piece of treachery which enraged Aethelred to
such a degree that he lost control of himself and planned a general
massacre of the Danes in his service and even of their families. This
utterly barbarous and unwise piece of retaliation was carried out on St
Brice's day 1002 to the shame of all chivalrous Englishmen, and among
the victims was not only Pallig and his son but his wife Gunnhild,
Svein's sister, whom Aethelred was holding as a hostage.
The tragedy of Gunnhild's death marks the turning point in
Aethelred's reign; for it naturally bred in Svein a desire for vengeance
which was only to be satisfied after ten long years of warfare ending in
the conquest of England. Of this struggle the Chronicle gives a minute
account, but often in such hysterical tones that it is difficult to make
out what really happened. Nor can space be given here to unravel its
meaning. The bare outlines however are somewhat as follows. In 1003
Svein burnt Exeter, Wilton and Salisbury. In 1004 he sacked Norwich
and Thetford, and had some hard tussles with Ulfkytel, the chief Danish
jarl in East Anglia. In 1006 he ravaged East Kent, and next spring
.
after wintering in the Isle of Wight plundered right and left through
Hampshire and Berkshire. Aethelred meantime had apparently done
nothing but hide in Shropshire in the company of a west-country
magnate, one Eadric, nicknamed “Streona” or “the Grasper,” an evil
councillor of whom the Chronicle can hardly speak with patience. As
ever Aethelred's one idea was to offer the enemy a ransom.
He accord
ingly patched up a truce, and persuaded Svein to take his forces back to
Denmark in return for a tribute of £36,000. At the same time he
placed Eadric in possession of the great estates formerly possessed by
Aelfhere in the Severn valley, and made him duke of Western Mercia.
After this there seems to have been a lull for two years, in which some
efforts were made to organise a large naval force for the defence of the
country by requiring ships to be furnished from every 300 hides of land;
but when this feet assembled at Sandwich in 1009, the quarrels between
its leaders, Brihtric, a brother of Eadric, and Wulfnoth the Child, a
powerful Sussex magnate, completely wrecked its utility. In 1010 the
Danish fleets were back again, this time led not by Svein in person but by
one of his great men, Thorkil the Tall, a famous jarl from Jómsborg. He
attacked Ulfkytel, and having defeated him at Ringmere near Thetford
harried all the south-east Midlands, penetrating westwards as far as
Oxfordshire, and burning in turn Cambridge, Bedford and Northampton.
These inland districts, which had not before suffered from the raiders,
seem to have been utterly dazed. No leaders could be found to captain
the local levies and no shire would help another. The inhabitants
simply clamoured for peace on any terms, and so in 1011 a witan


## p. 383 (#429) ############################################

Flight of Aethelred. Death of Svein
383
advised Aethelred to offer a still larger ransom, this time no less than
£48,000. It proved difficult, however, to raise so great a tribute. The
disappointed vikings therefore went on ravaging, and a little later
betook themselves to Kent, where they sacked Canterbury, owing to
treachery on the part of the abbot of St Augustine's, and captured the
Archbishop, Aelfheah (Alphege). For some months they held the primate
to ransom, only to murder him in a drunken riot at Greenwich early in
1012. When at last the tribute was got together, the Danish forces
broke up and some went back to Denmark; but Thorkil himself with
a fleet of forty-five ships remained in England and took service with
Aethelred. The plan of setting a thief to catch a thief was evidently to
be tried again; but it met with no more success than in the case of
Pallig, for the news, that Thorkil was obtaining power in England,
immediately brought his overlord Svein upon the scene, bent upon con-
quering the whole country and outshining his lieutenant.
The plan of attack in 1013 was quite different to the methods hitherto
adopted. Instead of raiding Wessex or East Anglia, Svein directed his
fleet to the Humber, evidently counting on a friendly reception from the
men of the Danelaw. Nor was he disappointed. As soon as he landed
with his son Knut at Gainsborough on the Trent, Uhtred, a son of
Waltheof of Bamborough, who had distinguished himself against the Scots
and become jarl of the Yorkshire Danes, offered him his allegiance, and
shortly afterwards all the men of the Five Boroughs submitted and gave him
hostages
. A good base being thus secured, where he could leave his ships
in his son's guardianship, he next marched through Leicestershire across
the Watling Street into Eadric's dukedom and so south to Oxford and
Winchester. Both these boroughs submitted as soon as he appeared,
and it was not till he turned eastwards to London, where Aethelred lay
with Thorkil, that we hear of any resistance. There was a fight, it would
seem, for the possession of London Bridge in which Svein's men were
unsuccessful. Checked for the moment in the east, and uncertain how best
to deal with Thorkil, Svein next proceeded to Bath to secure control of
Western Wessex. A hundred and forty years before this district had been
the scene of Alfred's heroic defence, but its old spirit had long departed.
In a few days it submitted, after which we are told “all the people held
Svein for full king. " These sweeping desertions made Aethelred realise
that England as a whole was resolved not to fight for him, and that
Thorkil's forces were hardly likely for long to save him from Svein's
vengeance. He accordingly took ship and sought a refuge in Normandy
at the court of Duke Richard the Good, the brother of his second wife
Emma, whom he had married eleven years before on the very eve of the
fateful massacre of 1002.
Svein's triumph, complete as it seemed, was destined to be only
momentary. He retired to his base on the Trent to keep the Yule-tide
feast with his son Knut, and had the satisfaction of receiving hostages
CH. XV.


## p. 384 (#430) ############################################

384
Restoration of Aethelred. Invasion of Knut
from the Londoners, but died suddenly in February 1014, before he could
be crowned King of England. His death threw the whole Scandinavian
world into confusion. The fleet at Gainsborough chose the youthful Knut,
though only eighteen, to be king; but he was not Svein's eldest son, and
Denmark passed to his brother Harold, while the Norwegians favoured
the claims of Olaf the Stout, a cousin of Olaf Tryggvason's, who had been
fighting in England with Thorkil, to rule those parts of Norway which
had acknowledged Svein's supremacy. In these circumstances it is not
surprising to hear that Aethelred was called back to England, and that
the jarls who stood round Knut advised a return of the fleet to Scan-
dinavia to enable each man to look after his home interests. Knut there-
fore sailed away from the Humber, and for a year was occupied in Denmark
making terms with his brother.
Meantime a new force arose in England in Edmund, Aethelred's eldest
son by his first marriage. Aethelred on his return gave his confidence
again to Eadric, and on his advice took steps to punish the men of the Five
Boroughs for offering their allegiance to Svein. In pursuit of this object he
put to death Sigeferth and Morkere, two of the leading magnates north of
the Welland, and added their estates to Eadric's territories. . This was just
one of those outrages which gained Aethelred the title of the “Redeless”
or the “Badly counselled.
” All additions to the Grasper's power were
bitterly resented, and by none more than by Edmund, the heir to the
throne. To check Eadric became the fixed purpose of the young prince.
He accordingly seized and married Sigeferth's widow, and then marched
to the Five Boroughs as the avenger of the lady's wrongs and made him-
self master of all the lands which Eadric had coveted. This stroke was so
popular in the Danelaw, that Edmund at once became a power in the land,
but only at the cost of earning the undying hatred of Eadric. What this
would entail was seen a few months later when Knut once more appeared
in the Channel with a large fleet partly furnished by his brother. This
picked force, “which contained neither thrall nor freedman," landed at
Wareham without opposition from Aethelred, who was lying ill near
Portsmouth, and ravaged at will through Dorset and Somerset. To meet
it Edmund and Eadric both gathered forces; but when they came face to
face with the enemy in Wiltshire, Eadric promptly went over to Knut.
Edmund therefore had to retire over the Thames without fighting, and
the whole of Wessex submitted. In the spring of 1016 much the same
happened in Mercia. Knut and Eadric came leagued together into
Warwickshire, and Edmund in despair was forced to abandon the defence
of Middle Anglia. The most he could do was to appeal for assistance to
Uhtred, who had his own grievances against Eadric. This caused a
momentary diversion; for Uhtred marched through Cheshire to attack
Eadric in Staffordshire and Shropshire. But Knut meantime overran
the valley of the Ouse, then went unchecked all up the east side of
England to the Humber, and eventually appeared before York. When


## p. 385 (#431) ############################################

Edmund Ironside. Battle of Ashington
385
Uhtred heard of this rapid advance, he turned back from Mercia to repeat
the submission which he had formerly made to Svein. Knut, however,
instigated by Eadric, connived at his murder by some private enemies,
and appointed his own brother-in-law Eric, who had been ruler of part of
Norway, to be jarl of Yorkshire in his place. By April the position of
affairs was almost the same as it had been before Svein's death. Thanks
to Eadric's treachery, all England save East Anglia and the districts im-
mediately round London were in the hands of the invaders. It would
seem also that Thorkil had gone over to his countrymen, and so Edmund
and Ulfkytel were the only important leaders with whom Knut had
still to reckon. It was at this critical juncture that Aethelred died,
and Englishmen had to decide whether they would abandon the struggle
or choose Edmund as their king in the hope that he might prove a second
Alfred and retrieve the national fortunes even at the eleventh hour.
The Londoners to their credit decided for Edmund; and soon the
courage of many parts of England began to revive, for Edmund at once
shewed his countrymen that he meant to take the offensive. For this pur-
pose he realised that he could not do better than begin where Alfred had
set the example. He therefore hurried down to Somerset, leaving London
to stand a siege at the hands of the feet which Knut had brought round
from Southampton to Greenwich. His appearance in the west soon
brought men to his standard, and in a week or two he was strong enough
to advance eastwards to Sherston, near Malmesbury, and attack Thorkil
and Eadric, who had been detached by Knut to intercept him. The fight
proved indecisive, but Edmund must have had the advantage, as the Danes
retreated on London, and left him free to march into the Chiltern country
and raise larger forces. With these he relieved London and, after forcing
a passage over the Thames at Brentford, had the satisfaction of seeing
the Danish fleet retire to the Orwell in search of supplies. Their land-
forces meanwhile went into Kent; but again Edmund followed, and having
defeated them at Otford drove them into Sheppey and thence into Essex.
This series of successes seemed to shew that the luck was turning and led
Eadric to pretend at any rate that he wished to change sides. Unluckily
Edmund believed him, and allowed him to join his army with a body of
men from Herefordshire. The two then moved together into Essex and
threw their forces on the Danes at Ashington, near Shoebury. By this
time Edmund had far the larger and more confident army, and should have
,
won again; but in the middle of the fight Eadric played the traitor once
more and gave Knut a hard-won victory, the list of the slain including
the gallant old Ulfkytel of East Anglia and many of the leading men of
Eastern Mercia. So costly a defeat forced Edmund once more to fall back
westwards. He was, however, by no means beaten, and Knut was by this
time convinced that he had better come to terms with him. A meeting
was accordingly proposed between the two young kings. This took place
under Eadric's auspices at Olney in Gloucestershire, and there it was
C. MED. H. VOL. III. CH. XV.
25


## p. 386 (#432) ############################################

386
Accession of Knut
a
arranged that the realm should be divided, Edmund taking his ancestral
inheritance of Wessex, while Knut obtained all Mercia and the Danelaw,
on the condition that he forwent all vengeance on the Londoners and
gave them his peace. Knut's object in consenting to this treaty was, no
doubt, to obtain a breathing space and allow time for reinforcements
to reach him from Scandinavia. It might, however, quite well have opened
the way for Edmund to play over again the part of Edward the Elder,
now that he had restored the prestige of his house, and won for him-
self the name of “Ironside” by his audacity and doggedness in an almost
desperate situation. Englishmen at any rate now had a rallying point
and a leader. Fate, however, willed it otherwise. Only a few weeks after
the treaty Edmund died at Oxford unexpectedly, if not by foul play,
when still only twenty-two. His loss at once destroyed the reviving
.
spirit of the West Saxons. They might perhaps have turned to Eadwig,
Edmund's brother, the sole surviving male of Aethelred's first family, but
their dread of the Danes was too great, and so Knut was hailed King of
all England early in 1017 without further opposition.
Knut ruled England for eighteen years (1017-1035). Through his
mother half a Pole, he was at his accession about twenty-two years old,
and already had two sons by an English wife called Aelfgifu of North-
ampton. His first act, however, was to repudiate this lady and take to
wife Emma of Normandy, Aethelred's widow, who was thirteen years his
senior. This stroke of policy freed him from all fear of the young Alfred
and Edward, her children by Aethelred, who were left at Rouen to be
educated as Frenchmen under the charge of their uncle Duke Richard.
To his new subjects Knut must have seemed the typical viking raider.
He proved, however, altogether different as a king to what men expected.
From the very outset he put off the barbarian and did his utmost to make
his subjects forget that he was their conqueror. He had of course to take
some steps of a drastic kind to secure himself against possible risings and
treachery, but, when once his power was fully established, he developed
into a most humane and conciliatory ruler, and gave England peace and
justice such as it had not enjoyed since the death of Edgar. King at
first only of England, in 1018 he acquired Denmark as well by the death
of his brother, and ultimately a considerable Scandinavian empire, but he
ever considered England his first care and made it his chief residence.
A rapid recovery of prosperity therefore followed his accession, and
Englishmen had little cause to regret the change of dynasty.
Knut's first task, after sending Edmund's infant sons out of the realm
and hunting down their uncle Eadwig, was to appoint a trusty band of
dukes, or "earls” as they now come to be called, using the Danish term,
to help him in controlling the various provinces of the kingdom. Full
details for all England are not available, but the lists of witnesses to his
land-books, coupled with entries in the Chronicles, shew that his scheme
was somewhat as follows : south of the Thames he kept the bulk of


## p. 387 (#433) ############################################

Knut's domestic policy
387
the country in his own hands, leaving, however, an Englishman called
Aethelweard in charge of part of Western Wessex. In East Anglia and
Yorkshire he relied on Scandinavians, giving the former to Thorkil
the Tall and the latter, as already noted, to his Norse brother-in-law
Eric, said to be the most chivalrous of the vikings. In Bernicia he left
the native line of high-reeves of Bamborough undisturbed, and even put
his confidence eventually in the murdered Uhtred's son Ealdred. In
Western Mercia he could hardly do otherwise at first than recognise Eadric;
but it was impossible to trust such a dangerous turncoat, and so it is not
surprising to find that within a year Knut charged him with treachery
and allowed Earl Eric to put him to death. In his place Knut set up
as Earl of Mercia another Englishman called Leofwine, whose family had
great possessions round Lichfield and Coventry, but he apparently did not
give him Fadric's great estates in Gloucestershire or along the middle
Severn, for shortly afterwards both Worcestershire and Herefordshire
appear as separate earldoms. Over these he set Scandinavians, the former
district going to his nephew Hákon, the son of Eric, and the latter to
Eglaf, son of Thorgils Sprakaleg, whose elder brother Ulf was married to
Estrith, Knut's half-sister. What was done in the case of the London
districts and the Five Boroughs is not recorded. The names of the above
earls, however, sufficiently indicate Knut's general idea, which was to employ
English magnates as far as he could, but simultaneously to give sufficient
rewards to his more important kinsmen, whether Danish or Norse, so that
they in their turn might be able to reward their military followers.
As a result a very considerable sprinkling of new Scandinavian families
settled in different parts of England, but at the same time there was
no systematic forfeiture of lands, and in particular very little ousting of
English peasantry to make way for fresh Scandinavian freedmen.
Having once begun a conciliatory policy, Knut adhered to it steadily.
In 1018 he held a great gemot at Oxford in which he declared his
intention of governing in accordance with the law of Edgar, and the
same year he paid off the bulk of his Scandinavian forces and sent them
back to Denmark, retaining only forty ships in his service, whose crews
afterwards came to form a kind of royal body-guard, known as the hus-
carls. The next year he was abroad, securing his hold on Denmark, but
signalised his return in 1020 by two acts which shewed still further his
trust in his English subjects. The first was the appointment of a Sussex
magnate called Godwin to be Earl of Wessex, and the second the issue
of a remarkable proclamation declaring that he meant in future to carry
on his government in strict conformity with the wishes of the English
bishops. Here in fact we have the keynote of his internal policy for the
rest of his life. Like Edgar he became a devout son of the Church, a
liberal ecclesiastical benefactor and a patron of the monastic or reforming
party. More and more he allowed himself to be guided by ecclesiastical
advisers, men like Aethelnoth, whom he made Archbishop of Canterbury,
a
a
CH, XV.
25--2


## p. 388 (#434) ############################################

388
Knut's foreign policy. Harold Harefoot
a
а
and Lyfing, whom he promoted to be abbot of Tavistock and, later, bishop
of Crediton. The most notable of his works of piety are perhaps the
rebuilding of the minster of Bury St Edmunds, and its conversion from
a college of canons into a house of monks; the foundation of the monastery
of St Benet at Holme in Norfolk; and the presentation of the port of
Sandwich and other gifts to Canterbury to atone for the murder of Arch-
bishop Aelfheah. There were few minsters in fact which Knut did not
enrich, for he wished to pose as the great Christian king and civiliser of
his people, and he firmly believed that the Church was the only instrument
which could effect his purpose.
Meantime across the North Sea, Knut was gradually extending his
influence. In 1022 we hear of an expedition to Witland in Esthonia,
and a little later, of demands on Olaf the Stout that he should hold Norway
as Knut’s vassal and pay a tribute. This led to an alliance between Olaf
and Anund Jacob, the King of Sweden, who together in 1026 invaded the
Danish realm, taking advantage of a dispute which had arisen between
Knut and his brother-in-law Ulf. The danger brought Knut over to
Denmark. He found the allied kings ravaging Scania, but so damaged
their feets in a fight at the mouth of the Helge River that they had to
give up their enterprise. He next had Ulf put to death, whether justly or
in a fit of passion it is difficult to say, and then in 1028, after a pilgrimage
to Rome to witness the coronation of the Emperor Conrad II, invaded
Norway with a considerable force including an English contingent. The
result was that Olaf was driven out, his constant efforts since 1015 to
christianise his subjects having rendered him unpopular. From this time
onwards Knut could call himself King of England, Denmark, Scania,
Witland, and Norway. Olaf, however, returned in 1030, but only to be
defeated and slain at Stiklestad, near Throndhjem, after which Knut placed
his eldest son Svein in charge of Norway under the guardianship of his
mother Aelfgifu of Northampton. The remainder of Knut's reign need
not detain us. The king lived constantly in England and busied himself
energetically with legislation designed to reinforce Edgar's laws and stamp
out any remains of heathenism which still lurked in the country. It
would seem too that he received some kind of homage from Malcolm II
of Scotland, who in 1018 had driven the Bernician earls out of Lothian
by a decisive victory at Carham. Knut's interference, however, did not
really retrieve that disaster or prevent the River Tweed becoming hence-
forth the permanent northern limit of England.
Knut died at Shaftesbury in 1035, when still under forty, and was
buried in the old minster at Winchester. At once his newly formed
empire fell to pieces. He had apparently intended that England and
Denmark should remain united under Harthacnut, his son by Emma of
Normandy, even if Svein, his son by Aelfgifu, obtained Norway. But
the choice of Harthacnut, who was at the moment his representative in
Denmark, did not commend itself either to the corps of hus-carls or the
a


## p. 389 (#435) ############################################

Harthacnut. Accession of Edward the Confessor 389
a
Mercians or the men of Yorkshire or East Anglia. Godwin, the Earl of
Wessex, now the most important man in England, alone championed
his cause strongly. Nor were the men of Norway willing to bow to Svein.
Knut's arrangements, therefore, fell to the ground except in Denmark, and
the upshot was that the English witan at Oxford, led by Leofric, the son
of Earl Leofwine, who had now become Earl of Mercia, declared for
Harold Harefoot, the younger son of Aelfgifu of Northampton, who was
in England ; while the Norwegians set up Magnus the son of their old
national champion Olaf the Stout, and recovered their independence. This
settlement of the succession persisted, so far as it affected England, for
five years, despite Harold's worthlessness and the strong opposition of
Queen Emma and Archbishop Aethelnoth. For Harthacnut remained in
Denmark, fully occupied in beating off attacks from Magnus, and Godwin
with his partisans, disappointed at his non-appearance in England, deserted
his cause. There is nothing, however, to record concerning Harold's reign
(1035–1040) except a number of acts of cruelty, the most notable being
the murder of Alfred, Queen Emma's eldest son by her first husband King
Aethelred, who with his younger brother Edward had been living peace-
ably in Normandy during the seventeen years of Knut's rule. This young
prince landed in England in 1035 with a small following, perhaps to make
a bid for the throne, but was seized by Godwin at Guildford and then
handed over to Harold, who had him blinded with such barbarity that he
died. For this act Godwin got nearly all the blame. Meantime Queen
Emma took refuge at Bruges with the Count of Flanders, and it was only in
the autumn of 1039 that she at last succeeded in stirring up her son Hartha-
cnut to collect a fleet of some 60 ships for an attack on his half-brother.
Before he could reach England, Harold died, whereupon Harthacnut was
offered the crown peaceably. He landed at Sandwich in June 1040, but
soon shewed himself a bloodthirsty tyrant. He began by imposing a
heavy tribute on his new subjects to pay the crews of his fleet. This led
shortly afterwards to the harrying of Worcestershire for impeding the
king's hus-carls in the collection of the tax. A little later he slew Eadulf,
the Earl of Northumberland, by treachery and gave his earldom to Siward,
the Earl of Yorkshire. He also took to selling vacant bishoprics. Luckily
his reign lasted less than two years, terminating with his sudden death in
June 1042 at a wedding banquet "as he stood at his drink. ”
Once more the English magnates had an opportunity of selecting a king,
uninfluenced by pressure from an invading army. The choice lay between
a Danish or an English succession. If the Danish line was to be main-
tained, the most promising heir was Knut's nephew Svein, the son of his
sister Estrith and the murdered Ulf, whom Harthacnut had left as viceroy
in Denmark to contend with Magnus; but if the English line was to be
restored, the only possible candidate was Edward, the surviving son of
Emma and Aethelred, whom Harthacnut had allowed to return to England.
As Earl Godwin was married to Gytha, Ulf's sister, and had been concerned
CH. XV.


## p. 390 (#436) ############################################

390
Edward's character
a
in the death of Edward's brother, Alfred, only a few years before, the
West Saxon leader might well have given his support to Svein. He did
not however do so, for Svein at the moment was making no headway in
Denmark. Accordingly after a short period of indecision, Edward was
chosen king by the voice of all the folk of England, and crowned nine
months later on Easter Day 1043.
The restoration of Aethelred's line in the person of Edward, known
to later generations as Edward the Confessor, freed England from one
set of foreign influences, only to introduce another; for Edward, in
spite of his direct male descent from Alfred, was half a Norman in
blood and almost wholly a Norman in training. When, in 1041, he
returned to England, after an exile of more than a quarter of a century,
he was already approaching his fortieth year; and he was a man whose
habits and ways of thinking had long been fixed. By all who knew him
he was accounted a mild-mannered, conscientious person and a confirmed
bachelor. He loved hunting, but not fighting. In France a great deal
of his life had been spent at Jumièges and other monasteries under the
influence of Norman ecclesiastics; and among these surroundings he had
acquired a taste for a comparatively cultured life and a tendency to lean
on clerics for guidance. He probably thought in French and disliked
speaking English, and he was at little pains to conceal the fact that he
found the manners of his countrymen uncongenial and their ideas
boorish and behind the times. When the English magnates decided to
accept him as their king, they probably thought that they had gauged
his character and reckoned that with his ignorance of English ways he
would be unable to direct affairs, and that all real power would conse-
quently slip by degrees into their hands. Such a forecast, however, was
not realised quite in the way the magnates expected. For Edward was
no sooner seated on the throne than he began to fill his court with
sundry Normans, Flemings and Bretons, who looked for honours and
careers in England, and were by no means prepared to play the part of
mere courtiers. Their numbers, too, year by year increased, and Edward
never hesitated to shew that he preferred their cleverer and more polished
society to the ruder ways of English and Danes, however high-born or
wealthy. Just at first, of course, he had to rely for support on the
native nobles and churchmen, who had favoured his accession, and espe-
cially on Earl Godwin, who was by far the most powerful territorial
magnate in southern England, and who had been chiefly responsible,
with Bishop Lyfing of Crediton, for making him king. Edward, how-
ever, was astute enough to perceive that Godwin's predominance was
much resented in the Midlands and in the North, and that in every dis-
trict the great landowners were exceedingly bitter in their jealousies and
rivalries, and might easily be pitted one against the other in such a
manner that the king might, after all, more or less get his own way if he
played his cards skilfully. We find Edward accordingly before long
a
>


## p. 391 (#437) ############################################

Predominance of Godwin of Wessex
391
turning for support to Earl Leofric of Mercia and Earl Siward of
Northumbria, whenever he felt himself too much in the grip of Earl
Godwin.
At the same time he went to work systematically to contrive
openings for placing his foreign friends in positions of influence. Being
a man without much energy Edward planned no sudden coup d'état, nor
did he achieve any dramatic success in asserting himself; but he did
enough, by persistently adhering to the same tactics, to make his reign
a period of continual struggle between rival aspirants for ascendancy in his
counsels, and he managed so to manipulate events that a French-speaking
element in a few years gained a firm foothold in the ranks of the nobility
and in the Church, and gradually acquired considerable territorial in-
fluence in many parts of central and southern England. It is, of course,
easy to arraign this policy as unpatriotic; and, as it ultimately led to
the conquest of England by the Normans, Edward has sometimes been
denounced as the most worthless of the old English kings. The intro-
duction from abroad of more civilised manners and ideas was in itself,
however, no bad thing, and Edward ought rather to be praised for it.
It must be remembered, too, that at the outset of his reign England had
clearly fallen behind the Continent in many ways, and required to be re-
awakened. It seems, then, rather beside the mark to charge Edward
with want of patriotism because he attempted to supply new educative
influences in the only way open to him, and altogether inaccurate to
picture him, as has sometimes been done, as a saintly nonentity entirely
at the beck and call of foreign ecclesiastics, and without any policy of
The truer picture seems to be that he was neither unpatriotic
nor over-saintly, in spite of the grotesque stories handed down about him
by monkish biographers of the next generation; he was rather a well-
intentioned man of mediocre talent, thrust late in life and unexpectedly
into an extremely difficult position, and unfortunately not strong enough
to play the king's part with credit to himself or advantage to his
subjects.
It is not surprising, then, to find that nothing was done in his long
reign of twenty-three-and-a-half years (1042–1066) to weld England
together into a more compact state or to retard the growth of feudalising
tendencies, and that when he died, leaving no direct heir, the quarrelsome
magnates, who had tried unceasingly to overshadow him during his lifetime,
held hopelessly divergent views about replacing him.
The outstanding feature of Edward's reign during his earlier years is
undoubtedly the constant growth of Godwin's territorial power, and the
persistency with which the earl sought to aggrandise himself and his
family, not only in his own province of Wessex, but also in Mercia and
East Anglia. Godwin's first great success was obtained in 1045, when
he induced Edward, in spite of his known preference for celibacy, to marry
his daughter Edith and endow her with important estates in many parts of
his own.
CH. XV.


## p. 392 (#438) ############################################

392
Edward's foreign advisers
England. As the king's father-in-law, Godwin thus acquired precedence
over the other earls. His ambition, however, was by no means satisfied
with this advancement, and we next find him working for the advance-
ment of his sons. Again Edward proved compliant, and Godwin secured
in quick succession an earldom in the Severn valley for his eldest son
Svein, who had hitherto been content with a subordinate earldom under
his father in Somerset and Dorset, another in East Anglia for his second
son Harold, and a third in the Midlands for his nephew Beorn. By what
means sufficient lands were at the king's disposal to make these promo-
tions possible we do not know. Presumably Edward must have got into
his hands most of the estates which Knut had formerly bestowed on his
Danish jarls, Eglaf, Hákon and Thorkil the Tall. Some evidence also
exists that considerable property was surrendered at this time under
pressure by Emma, the queen mother, and also some by the king him-
self; for later, Harold is found in possession of at least twenty manors
in Essex and Hertfordshire which have all the characteristics of crown
land, while the king is returned as owning hardly any property in those
counties.
Meantime Edward was active, as occasion offered, in introducing his
own particular friends into lay and ecclesiastical posts, to act as checks
on Godwin's increasing power. The leading clerical examples were Robert,
Abbot of Jumièges, one of his closest friends in Normandy, whom he
made bishop of London in 1044, and another Norman called Ulf, who
became bishop of the wide-spreading diocese of Dorchester. These
ecclesiastical appointments passed unresented, as they were set off by
others which went to Godwin's party, such as the coadjutorship of
Canterbury to Siward, Abbot of Abingdon (who died in October 1048),
and the bishopric of Winchester to Stigand, a wealthy landowner in
Norfolk and Suffolk, who had been an important king's chaplain in Knut's
day and was high in favour with Queen Emma. Less satisfactory to
Godwin was the promotion of the king's nephew Ralf to a position of
influence. This young Frenchman, who was the son of Goda, Edward's
sister, by her marriage with Drogo of Mantes, Count of the Vexin, was
given an earldom in Herefordshire which acted as a counterpoise to
Svein's earldom; and at the same time two Breton lords, Robert the
son of Wimarc and Ralf of Guader near Rennes, were endowed with con-
siderable fiefs in Essex and East Anglia to act as checks on Harold. To
distinguish him from Ralf of Mantes this second Ralf is usually styled
Ralf the Staller, from the important quasi-military office of constable
in the royal household, which Edward also bestowed on him.
Godwin must have realised from these measures that his hold over
Edward was precarious, and soon afterwards it was almost destroyed
owing to the misdeeds of his son Svein, who first offended the Church by
abducting the abbess of Leominster, and then alienated the nobles by
murdering his cousin Earl Beorn. Godwin with great stupidity con-


## p. 393 (#439) ############################################

Godwin and his sons driven into exile
393
a
doned these outrages, but his attempts to shield his son so damaged his
influence, even in his own earldom of Wessex, that Edward plucked up
courage in 1050, when Eadsige of Canterbury died, to set aside Godwin's
kinsman, the elected Aelfric, and promote Robert of Jumièges to be
primate of the English Church. Nor could Godwin obtain the bishopric
of London, thus vacated, for his friend Spearhafoc of Abingdon, as
Robert of Jumièges maintained that his elevation was forbidden by
the Pope, and backed the king in appointing another Norman cleric,
named William, in his stead.
A definite breach thus arose between Edward and his father-in-law,
leading, a year later, to a serious crisis. This developed out of a visit
which Eustace, the Count of Boulogne, paid to Edward in 1051. Eustace
had recently married the king's sister. Goda, the widowed mother
of the Earl of Hereford, and he seems to have come to England on an
ordinary family visit or perhaps to look after his wife's English lands.
His stay with his brother-in-law at the English court went off quietly
enough, but on his return journey his retinue provoked a riot at Dover
which resulted in some of the count's men being killed, as well as some
of the townsmen. Count Eustace regarded this broil as the fault of the
.
burghers, and immediately demanded reparation for the insult; where-
upon Edward called upon Godwin in his capacity of earl of the district
to punish the men of Dover. Godwin, however, refused. This gave
.
Edward an opportunity of asserting his authority; he accordingly
summoned Godwin to appear before a court at Gloucester to defend his
action. At the same time Robert of Jumièges advised Edward to rake
up against Godwin the old charge that fifteen years before he had been
accessory to, if not the prime mover in, the death of Alfred, the king's
brother. Godwin, suspecting that the plan was to involve him in a
blood-feud, replied by summoning a large force of his own thegns to
a rendezvous at Berkeley within easy reach of Gloucester, and by calling
upon
his sons Svein and Harold also to come with their forces to his
help. As a set-off to the attack of the Kentish men on the French
count, he also preferred charges against Ralf of Hereford, alleging that
Ralf's French followers had been guilty of many acts of cruelty and
oppression towards Englishmen, and further, that, following the French
fashion, he had erected a private castle in his earldom, which was a
danger to English liberties, such a building being quite unexampled
on English soil, where the only fortifications hitherto built were the
national boroughs maintained in the king's name for defence against
the Danes.
When it became known that Godwin had appealed to arms, Earl
Leofric of Mercia and Earl Siward of Northumbria also gathered their
forces and came south to the support of the king. The upshot was that
Godwin found himself outmatched and, fearing defeat, agreed to disband
his forces; whereupon the king summoned another witan to meet at
CH. XV.


## p. 394 (#440) ############################################

394
Return of Godwin. Flight of the foreigners
London, which boldly decreed outlawry for Godwin and all his sons.
In these circumstances the earl thought it safest to take refuge with his
friend Baldwin of Lille, the Count of Flanders, and wait for time to
break
up the king's party. He accordingly sailed for Bruges, taking his
sons Svein and Tostig with him, the latter of whom had married Bald-
win's daughter, while his sons Harold and Leofwine rode for Bristol and
took ship to Ireland.
The direction of affairs in southern England after Godwin's departure
seems to have fallen largely into the hands of the king's foreign friends.
Greedy to obtain a share of Godwin's lands and honours, fresh troops of
Normans and Bretons soon came flocking to England, and the king's
wife Edith was deprived of her estates and sent in disgrace to the nunnery
of Wherwell. Earl Leofric, however, was by no means backward in
pushing his own interests, and used the crisis to consolidate his position
in Mercia by obtaining a grant of Beorn's estates for himself, while his
son Aelfgar stepped into Harold's shoes as Earl of East Anglia. As for
Svein's estates, in Somerset, Dorset, Devon and the Severn valley, they
seem to have passed to a new earl, Odda, whose patrimony lay chiefly in
the neighbourhood of Pershore and Deerhurst.
The fall of Godwin's house was thus for the moment pretty complete.
His exile, however, lasted but a short time, as a reaction set in when the
English thegns realised that Normans and Bretons were the chief gainers
by Godwin's absence; and it quickly gathered strength when the news
went round that a yet more powerful foreigner than any who had hitherto
come was to visit Edward's court. This was Edward's kinsman William,
the young Duke of Normandy. This prince made little secret of the
fact that he regarded himself as a possible claimant to the English
throne, should Edward die childless, and those who knew what the
Normans were now doing in southern Italy naturally regarded him as
coming to England to spy out the nakedness of the land, and shook their
heads over his advent.