A history of England

by Charles Oman

The house of Godwine kept a firm control over the realm during the last fourteen years of Edward's reign. When Godwine died suddenly at a great feast at Winchester, [7] his son Harold succeeded both to his earldom of Wessex and to his preponderant power in England. The years of Harold's governance were on the whole a time of prosperity, for he was a busy, capable man, much liked by all the English of the south, though the Mercians and Northumbrians did not love him so well.

Harold knew how to make the authority of the King of England over his smaller neighbours respected. It was during his tenure of power that Siward, earl of Northumbria, was sent into Scotland to put down Macbeth, the lord of Moray, who had murdered King Duncan and seized his crown. Siward slew Macbeth in battle at Lumphanan, and restored to the throne of Scotland Malcolm, the eldest son of the late king (1054). A little later Harold himself took the field to put down Gruffyd, the King of North Wales, who had risen in rebellion. He drove the Welsh up into the crags of Snowdon, and besieged them there till they slew their own king and laid his head at the earl's feet.

Harold's detention in Normandy.

It was somewhere about this time that a misfortune fell upon Harold. He was sailing in the Channel, when a storm arose and drove his ship ashore on the coast of Ponthieu, near the Somme-mouth. Wido, the Count of Ponthieu, an unscrupulous and avaricious man, threw the earl into prison, and held him to ransom. But William, Duke of Normandy, who was Wido's feudal superior, delivered him from bonds, and brought him to his court at Rouen. Harold abode with the duke for some time, half as guest, half as hostage, for William would not let him depart. He went on an expedition against Brittany with the Normans, and received knighthood at the duke's hands. After a time he was told that he might return home if he would engage to use all his endeavours to get William elected King of England at the death of Edward. The duke said that he had gained such a promise from Edward himself, and thought he could make sure of the prize with Harold's aid. Thus tempted, the earl consented to swear this unwise and unjust oath, and in presence of the whole Norman court vowed to aid William's candidature. When he had sworn, the duke showed him that the shrine at which he had pledged his faith was full of the bones of all the saints of Normandy, which had been secretly collected to make the oath more solemn.

Dissensions in England.—Eadwine and Morcar.

So Harold returned to England, and—as it would appear—soon forgot his oath altogether, or thought of it only as extorted by force and fear. He had anxieties enough to distract his mind to other subjects. First Mercia gave trouble, because Aelfgar, the son of Earl Leofric, was jealous of Harold's predominance in the realm. He twice took arms and was twice outlawed for treason. Nevertheless, Harold confirmed his son Eadwine in the possession of the Mercian earldom. Next, Northumbria broke out into armed rebellion. The king had made his favourite Tostig, Harold's younger brother, earl of the great northern province when the aged Siward, the conqueror of Macbeth, died. But Tostig ruled so harshly and so unjustly, that the Anglo-Danes of Yorkshire rose in rebellion, put Morcar, the son of Aelfgar of Mercia, at their head, and drove Tostig away. When Harold investigated the matter, he found that Tostig was so much in the wrong that he advised the king to banish his brother, and to confirm Morcar in the Northumbrian earldom. This resolve, though just and upright, weakened Harold's hold on the land, for Mercia and Northumbria were thus put in the hands of the two brothers, Eadwine and Morcar, who worked together in all things and were very jealous of the great Earl of Wessex, in spite of his kindly dealings with them (1065).

Death of King Edward.

Less than a year after Tostig's deposition King Edward died. The English mourned him greatly, for, in spite of his weakness and his tendency to favour the Normans over-much, he was an upright, kindly, well-intentioned man, whom none could hate or despise. Moreover, his sincere piety made the English revere him as a saint; it was said that he had divine revelations vouchsafed to him, and that St. Peter had once appeared to him in a vision and given him a ring. It is, at any rate, certain that he built the Abbey of Westminster in St. Peter's honour, and lavished on it a very rich endowment. The English looked back to Edward's reign as a kind of golden age in the evil times that followed, and worshipped him as a saint; but the good governance of the realm owed far more to Godwine and Harold than to the gentle, unworldly king.

Harold elected king by the Witan.