What may have been the limits of this jurisdiction—for there must surely have been some causes too grave for any mere holder of sake and soke to meddle with—and how it may have impinged upon the sphere in which shire-mot and burh-mot exercised their powers, are questions the answer to which is not yet before us. It is evident, however, that we have here judicial tribunals which might very easily grow into the manorial courts which flourished under the Norman and Plantagenet kings and the survivals of which exist among us to this day. And altogether the whole effect produced on our minds by a comparison of the laws of these later kings with the laws of the heptarchic kings is, that during the three centuries which elapsed from Ine to Canute the distinction between classes had been growing broader, that the eorl was mightier and the ceorl much weaker than in that older stratum of society; that, though certainly feudalism was not yet materialised in England, the spirit which prompted it was in the air; and that, possibly, even without any Norman Conquest, something like the Feudal System might have come, by spontaneous generation, in our land.
CHAPTER XXV.
EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.
(1042–1066.)
Edward, son of Ethelred, last visible scion of the old royal West Saxon stock, seems to have succeeded, on Harthacnut’s death, without opposition, to the throne of his forefathers. If the most powerful man in the kingdom, Earl Godwine, had any reason to fear the accession of the brother of the murdered Alfred, he determined to run all risks, and by actively co-operating in the new king’s election to establish a claim on his gratitude which might outweigh the remembrance of the deeds done by the zealous adherent of Harold Harefoot. The large influence of Godwine in the king’s counsels did not imply, as it would have done some years before, the continuance in power of the king’s mother. On the contrary, in the very next year after Edward’s accession, and seven months after his coronation at Winchester, the king, with his three most powerful subjects, Godwine, Leofric and Siward, rode from Gloucester to Winchester (November 16, 1043), and coming suddenly upon “the Lady” Emma, deprived her of all the vast treasures that she had accumulated, “her lands, her gold, her silver and her precious things untellable,” and ordained that she should live thereafter, unimprisoned indeed, but deprived of all her ancient state, in the royal city of Winchester. Thus she lived on for eight years longer, till her death on March 14, 1052; but in all the stirring scenes which preceded that event the busy, managing “Old Lady”[238] seems to have taken no part. Her party, if she had one, struck down by that hasty ride of the king and his three nobles, never after raised its head. The reason assigned by the chronicler for this harsh procedure toward the widow and mother of two kings, seems to bear the stamp of truth. “This was done,” he says, “because she was, before, very hard on the king her son, and she did less for him than he would, both before he was king and afterward,” meaning no doubt both before and after his association with Harthacnut. In other words, the queen-dowager, who evidently disliked her first husband and gave all her pent-up love to her second, had become so complete a Dane at heart that she would not lift a finger to help the surviving son of Ethelred, and for this unfriendliness she was sorely punished when he had power to avenge his wrongs.
Soon after Emma’s downfall, the place of “Lady” in the palace of Winchester was again filled, by the marriage of Edward to Edith, daughter of Earl Godwine (January 23, 1045). It was a marriage only in name; for the king, to the admiration of his monastic biographers, retained through life the virgin purity of his saintliness; but the daughter of Godwine undoubtedly exercised some influence on the counsels of her royal spouse, though in what direction that influence was exerted is one of the not fully solved riddles of this difficult reign. The reign is difficult, chiefly because of the singular nullity of the sovereign’s character. Religious and kindly natured, Edward (who received after his death the half canonisation conveyed in the title of “Confessor”) seems to have had scarcely a will or mind of his own. He is always under the dominion of some stronger nature, Saxon earl, or Norman bishop, or wedded queen: and it is rarely possible to discover what were his own true sympathies and antipathies. We have constantly to guess to which of his councillors we must attribute the praise or the blame of the actions which were nominally his own.
To avoid confusion, it will be well to describe the events of this reign under four heads: foreign relations; internal troubles; wars with the Scots; and wars with the Welsh.
To us, who judge after the event, the dissolution of the splendid Anglo-Scandinavian Empire of Canute seems a natural and inevitable consequence of the death of its founder; but in all likelihood it was not so regarded by contemporary observers. Both Magnus of Norway and Sweyn of Denmark may well have aspired to rule England as heirs or quasi-heirs of Canute the Rich, and in order to guard against their attacks, the new King of England was compelled to keep a large fleet in readiness, which was generally assembled at Sandwich.
Magnus of Norway was a bastard son of St. Olaf’s, whose very name bore witness to the irritable temper of his father. His mother, Alfhild, when in travail, was brought nigh unto death, and when the child was born the by-standers were for long in doubt whether it were alive. But the king was asleep, had given strict orders that he should never be roused from his slumbers, and none, not even his favourite minstrel Sigvat, dared to disobey. Fearing lest the child, dying unbaptised, should become “the devil’s man,” a priest hastily baptised it, the minstrel standing god-father, and giving it the name Magnus in honour of Carolus Magnus, “the king whom he knew to be the best man in all the world”. (And this was full two centuries after the death of Charlemagne.) The anger of the awakened king, when he learned what had happened during his slumbers, was charmed away by the smooth-tongued Sigvat. Thus did the name Magnus enter not only into the dynastic lists, but into the common family nomenclature of Norway and Iceland.
The child Magnus, grown to man’s estate and succeeding to his father’s kingdom, vindicated the unconscious prophecy of his name, and was for a time the greatest monarch of the North. Whereas in the previous generation, Denmark had conquered Norway, it now seemed probable that Norway would conquer Denmark, so hard was the king of the latter country pressed by Magnus. This Danish king was Sweyn, not, of course, the son of Canute, who had died some years before, but Sweyn Estrithson, son of the murdered Ulf (of the overthrown chess-board) and of Canute’s sister, Estrith. As Ulf’s sister was Gytha, wife of Earl Godwine, Godwine’s many sons and daughters were of course first cousins to the King of Denmark.
In the year 1047 Sweyn Estrithson, vigorously attacked by Magnus, sent an earnest petition to England that fifty ships might be despatched to his succour. “But this seemed an ill counsel to all people, because Magnus had great sea-power, nor was it adopted.” Unhelped, Sweyn was expelled from his kingdom. The Danes had to pay money to their conquerors—a new and bitter experience for them—and to own Magnus for their king. There, however, the career of Norwegian conquest stopped. In that very year, Magnus, when riding through the forest, was thrown violently by his shying steed against the trunk of a tree and received an injury from which he died. His uncle, Harold Hardrada, who succeeded him, and who will be heard of again in the history of England, could not prevent Denmark from reverting to its former ruler, Sweyn Estrithson, who founded there a dynasty which endured for 300 years.
Though schemes of conquest, such as are attributed to Magnus, died with him, there was some renewal of the old piratical raids. In 1048 two Norse buccaneers came with twenty-five ships to Sandwich, were repelled from Thanet, but successfully raided Essex, and sailing thence to “Baldwin’s land” (Flanders), found there a ready market for the fruits of their cruel industry. The shelter given by Flanders to these and other depredators, induced Edward to acquiesce the more willingly in a proposal made to him by his kinsman, the Emperor Henry III., that he should help to guard the narrow seas against Baldwin, who had broken out into rebellion against the empire, had demolished the palace reared by Charlemagne at Nimeguen, and had done many other ill turns to his sovereign lord. To punish these despites Henry had gathered a large army, and Edward helped him by keeping guard with a fleet at Sandwich. No naval engagement followed, but the pressure thus effected by land and sea was effectual, and before long “the emperor had of Baldwin all that he would”.