We have attempted a sketch of the English court after the exile of Godwin's family—of the joy and triumph that reigned in Edward's palace: the picture reversed must have presented a faithful representation of the rage and hatred of the Normans, when, after their hasty flight, they again assembled at duke William's court. What raving and storming must there have been amongst the disappointed courtiers, what a stamping of armed feet and dropping of sabres, as they swore what they would do if ever they met the Saxon earl in arms! Above all, what curses loud and deep must have been vented against Godwin and all his family! We can picture duke William biting his lip, and walking moodily apart, until the two hostages arrived; and then his cunning eye would brighten for a moment, as he felt he had still a hold, though but a slender one, upon the weak-minded monarch of England.
Godwin, who was now an old man, did not long survive his triumph. The account of his death is given in various ways by the old chroniclers. It appears to have taken place at the Easter festival, in the year 1053; and although not so sudden as some of the monkish writers have described it to be, the earl never rallied again from the hour when he first fainted at the banquet table in the presence of the king. One of the servants, while in the act of pouring out a cup of wine, stumbled with one foot, and would have fallen but for the dexterity with which he advanced the other. Godwin raised his eyes, and, smiling, said to the king, "The brother has come to assist the brother." "Ay," answered Edward, looking with a deep meaning on the Saxon chief, "brother needs brother, and would to God mine still lived!" "Oh, king," exclaimed Godwin, "why is it that, on the slightest recollection of your brother, you always look so angrily on me? If I contributed even indirectly to his death, may the God of heaven grant that this piece of bread may choke me!" Godwin put the bread in his mouth, say the authors who relate this anecdote, and was immediately strangled. His death, however, was not so sudden; for, falling from his seat, he was carried out by his two sons, Tostig and Gurth, and expired five days after. But the account of this event varies, according as the writer is of Norman or English race. "I ever see before me two roads, two opposite versions," says an historian of less than a century later; "I warn my readers of the peril in which I find myself."[13]
Siward, the chief of Northumberland, who had at first followed the royal party against the Saxon earl, but eventually assisted in expelling the foreign favourites, expired soon after Godwin. He was by birth a Dane, and the population of the same origin over whom he ruled gave him the title of Siward-Digr, Siward the Strong; a rock of granite was long shown, which he is said to have split with one blow of his axe. Feeling his end approach, he said to those who surrounded him, "Raise me up, and let me die like a soldier, and not huddled together like a cow; put me on my coat of mail, place my helmet on my head, my shield on my left arm, and my gilt axe in my right hand, that I may expire in arms." Siward left one son, named Waltheof, who being too young to succeed to his government, it was given to Tostig, Godwin's third son. Harold, who was the eldest son, succeeded Godwin to the government south of the Thames; and Edward showed more kindness to the son than he had ever done to the father, for on him there rested no suspicion connected with the death of Alfred, a subject which was ever settling down like a dark cloud upon the sunniest moments that Godwin and Edward enjoyed. Harold was the most gifted of all Godwin's sons, and soon became as popular with the people as his father; having, moreover, no enemies in the court,—for to such favourites as the king wished to retain Harold offered no opposition; nor was it necessary, for Edward was now fast verging into dotage; his intellect, which, at best, was never very brilliant, now became clouded, and he passed a greater portion of his time amongst his priests. No one ever sat upon the Saxon throne worse adapted to play the part of a king than Edward the Confessor; he was not cut out for the rough business of this work-a-day world. To a peasant who once offended him, he said, "I would hurt you if I were able;" an exclamation, as Sharon Turner observes, "which almost implies imbecility."
For some time there was a dispute between Harold and Algar, the son of Leofric, the governor of Mercia. Godwin, on succeeding to the earldom, had either voluntarily, or at the request of Edward, given up the command of East Anglia to Algar; but no sooner did Harold find himself in full power, than he compelled the son of Leofric to give up the governorship, and, accusing him of treason, made war upon him. Nothing daunted by his first defeat, Algar went into Wales, and obtaining assistance of Griffith, one of the Welsh kings, and mustering many powerful allies amongst his own connexions, he returned, ravaged Hereford, burnt the abbey, and slew several priests; and Raulf, who commanded the garrison, being a Norman, rather encouraged than opposed the ravages of Algar. It is said that he caused the Saxons to fight on horseback, a mode of warfare to which they were unaccustomed. But Harold was not long before arriving at the scene of action, when he soon defeated Algar and his Welsh allies, driving them back into their mountain fastnesses, and, it is said, compelling the Welsh chiefs to swear that they would never again pass the frontier of Wales. Harold granted the prisoners he had taken their lives, on the condition that the oath was kept, while on his part he solemnly vowed, that if a Welshman was taken in arms on the English side of Offa's-dyke, he should have his right hand cut off. To Algar these terms extended not, and Harold was at last compelled to negotiate with him, and restore him to his former dignities. Meantime Tostig but succeeded indifferently in the governorship of Northumbria. Siward, who had so long had the command over them, was himself a Dane; and as the inhabitants of the North, with but few exceptions, were of Danish origin, they took a dislike to the son of Godwin. He imposed heavy taxes upon them, violated their ancient privileges, and seems, in fact, to have rendered himself as unpopular as the Norman governors had ever been with the Saxons. Worn down by oppression, the Anglo-Danes at last rebelled, attacked the city of York, in which the chief residence of Tostig stood, and put many of his principal followers to death, amongst whom were several of their own countrymen. Although Tostig escaped, and the Danes seized upon his treasures, they rested not satisfied with such a victory, but assembling a great council they pronounced sentence of banishment against him, and elected Morkar, one of the sons of Algar, governor in his stead. Morkar took the command of the rebel army, and drove Tostig into Mercia; he was also strengthened by the Welsh force, who, led on by his brother Edward, had, in despite of their oath, once more ventured across Offa's-dyke in arms. The old feeling was not yet dead amongst the ancient Cymry, who seem to have been as eager as ever they were before time to fight against the Saxons.
There is considerable confusion in the time and dates of these attacks upon the Welsh, by Harold and his brother Tostig, and it is difficult to separate one invasion from the other, although it seems evident that the Welsh king, Griffith, fell in the latter, and that his head was sent to Harold. But though the Welsh were defeated, terms of negotiation were entered into with the Anglo-Danes. Harold required of them to state their grievances. They did; and boldly told him that his brother's tyranny was the cause of their appearing in arms. Harold tried to exculpate his brother, and promised that he should rule better for the future, if they would again accept him as their governor. They refused. "We were born free," said one of the Danish leaders, "and brought up free, a haughty chief is insupportable to us; we will, like our ancestors, live or die free. We have no other answer to give to the king." Harold not only delivered the message, but dissuaded Edward from protracting the war, and on his return ratified their rights with his own signature, as representative of the king; sanctioning the election of the son of Algar, and the rejection of his brother. Tostig, in a rage, departed to Flanders to his father-in-law, vowing vengeance against Harold and his countrymen.
As the tax called Peter-pence began to fail, so did the friendship of the church of Rome towards England abate; there was no longer any law in existence to enforce the payment, all that was sent over being a voluntary contribution. It was then that the mother church began to complain of simony being practised in England, of Saxon bishops who had purchased their sees; not that the church of Rome was herself guiltless of such transactions, but that she objected to a system in which she partook not of the profits. The storm first broke over the head of Eldred, archbishop of York, who, when he went to Rome to solicit the pallium, was refused, and it was only through the interference of a Saxon nobleman that he at last obtained it. Robert, the Norman archbishop of Canterbury, had again been driven from his see by the Saxons; and Stigand, who had before snatched up the pallium, which the archbishop had left behind in his eagerness to escape, again officiated in the place of the banished primate. But Robert this time flew to Rome, and there branded the Saxon bishop as an usurper. The result was, that the archbishop returned with a letter from the pontiff, commanding Stigand to resign. But before Robert reached England another pope had been chosen by the principal Roman families, and to Benedict the Saxon bishop appealed, who granted him permission to wear the pallium. The election of Benedict was the signal for an army to advance upon Italy, and enforce another election which the king of Germany approved of. Two popes could not reign; the last was victorious. Benedict was defeated, and excommunicated, and the pallium he had given to Stigand was now useless. Had Benedict been victorious, it would have been as good a pallium as ever pontiff blessed; packed up, and despatched from the eternal city, as it was, "it was a thing of naught."
Trifling, as matters of history, as such petty squabbles must appear, they, nevertheless, had their weight and influence—widening the breach which had already been made between the church of Rome and England; and when the time arrived, and the vindictive mother saw the opportunity of striking a blow effectually, she did so, and brought all the power she possessed to aid William the Norman when he attacked England. Norman Robert and Saxon Stigand, though but feathers floating in the air, showed unerringly that the wind which blew from Rome was unfavourable to the interests of England. While Britain also seemed drifting away daily wider and further from Rome, William of Normandy was still drawing nearer to the eternal city, and constantly seeking its favour and protection. Alexander the Second, who had driven out and excommunicated the anti-pope, Benedict, had refused to sanction duke William's marriage with Matilda, a refusal which was countenanced by the learned monk, Lanfranc, then resident at the Norman court. Although the fiery duke dared not do more than murmur at the opposition of the pontiff, which was grounded on the near relationship of William to Matilda, still he was resolved not to brook the reproaches of Lanfranc, much as he valued the monk as a councillor; so he banished him from his court. Lanfranc went to Rome, grew in favour with the new pope, and, instead of resenting William's harsh treatment, the monk obtained from the pontiff a dispensation. Alexander the Second acknowledged the marriage of William of Normandy and Matilda, and Lanfranc was the bearer of the good tidings to the Norman court. Who so grateful as duke William—who so highly honoured as the monk, Lanfranc, the man who had more power over the pontiff than the duke himself? Who so blind, that he cannot see the chain which now reached from Normandy to Rome—the links, William, Lanfranc, and all the friends of the pope? We must bear in mind that on every mount in Normandy were perched those ill-omened birds of prey, who were wetting their beaks, and looking with hungry eyes towards England, from which they had been driven by Godwin and his sons, just as they were about to gorge themselves. On the coast of France, also, many a disappointed cormorant might be seen, looking eagerly in the same direction.
About this period, Edward sent over to Hungary for his nephew, the son of Edmund Ironside, who must by this time have been a man far advanced in years, as Edmund himself died about 1016, and it seems to have been some time between the year 1057 and 1060, when Edward the son of Edmund arrived in England, at the invitation of his uncle. It appears to have been the intention of Edward the Confessor to have appointed his nephew Edward successor to the throne of England; but this was prevented by the death of the son of Edmund Ironside. Dark hints are thrown out respecting the death of this prince, and Harold is hinted at as having hastened his end; but there seems to be no solid ground for such suspicion, and the rumour was probably circulated by the Normans, whom Edward still retained, and who were envious of the power the son of Godwin had acquired. There still remained Edgar, the grandson of Edmund Ironside, and the son of Edward, who died soon after his arrival in England; but the king does not appear to have turned his eyes towards him as his successor.
As the end of Edward the Confessor draws nigh, our attention is divided between William of Normandy and earl Harold, the son of Godwin; and as we may consider the king as already dead, for his name scarcely appears again, unless as connected with the events which succeeded his death, we will leave him to his devotions, and take up the clue which leads us through the dark labyrinths to the gloomy end of this portion of our history. The clearest light which has been thrown upon the mysteries of this period, and the best reason given for Harold's visit to Norway, will be found in the following extract from Thierry's "Norman Conquest:"—
"For two years internal peace had reigned in England without interruption. The animosity of king Edward to the sons of Godwin disappeared from want of aliment, and from the habit of constantly being with them. Harold, the new chief of this popular family, fully rendered to the king that respect and deferential submission of which he was so tenacious. Some ancient histories tell us that Edward loved and treated him as his own son; but, at all events, he did not feel towards him that aversion mingled with fear with which Godwin had ever inspired him; and he had now no longer any pretext for retaining, as guarantees against the son, the two hostages whom he had received from the father. It will be remembered that these hostages had been confided by the suspicious Edward to the care of the duke of Normandy. They had, for more than ten years, been far from their country, in a sort of captivity. Towards the end of the year 1065, Harold, their brother, and their uncle, deeming the moment favourable for obtaining their deliverance, asked permission of the king to go and demand them in his name, and bring them out of exile. Without showing any repugnance to release the hostages, Edward appeared greatly alarmed at the project which Harold had formed of going in person to Normandy. 'I will not compel you to stay,' said he; 'but if you go, it will be without my consent; for your journey will certainly bring some evil upon yourself and upon your country. I know duke William and his crafty mind; he hates you, and will grant you nothing unless he gain greatly by it; the only way safely to obtain the hostages from him were to send some one else.'"