A Student's History of England Volume I Part 6

13. =Eadward the Confessor and Earl G.o.dwine. 1042--1051.=--The English were tired of foreign rulers. 'All folk chose Eadward king.' Eadward, the son of aethelred and the brother of the murdered aelfred, though an Englishman on his father's side, was also the son of the Norman Emma, and had been brought up in Normandy from his childhood. The Normans were now men of French speech, and they were more polite and cultivated than Englishmen. Eadward filled his court with Normans. He disliked the roughness of the English, but instead of attempting to improve them as the great aelfred had formerly done, he stood entirely aloof from them. The name of the Confessor by which he was afterwards known was given him on account of his piety, but his piety was not of that sort which is a.s.sociated with active usefulness. He was fond of hunting, but was not active in any other way, and he left others to govern rather than himself. For some years the real governor of England was Earl G.o.dwine, who kept his own earldom of Wess.e.x, and managed to procure other smaller earldoms for his sons. As the Mercia over which Leofric ruled was only the north-western part of the old kingdom, and as Siward (see p. 84) had enough to do to keep the fierce men of North-humberland in order, G.o.dwine had as yet no compet.i.tor to fear. In =1045= he became the king's father-in-law by the marriage of Eadward with his daughter, Eadgyth. Eadward, however, did his best for his Norman favourites, and appointed one of them, Robert of Jumieges, to the bishopric of London, and afterwards raised him to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. Between G.o.dwine and the Normans there was no goodwill, and though G.o.dwine was himself of fair repute, his eldest son, Swegen, a young man of brutal nature, alienated the goodwill of his countrymen by seducing the Abbess of Leominster, and by murdering his cousin Beorn. G.o.dwine, in his blind family affection, clung to his wicked son and insisted on his being allowed to retain his earldom.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hunting. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.)]

14. =The Banishment of G.o.dwine. 1051.=--At last, in =1051=, the strife between the king and the Earl broke out openly. Eadward's brother-in-law, Eustace, Count of Boulogne, visited England. On his return his men made a disturbance at Dover, and in the riot which ensued some of the townsmen as well as some of his own men were slain.

Eadward called on G.o.dwine, in whose earldom Dover was, to punish the townsmen. G.o.dwine refused, and Eadward summoned him to Gloucester to account for his refusal. He came attended by an armed host, but Leofric and Siward, who were jealous of G.o.dwine's power, came with their armed followers to support the king. Leofric mediated, and it was arranged that the question should be settled at a Witenagemot to be held in London. In the end G.o.dwine was outlawed and banished with all his family. Swegen went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and died on the way back.

15. =Visit of Duke William. 1051.=--In G.o.dwine's absence Eadward received a visit from the Duke of the Normans, William, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of Duke Robert and the daughter of a tanner of Falaise. Robert was a son of Richard II., and William was thus the grandson of the brother of Eadward's mother, Emma. Such a relationship gave him no t.i.tle whatever to the English throne, as Emma was not descended from the English kings, and as, even if she had been, no one could be lawfully king in England who was not chosen by the Witenagemot. Eadward, however, had no children or brothers, and though he had no right to give away the crown, he now promised William that he should succeed him. William, indeed, was just the man to attract one whose character was as weak as Eadward's. Since he received the dukedom he had beaten down the opposition of a fierce and discontented n.o.bility at Val-es-dunes (=1047=). From that day peace and order prevailed in Normandy. Law in Normandy did not come as in England from the traditions of the shire-moot or the Witenagemot, where men met to consult together. It was the Duke's law, and if the Duke was a strong man he kept peace in the land. If he was a weak man, the lords fought against one another and plundered and oppressed the poor. William was strong and wily, and it was this combination of strength and wiliness which enabled him to bear down all opposition.

16. =William and the Norman Church.=--An Englishman, who saw much of William in after-life, declared that, severe as he was, he was mild to good men who loved G.o.d. The Church was in his days a.s.suming a new place in Europe. The monastic revival which had originated at Cluny (see p. 67) had led to a revival of the Papacy. In =1049=, for the first time, a Pope, Leo IX., travelled through Western Europe, holding councils and inflicting punishments upon the married clergy and upon priests who took arms and shed blood. With this improvement in discipline came a voluntary turning of the better clergy to an ascetic life, and increased devotion was accompanied, as it always was in the middle ages, with an increase of learning. William, who by the strength of his will brought peace into the state, also brought men of devotion and learning into the high places of the Church. His chief confidant was Lanfranc, an Italian who had taken refuge in the abbey of Bec, and, having become its prior, had made it the central school of Normandy and the parts around. With the improvement of learning came the improvement of art, and churches arose in Normandy, as in other parts of Western Europe, which still preserved the old round arch derived from the Romans, though both the arches themselves and the columns on which they were borne were lighter and more graceful than the heavy work which had hitherto been employed. Of all this Englishmen as yet knew nothing. They went on in their old ways, cut off from the European influences of the time. It was no wonder that Eadward yearned after the splendour and the culture of the land in which he had been brought up, or even that, in defiance of English law, he now promised to Duke William the succession to the English crown.

17. =The Return and Death of G.o.dwine. 1052--1053.=--After William had departed Englishmen became discontented at Eadward's increasing favour to the Norman strangers. In =1052= G.o.dwine and his sons--Swegen only excepted--returned from exile. They sailed up the Thames and landed at Southwark. The foreigners hastily fled, and Eadward was unable to resist the popular feeling. G.o.dwine was restored to his earldom, and an Englishman, Stigand, was made Archbishop of Canterbury in the place of Robert of Jumieges, who escaped to the Continent. As it was the law of the Church that a bishop once appointed could not be deposed except by the ecclesiastical authorities, offence was in this way given to the Pope. G.o.dwine did not long outlive his restoration. He was struck down by apoplexy at the king's table in =1053=. Harold, who, after Swegen's death, was his eldest son, succeeded to his earldom of Wess.e.x, and practically managed the affairs of the kingdom in Eadward's name.[8]

[Footnote 8: Genealogy of the family of G.o.dwine:--

G.o.dwine | +------+-------+--------+---+----+-------+---------+ | | | | | | | Swegen HAROLD Tostig Leofwine Gyrth Wulfnoth Eadgyth = Eadward 1066 the Confessor]

18. =Harold's Greatness. 1053--1066.=--Harold was a brave and energetic man, but Eadward preferred his brother Tostig, and on the death of Siward appointed him Earl of North-humberland. A little later Gyrth, another brother of Harold, became Earl of East Anglia, together with Bedfordshire and Oxfordshire, and a fourth brother, Leofwine, Earl of a district formed of the eastern shires on either side of the Thames. All the richest and most thickly populated part of England was governed by Harold and his brothers. Mercia was the only large earldom not under their rule. It was now under aelfgar, the son of Leofric, who had lately died.

19. =Harold and Eadward. 1057--1065.=--It became necessary to arrange for the succession to the throne, as Eadward was childless, and as Englishmen were not likely to acquiesce in his bequest to William. In =1057= the aetheling Eadward, a son of Eadmund Ironside, was fetched back from Hungary, where he had long lived in exile, and was accepted as the heir. Eadward, however, died almost immediately after his arrival. He left but one son, Eadgar the aetheling (see genealogy at p.

78), who was far too young to be accepted as a king for many years to come. Naturally the thought arose of looking on Harold as Eadward's successor. It was contrary to all custom to give the throne to any one not of the royal line, but the custom had been necessarily broken in favour of c.n.u.t, the Danish conqueror, and it might be better to break it in favour of an English earl rather than to place a child on the throne, when danger threatened from Normandy. During the remainder of Eadward's reign Harold showed himself a warrior worthy of the crown.

In =1063= he invaded Wales and reduced it to submission. About the same time aelfgar died, and was succeeded by his son, Eadwine, in the earldom of the Mercians. In =1065= the men of North-humberland revolted against Tostig, who had governed them harshly, and who was probably unpopular as a West Saxon amongst a population of Danes and Angles. The North-humbrians chose Eadwine's brother, Morkere, as his successor, and Harold advised Eadward to acquiesce in what they had done. Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire were committed to Waltheof, a son of Siward (see p. 84), and the modern Northumberland was committed to a native ruler, Oswulf.

20. =Death of Eadward. 1066.=--England was therefore ruled by two great families. Eadwine and Morkere, the grandsons of Leofric, governed the Midlands and almost the whole of North-humberland. Harold and his brothers, the sons of G.o.dwine, governed the south and the east. The two houses had long been rivals, and after Eadward's death there would be no one in the country to whom they could even nominally submit. Eadward, whose life was almost at an end, was filled with gloomy forebodings. His thoughts, however, turned aside from the contemplation of earthly things, and he was only anxious that the great abbey church of Westminster, which he had been building hard by his own new palace on what was then a lonely place outside London, should be consecrated before his death. The church, afterwards superseded by the structure which now stands there, was built in the new and lighter form of round-arched architecture which Eadward had learned to admire from his Norman friends. It was consecrated on December 28, =1065=, but the king was too ill to be present, and on January 5, =1066=, he died, and was buried in the church which he had founded. Harold was at once chosen king, and crowned at Westminster.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tower in the earlier style. Church at Earl's Barton.

(The battlements are much later.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tower in the earlier style. St Benet's Church, Cambridge.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Building a church in the later style. (From a drawing belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.)]

21. =Harold and William. 1066.=--William, as soon as he heard of his rival's coronation, claimed the crown. He was now even mightier than he had been when he visited Eadward. In =1063= he had conquered Maine, and, secure on his southern frontier, he was able to turn his undivided attention to England. According to the principles accepted in England, he had no right to it whatever; but he contrived to put together a good many reasons which seemed, in the eyes of those who were not Englishmen, to give him a good case. In the first place he had been selected by Eadward as his heir. In the second place the deprivation of Robert of Jumieges was an offence against the Church law of the Continent, and William was therefore able to obtain from the Pope a consecrated banner, and to speak of an attack upon England as an attempt to uphold the righteous laws of the Church. In the third place, Harold had at some former time been wrecked upon the French coast, and had been delivered up to William, who had refused to let him go till he had sworn solemnly, placing his hand on a chest which contained the relics of the most holy Norman saints, to do some act, the nature of which is diversely related, but which Harold never did.

Consequently William could speak of himself as going to take vengeance on a perjurer. With some difficulty William persuaded the Norman barons to follow him, and he attracted a mixed mult.i.tude of adventurers from all the neighbouring nations by promising them the plunder of England, an argument which every one could understand.

During the whole of the spring and the summer ships for the invasion of England were being built in the Norman harbours.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Normans feasting; with Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, saying grace. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Harold swearing upon the Relics. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.)]

22. =Stamford Bridge. 1066.=--All through the summer Harold was watching for his rival's coming. The military organisation of England, however, was inferior to that of Normandy. The Norman barons and their va.s.sals were always ready for war, and they could support on their estates the foreign adventurers who were placed under their orders till the time of battle came. Harold had his house-carls, the constant guard of picked troops which had been inst.i.tuted by c.n.u.t, and his thegns, who, like the Norman barons, were bound to serve their lord in war. The greater part of his force, however, was composed of the peasants of the fyrd, and when September came they must needs be sent home to attend to their harvest, which seems to have been late this year. Scarcely were they gone when Harold received news that his brother Tostig, angry with him for having consented to his deposition from the North-humbrian earldom, had allied himself to Harold Hardrada, the fierce sea-rover, who was king of Norway, and that the two, with a mighty host, after wasting the Yorkshire coast, had sailed up the Humber. The two Northern Earls, Eadwine and Morkere, were hard pressed. Harold had not long before married their sister, and, whatever might be the risk, he was bound as the king of all England to aid them. Marching swiftly northwards with his house-carls and the thegns who joined him on the way, he hastened to their succour. On the way worse tidings reached him. The Earls had been defeated, and York had agreed to submit to the Nors.e.m.e.n. Harold hurried on the faster, and came upon the invaders unawares as they lay heedlessly on both sides of the Derwent at Stamford Bridge. Those on the western side, unprepared as they were, were soon overpowered. One brave Norseman, like Horatius and his comrades in the Roman legend, kept the narrow bridge against the army, till an Englishman crept under it and stabbed him from below through a gap in the woodwork. The battle rolled across the Derwent, and when evening came Harold Hardrada, and Tostig himself, with the bulk of the invaders, had been slain. For the last time an English king overthrew a foreign host in battle on English soil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Norman ship. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Norman soldiers mounted. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.)]

23. =The Landing of William. 1066.=--Harold had shown what an English king could do, who fought not for this or that part of the country, but for all England. It was the lack of this national spirit in Englishmen which caused his ruin. As Harold was feasting at York in celebration of his victory, a messenger told him of the landing of the Norman host at Pevensey. He had saved Eadwine and Morkere from destruction, but Eadwine and Morkere gave him no help in return. He had to hurry back to defend Suss.e.x without a single man from the north or the Midlands, except those whom he collected on his line of march.

The House of Leofric bore no goodwill to the House of G.o.dwine. England was a kingdom divided against itself.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Group of archers on foot. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Men fighting with axes. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.)]

24. =The Battle of Senlac. 1066.--=Harold, as soon as he reached the point of danger, drew up his army on the long hill of Senlac on which Battle Abbey now stands. On October 14 William marched forth to attack him. The military equipment of the Normans was better than that of the English. Where the weapons on either side are unlike, battles are decided by the momentum--that is to say, by the combined weight and speed of the weapons employed. The English fought on foot mostly with two-handed axes; the Normans fought not only on horseback with lances, but also with infantry, some of them being archers. A horse, the princ.i.p.al weapon of a horseman, has more momentum than an armed footman, whilst an arrow can reach the object at which it is aimed long before a horse. Harold, however, had in his favour the slope of the hill up which the Normans would have to ride, and he took advantage of the lie of the ground by posting his men with their shields before them on the edge of the hill. The position was a strong one for purposes of defence, but it was not one that made it easy for Harold to change his arrangements as the fortunes of the day might need. William, on the other hand, had not only a better armed force, but a more flexible one. He had to attack, and, versed as he was in all the operations of war, he could move his men from place to place and make use of each opportunity as it arrived. The English were brave enough, but William was a more intelligent leader than Harold, and his men were better under control. Twice after the battle had begun the Norman hors.e.m.e.n charged up the hill only to be driven back. The wily William, finding that the hill was not to be stormed by a direct attack, met the difficulty by galling the English with a shower of arrows and ordering his left wing to turn and fly. The stratagem was successful. Some of the English rushed down the hill in pursuit. The fugitives faced round and charged the pursuers, following them up the slope. The English on the height were thus thrown into confusion; but they held out stoutly, and as the Norman hors.e.m.e.n now in occupation of one end of the hill charged fiercely along its crest, they locked their shields together and fought desperately for life, if no longer for victory. Slowly and steadily the Normans pressed on, till they reached the spot where Harold, surrounded by his house-carls, fought beneath his standard. There all their attacks were in vain, till William, calling for his bowmen, bade them shoot their arrows into the air. Down came the arrows in showers upon the heads of the English warriors, and one of them pierced Harold's eye, stretching him lifeless on the ground. In a series of representations in worsted work, known as the Bayeux Tapestry, which was wrought by the needle of some unknown woman and is now exhibited in the museum of that city, the scenes of the battle and the events preceding it are pictorially recorded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death of Harold, who is attempting to pull the arrow from his eye. (From the Bayeux Tapestry.)]

25. =William's Coronation. 1066.=--William had destroyed both the English king and the English army. It is possible that England, if united, might still have resisted. The great men at London chose for their king Eadgar the aetheling, the grandson of Eadmund Ironside.

Eadwine and Morkere were present at the election, but left London as soon as it was over. They would look after their own earldoms; they would not join others, as Harold had done, in defending England as a whole. Divided England would sooner or later be a prey to William. He wanted, however, not merely to reign as a conqueror, but to be lawfully elected as king, that he might have on his side law as well as force. He first struck terror into Kent and Suss.e.x by ravaging the lands of all who held out against him. Then he marched to the Thames and burnt Southwark. He did not, however, try to force his way into London, as he wanted to induce the citizens to submit voluntarily to him, or at least in a way which might seem voluntary. He therefore marched westwards, crossed the Thames at Wallingford, and wheeled round to Berkhampstead. His presence there made the Londoners feel utterly isolated. Even if Eadwine and Morkere wished to do anything for them, they could not come from the north or north-west without meeting William's victorious army. The great men and citizens alike gave up all thought of resistance, abandoned Eadgar, and promised to take William for their king. On Christmas Day, =1066=, William was chosen with acclamation in Eadward's abbey at Westminster, where Harold had been chosen less than a year before. The Normans outside mistook the shouts of applause for a tumult against their Duke, and set fire to the houses around. The English rushed out to save their property, and William, frightened for the only time in his life, was left alone with the priests. Not knowing what was next to follow, he was crowned king of the English by Ealdred, Archbishop of York, in an empty church, amidst the crackling of flames and the shouts of men striving for the mastery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coronation of a king, _temp._ William the Conqueror.

(From a drawing in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries.)]

_Books recommended for further study of Part I._

DAWKINS, W. Boyd. Early Man in Britain.

RHYS, J. Early Britain.

ELTON, C. J. Origins of English History.

GUEST, E. Origines Celticae. Vol. ii. pp. 121-408.

FREEMAN. History of the Norman Conquest. Vols. i.-iii.

GREEN, J. R. The Making of England.

---- The Conquest of England.

---- History of the English People. Vol. i. pp. 1-114.

BRIGHT, W. Chapters of English Church History.

STUBBS, W. The Const.i.tutional History of England. Chaps. I.-IX.

CUNNINGHAM, W. The Growth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages. pp. 1-128.

HODGKIN, T. The Political History of England. Vol i. From the Earliest Times to 1066.

PART II.

_THE NORMAN AND ANGEVIN KINGS._