for battle, and marched towards Gloucester, 'though it was loathly to them to stand up against their royal lord.' Then some of the Witan thought that it would be a great evil for them to come to blows, seeing that the noblest of England were arranged on either side, and that by killing each other they would only leave the land more open to the Frenchmen. So they made peace between the king and Godwin, and fixed another meeting, to be at London, a few weeks later.

Meanwhile the king sent for all the fighting men, both north and south of the Thames, and when the meeting came together at London, Godwin dared not appear before it, though he had brought with him a great force out of Wessex. But the king's party found means to entice to their side the thanes who were under Godwin and Harold, and Godwin's force dwindled away. He asked for a safe-conduct to come to the meeting, but the king would not grant it him. Godwin was at dinner in his house at Southwark when the news was brought to him that the safe-conduct was refused. He pushed the table from him, sprang on his horse, and rode all that night to Bosham, where he shoved out his ships and Godwin sailed for Flanders. On the morrow the meeting declared him an outlaw, and all his sons. His daughter, the queen Edith, shared in the family disgrace. The king took all her goods from her, and sent her to a convent. Harold escaped to Ireland. The bishop of Worcester was sent after him with a force to take him, but they could not, or they would not.'

outlawed.

This sudden fall of Godwin has a good deal that is strange about it, seeing that only such a short while before he had been at the head of a powerful army, with the sympathy of at least all the South of England. Even the men of that day do not seem to have been able to account for it. 'It would have seemed wonderful to every man who was in England,' say the chroniclers, if any man had said before that it should end thus; for he had been erewhile so greatly exalted as if he wielded the king and all England; and his sons were earls and the king's darlings, and his daughter wedded to the king.'

Thus the Norman party triumphed; and while they were

Norman.

at the height of their triumph, a visitor of ill omen came to England; no other than William, the young Duke Visit of of Normandy. This William had already shown William the himself a prince of great shrewdness and valour. The proud barons of Normandy had despised him because he was not born in lawful wedlock, and was the son of a tanner's daughter, and they had rebelled against him; but he had made them feel his strong arm, and was now undisputed lord in his own dominions, and the most powerful vassal of the French king. He was already beginning to be famous in Europe for his valour, his wisdom, and his success. As he was the great nephew of the Norman Emma, the wife of Ethelred and afterwards of Cnut, and the mother of Edward the Confessor, he could claim kindred with Edward; and he came to visit Edward at the time of all others when the king was most inclined to welcome and honour his Norman kinsmen. Very likely it was at this time, if ever, that Edward made some kind of promise that when he died William should have the English crown. This promise was afterwards made one of the grounds of William's invasion of England; but it is not spoken of by the English chroniclers, neither had any English king either the right or the power to promise his crown to whom he would.

As the king refused to listen to any messages which were sent by Godwin in his banishment, praying for peace, the summer of the next year (1052) saw Godwin in the English chan- Return of nel with a fleet, harrying the Isle of Wight and the Godwin. south coast. Harold also came with nine ships from Ireland, and was heard of on the coast of Somerset, man-slaying and cattlelifting. This does not look very patriotic in Godwin and Harold, but in those days men who had been ousted from their own were not very scrupulous as to what means they used to get their own again. And we must remember that one reason why armies always plundered in those days was that as people lived then from hand to mouth, it was almost impossible to buy up large stores of provisions beforehand as we should do if preparing for war.

King Edward's fleet, which had lain in wait for Godwin many weeks, dispersed at last, because the seamen's servingtime was up. Godwin met with no opposition, and at Portland he joined his forces with those of Harold. As the men

:

of the south coast swore to live or die with Godwin, he now ceased plundering, or at least confined it to seizing provisions. "Except this,' says the chronicler, 'they did not much harm after they came together; but they drew to them all the landfolk by the sea's rim, and eke up on land; and they fared towards Sandwich, and ever gathered to them all the boatcarls whom they met, and came to Sandwich with an overflowing army. Then when Edward King heard that, he sent after more help, but they came very late. And Godwin fared ever towards London with his ships, till he came to Southwark, and there he abode some while till the flood came up. And erst he treated with the townsmen, that they almost all would what he would. When he had mustered his host, then came the flood, and they weighed their anchors, and held through the bridge by the south bank, and the landforce came up and trimmed them on the strand; and then the ships went about towards the north shore, as though they would hem in the king's ships. The king had also much landforce on his side besides the ship-men; but it was loathly to almost all of them that they should fight against men of their own race, for there was little that was worth much on either side, except of English men; and eke they would not that this land should be left more empty to outlandish men, through their killing one another themselves.' 1

'Then the earls sent to the king, and asked of him that they might be worthy of everything that had unrightfully been taken from them. And the king withstood some while, until the folk that were with the earl were greatly stirred against the king, so that the earl himself with difficulty stilled the folk.' 2

'And they made peace on both sides. And Godwin landed, and Harold his son, and as many of their fleet as seemed good unto them. And there was a Wise Men's Meeting, and they gave Godwin his earldom clean, as full and as free as he had it at first, and to his sons all that they had before, and to his wife and his daughter as full and as free as they had before. And they fastened full friendship between them, and promised good law to all the folk. And they outlawed all the Frenchmen who before had set up unlaw, and doomed 1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Abingdon version. 2 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Peterborough version.

wrong judgment, and counselled ill counsel in this land; except so many as they agreed upon, that the king liked to have with him, who were true to him and to all his folk.'1

'When Archbishop Robert and the Frenchmen heard that, they took horse and fled, some west to Pentecost's castle, some north to Robert's castle. And Robert Archbishop, and Ulf Bishop [of Dorchester] went out at East gate, and their companions, and slew and wounded many young men; and he went to Eadulfsness and threw himself into a crazy ship, and fared over sea, and left his pall and Christendom on land, as God would have it, seeing he got this dignity before as God would not have it.'s

This story come from that old 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,' which we are sometimes told is a dry, bare, monkish, record.' But how full of life and patriotism it is! The English monk writes, not like a monk, but like an Englishman, rejoicing in the revolution which rid the land of 'outlandish men,' and once more put Englishmen at the forefront of the kingdom.

Godwin did not long survive his triumph; he died the next year (1053). Since many stories were told in later times about his death, I may as well say that those trustworthy Godwin's chroniclers who wrote at the time when the things death. happened, simply tell us that while sitting at the king's table one day, he suddenly fell senseless, no doubt from a fit of paralysis or apoplexy, and remained speechless till the fourth day, when he died. The people wept for him as for their father and guardian, we are told.

earl of the

His son Harold was appointed to the vacant earldom of the West Saxons. Two years later (1055) when Siward the doughty earl died, Tostig, the third son of Godwin, Harold, and King Edward's special favourite, was made West Earl of Northumbria. Not very long after the two Saxons. youngest sons of Godwin were provided for; Gyrth was made Earl of East Anglia, and Leofwin of Kent, Essex, and Hertfordshire-in fact, of South-Eastern England generally.

The House of Godwin was now at its highest point of

1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Abingdon version.

2 Namely, that peace was made between the King and Godwin ; they did not wait for the great meeting, but fled the evening before. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Peterborough version.

greatness. Harold was the greatest man in England after the king, and in fact he was the actual ruler of England, for the easy-going king was only too glad to get someone to take the trouble of governing for him, so that he might spend his time in prayers and hunting. Of Harold we are told by a writer of the time that he was the friend of this nation and of his fatherland, that he filled with earnestness the office of his father, and walked in his steps, to wit, in patience, kindness, and graciousness to all the right-minded. But to the turbulent, to thieves, and robbers, he was terrible as a lion.' In person he was tall, strong, and handsome; in manners good-natured and frank: in temper forgiving. He was a first-rate general, but he was also skilled above other men in his knowledge of English law. He had travelled much, and with more purpose than most men of that time, though the English at all times have been great travellers, and eager observers of foreign customs; but Harold had made a special study of the laws and state of France. With all these gifts of nature and education Harold was not unfitted for the great part he had to play.

Affairs of

His great work during the reign of Edward was the subjugation of Wales. The princes of Wales had been more or less under the yoke of the English kings since the Wales. days of Egbert, king of the West-Saxons (828). But they were always ready to throw this yoke off whenever they could. A powerful prince had now arisen in North Wales, Griffith by name, who after much fighting had quelled the other small kings of Wales, and brought the whole country under his own rule. Before this was done, he began to make himself troublesome to his English neighbours. In the year of the banishment of Godwin and his sons, he made an inroad into Herefordshire, and after making great slaughter both of the English 'fyrd' and of the Normans of Richard's castle, he went back with much booty. In 1055, two years after the return of Godwin and his sons, Elfgar, son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, was outlawed on some charge of treason, we know not what. Elfgar was at that time Earl of East Anglia. He quickly justified the charge by gathering a fleet of Irish Danes, joining himself to Griffith, King of Wales, and invading Herefordshire. This was part of the earldom of the Norman Ralph, King Edward's nephew, who had succeeded