Saxon and Danish races-Harold and Hardicanute-Murder of Alfred- Death of HardicanuteElection of Edward the Confessor-Earl Godwin-Influence of the Normans-Banishment of Godwin and his sons-Triumph of the Norman party.

CANUTE, who died at Shaftesbury, was buried at Winchester. The Danish conqueror found his last resting-place amidst the old Saxon kings. A northern antiquary draws the following inferences from the contemplation of the chest in the choir of the present cathedral, in which the bones are collected, according to an inscription, of Kings Canute and Rufus, of Queen Emma, and of two archbishops :-"An immense change had taken place with regard to the Danes in England, since their first appearance there as barbarous heathen vikings. Instead of their kings seeking renown by the destruction of churches and convents, and by murdering or maltreating the clergy; instead of their despising any other kind of burial than that in the open fields, or hills under large caverns or monumental stones; their successors were now regarded as the benefactors and protectors of the Church, and, as such, worthy to repose in the most important ecclesiastical edifices,-even in the principal district of their former mortal enemies."* Canute, he adds, "had happily broken through the strong barrier which had hitherto separated Saxon south England from Danish north England." From this period, indeed, it would be useless to attempt to draw distinctions between the Saxon and Danish races. The ingenious author we have quoted, with a laudable patriotism, endeavours to show that many of the names and customs which we ordinarily call Saxon are Danish. He has probably carried his theory much too far, by looking at such matters "from the Danish point of view." In regard to language, we may well believe that the dialect of the later settlers of

"The Danes in England," by J. J. A. Worsaac, p. 29.

See an able article in "Gentleman's Magazine," March, 1852.

160

HAROLD AND HARDICANUTE.

[A.D. 1035-1039. Northumbria and East Anglia became blended with that of the earlier settlers of Wessex and Mercia. In the same way the several races became gradually intermixed. Thomas Fuller says of the Saxons, that their "offspring at this day are the main bulk and body of the English (though not gentry) nation;" and of the Danes, that "living here rather as inroaders than inhabitants, is the cause that so few families (distinguishable by their surnames) are descended from them, extant in our age.' This good old writer may also have carried his theory a little too far. Whether the Johnsons, Jacksons, Thomsons, Stevensons, are descended from Danes or otherwise, there is no doubt that "the ending, son or sen (a son), is quite peculiar to Scandinavia.” We may also accept the statement of a striking fact, "which will not escape the attention of at least any observant Scandinavian traveller, that the inhabitants of the north of England bear, on the whole, more than those of any other part of that country, an unmistakeable personal resemblance to the Danes and Norwegians." Still, the conclusion is tolerably clear that "the main bulk and body of the English nation" is Saxon. Compared with south and mid-England, the north was very scantily peopled until it became the great seat of manufacturing industry; and in the period before the Norman Conquest, and long after, it is manifest that a district of fertile lowland, whose plains are watered by gentle rivers, would support a far greater agricultural population, than a district where the valleys are narrow and the mountains sterile. From this period, therefore, when the contest of two centuries between Saxon and Dane came to an end, we shall consider the Danish population as a part of the great Anglo-Saxon family; with whom they had at last become identical, in the possession of a common country and a common religion.

Canute had two sons previous to his marriage with Emma of Normandy. They were illegitimate. The one was Sweyn; the other Harold, called Harefoot. His legitimate son by Emma was Hardicanute. At the time of Canute's death, the two sons of Ethelred, also the children of Emma, were living in Normandy. The two sons of Edmund Ironside were in Hungary. Of these possible claimants to the crown of England, Harold was the only one in the country. Sweyn had the kingdom of Norway assigned to him in his father's lifetime; Hardicanute was in Denmark. The great nobles were divided as to the choice of a successor to the Danish king; but at a witenagemot held at Oxford, it was decided that Mercia and Northumbria should be assigned to Harold; whilst Wessex should be held by Emma, as regent for her son Hardicanute, who remained in his Scandinavian kingdom. There was a strong party in Wessex, who would have preferred the sons of their old Saxon king Ethelred. Edward, in consequence, came over with Norman soldiers. But these new followers of an English prince were hateful to the people; and Edward very soon gave up an enterprise which involved so much of personal risk. A similar attempt of his brother Alfred had a tragic ending. With a few adherents he landed in Kent, and proceeded to Canterbury, where the people gladly received him. Ethelnoth, the archbishop, welcomed the exile; for Harold, who had claimed to be supreme king over all England, was living an infamous life, and the archbishop had refused to consecrate him. The unfortunate Alfred was the victim of an abominable "Danes in England," p. 80.

* "Worthies," chap. xxiv.

A D. 1012]

DEATH OF HARDICANUTE.

101

plot; and was seduced into the rash step of placing himself in the power of an unscrupulous tyrant. A letter had been written in the name of his mother, urging her son to make an attempt to obtain the kingdom. When Alfred had advanced into the country, Earl Godwin, who had supported the claims of Hardicanute, received him with open arms, and conducted him to Guildford. In the night, the weary adventurers were seized and manacled. There are various narratives of their subsequent fate. Some write that the greater number were massacred; and that Alfred was blinded, and finally put to death at Ely. "No bloodier deed had been done in this land since the Danes came," as one chronicler writes. The mother, of Alfred fled to Bruges; and Harold was proclaimed king of all England.

The illegitimate son of Canute-the son of a shoemaker, as the scandal of those times assumes-did not long retain his ill-gotten power. He died in 1039. Hardicanute was now invited to take possession of the vacant throne. His election equally satisfied the Saxons and the Danes. A deputation was sent to Bruges to conduct him and his mother to the kingdom; and the ships which Hardicanute had intended for a hostile descent bore him to the Thames for a peaceful coronation. Setting an example of that paltry vengeance which, in what we call civilised times, disgraced the Restoration of the Stuarts, he caused the body of Harold to be disinterred; to be decapitated; and to be cast into the Thames. There were some proscriptions; and there was extravagant taxation, which drove the people of Exeter to revolt. But the country soon settled into tranquillity under this brief rule. Hardicanute sent for his half-brother Edward, and treated him with a kindness which shows some generosity of nature. He was probably not of a vindictive or suspicious temper; but had some of the negative merits that not unfrequently are associated with the character of the indolent voluptuary. He was propitiated by the splendid presents of the powerful Godwin; and suffered his mother and the great earl to rule the kingdom, whilst he abandoned himself to his feasts and carousals. He was surrounded by Danish flatterers and boon-companions. His followers were insolent to the Saxon race; but their sociality was more injurious than their insults. The Saxons were addicted to intemperance; yet the examples of Hardicanute and his courtiers plunged them still deeper into sensuality. Hardicanute, the last of the Danish kings, soon made an end of his feasts and dominion. At a great marriage-banquet at the house of Clapa, one of his thanes (from which house we are held to derive the name of our suburban Clapham), the king stood up at a late hour of the night to pledge the company, and dropping speechless, was carried to his deathbed, after having reigned a little less than two years.

At the death of Hardicanute, in 1012, the English people, however composed of Angles, Saxons, and Danes, had been under direct foreign domination for a quarter of a century. Under the weak government of Ethelred, for thirty-seven years, the Saxons had sustained an unequal conflict with their plundering and tribute-exacting enemy. All the glories of the race of Cerdic had vanished. The kingdom had passed through a long period of intestine conflicts and of exhausting wars. But there was still a people. There was a people, with the memories of Alfred, and the first Edward, and Athelstan, still preserved in their national songs and traditions. The last of the oppressing race was gone. The lineal descendant of the Saxon race was

162

EDWARD THE CONFESSOR.

[A.D. 1042. amongst them. Edward, the son of Ethelred, had been brought up an exile with the relations of his mother. He had no vigour of character; he had received the education of a monk rather than that of the descendant of a long line of kings; he was familiar with other customs, and with another language, than that belonging to his race. In his mind the great idea of nationality had but little place. But he was the one left, in whom the Saxons could cherish those sacred feelings of a legitimate descent which gave to the king the attribute of blood—that attribute which, in the eyes of the people, was more important than the talent and courage of any claimant to dominion who was not of the stock of those sons of Woden, who, five hundred years before, had led the blue-eyed myriads to conquest. There was a man in England, of eminent ability, of almost supreme power, who had that intense feeling of nationality which would make the Saxon race again predominant, and in that predominance would absorb all the minor differences which separated the Danish settlers from the Saxon. That man was Earl Godwin. He saw, which was not difficult to discover, that on the opposite shores there had grown up a nation that would be a more formidable enemy to England than any of the Scandinavian people. He knew that the conquest of England had long been the secret aspiration of the Norman. The descendants of Rollo, planted in a rich soil; cultivating arts in which England was inferior; possessing a more refined luxury; of indomitable courage amidst their refinements; dreaded by the Frankish kings whose sovereignty they despised; the conquerors of Sicily; the heirs of the courage and the ambition of the old sea-kings; these were the men whom England had now to dread. Was Godwin powerful enough to be the leader of his country? The time was not come. He put Edward upon the throne; and he gave to him his own daughter in marriage.

Godwin is the prominent man in the reign of Edward the Confessor. His participation in the murder of Edward's brother was "the cry of the Normans," as Thierry emphatically puts it. He was the antagonist of the Normans; and we may readily believe that their historians loaded his memory with unmerited obloquy. Before a great assembly of the witan, in the time of Hardicanute, he swore, according to the Saxon laws-and his oath was, according to the same laws, supported by kinsmen, friends, or witnesses that he had taken no part in the death of Alfred. At the accession of Edward he held the greatest earldom of the south, including Sussex, Kent, and part of Wessex. His sons, Harold and Sweyn, were, with their father, the lords of all the land from the Humber to the Severn. They had the command of half England, and of the richest half. There were other brothers of this powerful family-Wulnoth, Tostig, Gurth, and Leofwine-who were subsequently advanced to high dignities. Edith, the daughter of Godwin, who became queen, exhibits, in the quiet charms of her character, a proof that in the family of the ambitious earl she had received a gentle nurture. Ingulphus, the monk of Croyland, says of her, in a Latin hexameter, "As the thorn is the parent of the rose, so is Godwin of Editha';" and he adds, “1 have seen her many times in my childhood, when I went to visit my father, who was dwelling in the king's palace. Oftentimes, when I was returning from school, would she question me in my grammar, or my verses, or my logic, in which she was skilful; and when, after much subtle argument, she had

A.D. 1042.J

EARL GODWIN.

163

concluded, she would, by her handmaiden, give me some pieces of money, and send me for refreshment to the buttery." This rose never saw another rose bloom from her tree. Her husband, with the superstition of the cloister, first neglected her. Then came a time when he persecuted her. She was forced upon the king-a mature man of forty-say some of the chroniclers, and they put these words into Godwin's mouth, "Swear to me that you will take my daughter for your wife, and I will give you the kingdom of England." According to others, Edward was as unwilling to receive the kingdom as to be encumbered with a wife. Malmesbury says, that, upon the death of Hardicanute, Edward was in great perplexity; that having desired a conference with Godwin, he threw himself at his feet, imploring him to facilitate his return to Normandy; and that to him Godwin answered, that the kingdom. was Edward's right; that he was disciplined by difficulties in exile; from his former poverty would feel for the miseries of his people; and that if he would rely upon him, his throne would be secure. The chroniclers represent this as politic ambition postponing its own designs. It appears to us very like honest patriotism. Malmesbury adds of Godwin, "He was a man of ready wit, and spoke fluently in the vernacular tongue; powerful in bringing over the people to whatever he desired." Of Edward we may truly say, he was a man of slow understanding; spoke a tongue which the people did not comprehend; and was powerful to accomplish nothing by his own will. With the vast possessions and popular qualities of Godwin, there is some credit due to him not to have gone the readiest way to supreme power.

It is difficult to trace the origin of Godwin's greatness. An old MS. Chronicle says that he was the son of a Saxon herdsman. Mr. Turner has given a romantic story from a Northern Saga, which shows how the earl rose from the humblest of the people. After the decisive battle between Canute and Edmund, Ulfr, a Danish chieftain high in the favour of Canute, had been separated from the army. In much danger he passed the night in a wood; and in the morning he saw a lad driving his cattle to pasture. The Dane asked the way to Canute's ships. The boy said, the way was long; the danger was great; he should himself be in peril should he assist one of his country's enemies. Gold was proffered; but the gold was refused. At length young Godwin conducted the thane to the shelter of his father's house; and finally was his guide to the camp of Canute. His service was rewarded; his talents gained him favour; the chieftain gave him his sister in marriage; and the herdsman's son-" the child of Sussex "--became the great earl. There were two other mighty chieftains, who divided the kingdom with Godwin and his. family, as the delegates of the sovereign: Leofric, who ruled the northern counties of Mercia; and Siward, whose earldom reached from the Humber to the Scottish borders. This was the Siward of Shakspere,-" Warlike Siward” -“Old Siward ”—the protector of Malcolm, the son of the murdered Duncan -the father of "young Siward," who perished in the battle-field where Macbeth fell. "Where were his wounds?" said the stout old earl. "In front." "Then I would wish no better fate."

By these powerful nobles was the throne of Edward upheld, at the beginning of his reign. They asserted the Saxon supremacy; and expelled the traitorous or tyrannising Danes from the country. They united in resisting the pretensions of Magnus, the successor of Hardicanute in Denmark,