found in their own house. Sweyn and Tos- | When this news was spread, Harold and the tig, first one and then the other, shook it to lithsmen of London, that is the Thingmannaruin. In the year 1046, that is three years lid, of which he was captain, came and took before King Sweyn's messengers came, Sweyn, up his body, and bore it to Winchester, and Godwin's son, had done a shameful deed by buried it by his uncle King Canute, in the the Abbess of Lominster. From the conse- Old Minster. Thus Sweyn, Godwin's son, quences of this crime even his father's took vengeance on King Sweyn. As for mighty influence had been unable to shield himself, he was again outlawed, and fled to him, and he had been outlawed. The exile Flanders. But though this was the deed of first turned his steps to his cousin King a niddering, it seems not to have raised the Sweyn to ask for help. But Sweyn was popular feeling against Sweyn so much as it powerless to help him, and so far from send- ought. The people had long been sick of ing ships to England, he was forced to send the overbearing behaviour of the lithsmen, to England for ships a little while after. His and were weighed down by the Danegeld, or cousin and namesake, who was of a violent yearly tax which they had to pay for the suptemper, left Denmark in a rage, and as he port of these foreign mercenaries. They had before thirsted for revenge on those who heard therefore with little regret that one of had outlawed him in England, he now burn- the captains had been cut off by the darling ed to do some deed that might grieve King son of Godwin; for, like Absalom and other Sweyn. Whether he went like Tostig in scapegraces, Sweyn seems to have increased after years from Denmark to Norway, and in favour by the very infamy of his crimes. stirred up Lothin and Erling to sail on their Now too was the time for the politic Godwin English cruise we know not, but in 1049 we to strike in. The popular voice was against hear that he was with Baldwin Count of the Thingmannalid, which were now no Flanders at Bruges, gathering force for re- longer needed. By taking a side against the venge. When he had been outlawed his Danes, and doing away at once with the lands, which were wide, had been given part- foreign mercenaries, and the tax by which ly to his brother Harold, and partly to Björn they were paid, he would grow more popular. Úlf's son, King Sweyn's brother, who, with His plans were crowned with success; by another brother, Asbjörn or Osborn, had re- the aid of the Bishop of Worcester, Sweyn's mained in England ever since the days of outlawry was removed in 1050. And in King Canute, and were captains in the fa- the same year the famous Thingmannalid mous Thingmannalid. So things stood in was gradually disbanded, and sent back to 1049, when King Sweyn sent his messengers Denmark, while Asbjörn, Björn's brother, for peace. But that Godwin, who loved his and almost every Dane of note in England, son, resented the treatment which he had except Siward of Northumbria, was sent out met with from King Sweyn is plain, we of the south of England. think, first from the refusal of the aid asked, and secondly by Godwin's conduct afterwards. In a word, we think that Godwin was angry with his royal kinsman at that time, and would not stir to help him. It was not Leofric alone, but Godwin with him, and in all likelihood before him, that led the popular feeling against Denmark. So things stood till the summer of 1049, when the outlaw crossed from Flanders to Bosham in Sussex, the chief seat of the family, with seven ships, to treat, as he said, for the removal of his outlawry. Both Björn and his brother Harold refused to give up the share of his lands which each had, but Björn said he was willing to go with him to the King, at Sandwich, and try to get the ban under which he lay loosed. Four nights' peace were given him for this, and so the two cousins went to Bosham. But no sooner had they reached Sweyn's squadron than the unhappy Björn was seized by Sweyn's command, and dragged on board; the ships set sail at once west for Axemouth, and there Sweyn basely slew him, and buried him deep on the shore.

But Godwin had no sooner got rid of the Danes than a new enemy stared him in the face. Edward had spent most of his life in Normandy. He loved the customs and language of his mother's country, and more than all he loved the obedience of its clergy to the Romish See. To him the liberties of the Anglo-Saxon Church were an abomination. If he cared for anything besides hunting, which was his sole worldly amusement, it was for monks and nuns, for cloisters such as that at Bec, and for castles like that at Rouen. He had always Normans about him, especially as his priests. In 1048, when the See of Canterbury became vacant, he gave it to Robert of Jumièges, whom he had made Bishop of London soon after his coronation, and the See of London he gave to William, his chaplain, who was also a Norman. An unhappy Saxon, Spearhafoc or Sparrowhawk, before Abbot of Abingdon, had been designated to the See into which William now crept, but the Archbishop had refused to consecrate him, and Sparrowhawk lost both his bishopric and his abbacy, for

while the dispute was pending, the King had | by his side, and the weak king fell entirely thrust into the abbacy his kinsman Rudolf, into the hands of Archbishop Robert and his one of Saint Olaf's missionary bishops, who Norman priests, who were not slow to work had followed the Saint from Normandy to Godwin's ruin. The writer of the Confessor's Norway, and from Norway had been sent to life to which we have so often referred, says evangelize Iceland, whence, after a stay of outright, that the king, as they were always nineteen years, he had returned to his native pouring accusations against Godwin into his land in time to follow the fortunes of Edward ear, "began to prefer bad counsel to good." to England.* So, too, Norman barons were The father and his sons came at the appointed granted lands and castles in England. Supe- time, but meanwhile the King's forces had rior in arms, in dress, in laws, in religion, and swollen greatly, while those of Godwin little even in what was then called civilisation, they by little lost heart and melted away. At gave themselves airs, and were hated accord- last, from being equals, he and his children ingly by the less polished and freer English. stood almost as suppliants. Hostages for But while these proceedings on the part of his safety, if he came to the meeting, were Edward were filling the cup of wrath against even denied him, and the end was, that five the strangers, an unlooked for piece of inso- nights were given him and his children to lence on the part of the hated race filled it flee the land. By this time Archbishop to overflowing. Count Eustace of Boulogne Robert had quite persuaded the King that had married the King's sister, and came over Godwin had been really guilty of his brother to England in 1053 to settle some matters Alfred's murder, and when Godwin asked to with the King. On his return home he have the King's "peace," Edward, who, like forced his way armed into Dover. A quar- all weak characters, was subject to outbreaks rel arose out of an attempt of one of his fol- of wrath, answered at the instigation of his lowers to quarter himself on one of the priests, that "he could only hope for the townsmen; the townsmen slew the Norman; King's peace when he restored him his the Normans slew the householder at his brother alive with all his men, and all the own hearth. The freemen flew to arms, and goods that had been taken from them either after about twenty had fallen on either side, alive or dead." As soon as this message was Eustace had to fly the town, and betook brought to the great Earl by Bishop Stigand, himself to the King with a story in which Godwin pushed away the table at which he all the blame was laid on the men of Dover. sat, mounted his horse, and made his sons The story is told in different ways, but by mount theirs, and rode for Bosham as hard the most trustworthy account it seems that as they could. They were just in time, for Edward lent a willing ear to the tale of his the Archbishop had sent horsemen after brother-in-law. Godwin, in whose earldom them to cut them off, but failed in his purDover lay, was ordered to chastise the offend- pose. "So," says the Chronicle, "Earl Goders; but he would not obey. On the con- win and Earl Sweyn betook them to Bosham, trary, he and his sons gathered a force, and shoved out their ships and turned them marched on Gloucester where the King lay, beyond the sea, and sought Baldwin's and demanded the delivery of Eustace and his 'peace,' and stayed there all the winter." followers. On his side the King sent for "And Earl Harold went west to Ireland, and Godwin's rivals, Leofric of Mercia, and Siward was there that winter in the King's peace at of Northumberland, who hastened to his aid Dublin. And as soon as this happened, with the strength of the Midlands and the then the King left the lady, her that was North. War seemed inevitable; when, by hallowed and wedded to him as his queer, the good offices of the Witan, a truce was and stripped her of all that she had in gold agreed on. It was settled that Godwin and and silver, and of all things, and she was his sons should come and plead their cause handed over to the care of the King's sister, before a solemn meeting of the Witan at the Abbess of Wherwell; and Ælfgar, London at the autumnal equinox. Edward Leofric's son, was set over that earldom that was one of those "adjective" characters that Harold had before." Just at this critical cannot stand alone. Godwin had long been time Edward's cousin, the young Duke his "substantive;" but Godwin was no longer William of Normandy, passed over into doubt to exult over the good time which was England with a great train of followers, no come for Normans in England. King," says the Chronicle, "made him and his fellows welcome, as many as he would, and so they left the realm again."

* His original name was Ulf, but, as Hungrvaka tells us (chap. 3), it was lengthened into Rudolf or Rudu-Ulf, because King Olaf brought him with him from Ruda or Rouen. According to Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i. 176, he remained two years abbot in Abingdon and then died. He was probably advanced in years, unlike some colonial bishops now-a-days, before he threw up his see abroad and returned to his native land.

"The

So fell of a sudden this famous family. "It would have seemed wonderful," says

Vikings who laid Romanism waste in Norway, and brought the Reformation into the land in the sixteenth century.

Harold's cruise was quite as successful, and not so bloody. With nine ships he sailed into the Bristol Channel, harrying in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. Then leaving the Land's End he sailed along the coast to Portland, where he joined his forces to those of his father, who had passed over from Bruges some time before, and found all the south-east coast ready to rise. The people at least were not of Edward's opinion. Godwin and his sons were everywhere welcome. It added, perhaps, to the ease of their exploit that the scapegrace Sweyn was longer with them. Smitten with the Jerusalem fever so common in that age, he had gone on a pilgrimage to Palestine, only to die at Constantinople on his return. Godwin and Harold steered boldly for the Thames, where the King lay outside London to the

no

another MS. of the Chronicle, "to every | was melted in the crucibles of those religious man that was in England, if any man before that had said that it would so happen; for he, Earl Godwin, had been before exalted to that degree as if he ruled the king and all England. And his sons were earls and the king's darlings, and his daughter was married and wedded to the king." But they fell only to rise again. Neither Godwin nor Harold were likely to let the grass grow under their feet while their foes took their lands in England as their own. They were not the men to cry over spilt milk, but just the men to fill the pail afresh. Harold was first afoot. The king who ruled the kingdom which the Northmen still held in Dublin was Margad, as the Scandinavian annals call him, or Cachmargach, as the Irish uttered it. The English called him Jemarch. But whatever his name, he was a bold and successful Viking. Many a time and oft he had harried England's coast, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with our old friends Finn Arni's son, Hacon Ivar's son, and Gu-west, with his land force and fleet. Forcing thorm of Ringeness. The last was his chosen brother in arms, and just at this very time between the years 1051-52, Guthorm spent the winter in Dublin, where he met the outlawed Harold. In the summer of 1054 they all set out on a cruise; Harold was bent on joining his father in Flanders; but Margad and Guthorm went out merely to plunder and waste. Their story is so interesting that we must stop to tell it. They won great store of wealth as they ravaged the shores of England, and at the end of July found themselves in the Menai Straits. Here they resolved to share the spoil, which was mostly in silver. But like the giants in the Niebelungen Tale, they could not agree, and so high did the war of words run that Margad challenged Guthorm to settle the matter by the sword. Guthorm had but five ships, while Margad had sixteen. The difference was great, even if we suppose his five to have been taller and stouter than those of the challenger. But here at least was room for prayers to saints, and so the day before the fight, it was St. Olaf's eve, the 28th of July, Guthorm vowed that he would give the saint a tenth of all the booty if he would grant him to win the day. He fought and won, slaying Margad and all his men after a bloody struggle. Those were not the days to break a vow. The eleventh century was not that of Erasmus, nor was Guthorm of Ringeness like the pilgrim to Walsingham. He kept his word to the saint, and a crucifix of solid silver as tall as Guthorm himself bore silent witness at once to his victory and his faith. There stood the Holy Rood in the church of St. Olaf at Drontheim, till it

their way through the bridge, and hugging the south bank, where their land force was ready to aid them, they were ready to fall on the King's followers and ships, who clung to the north bank of the Thames, but neither side had any wish to fight with their own countrymen for the sake of foreigners. Godwin was unwilling to fight against his king. The city of London, which was independent even after the Thingmen left it, was rather with Godwin than against him. It was now Edward's turn to yield. By the help of Stigand, Bishop of Winchester, he did so with a good grace. A truce was made, and hostages were given on both sides. Godwin landed and cleared himself and his sons from the charges made against them, and was there and then restored to all his rights and lands. This was the sign for the hated Normans to fly. The Archbishop Robert, the Bishop William, and Ulf, Bishop of Dorchester, who was so ignorant that when he went to the Synod at Vercelli he only escaped having his crosier broken by paying a heavy finethey and all the rest of the Normans had to escape as best they might. The Archbishop left his pall behind him, and with his brothers in affliction only got over to France from Walton on the Naze, by trusting themselves in a crazy bark. As a matter of course the lady Eadgitha, the Queen, came back to Court and to the cold honours of Edward's bed, as soon as her father and brothers were restored to their rights.

So Godwin and his sons, all except the outlaw Sweyn, who ended his days in exile, were stronger than ever. But there is one who is stronger than man, and He had given