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prove to have been no crime at all. The king, enraged at this act of disobedience, and urged on by his Norman favourites, resolved to bring Godwin to trial, and the result was a contest between the sovereign and his subject, in which the latter was able, by his popularity, to bid the king defiance. At length Edward managed to assemble a parliament, and, by keeping troops in the neighbourhood to overawe it, to procure a sentence of banishment against Godwin and his sons. Obeying this decree, Godwin, his wife Ghitha, and his three sons, Sweyn, Gurth, and Tostig, embarked for Flanders, while the other two, Harold and Leofwin, took refuge in Ireland. The only member of this powerful family left in England was the Queen Edith; and, as if to complete their downfall, Edward was unmanly enough to allow her to be removed from the palace, and imprisoned in a cloister. "It was not right," his Norman associates said, "that the daughter should sleep on a down bed, while her father and brothers were in exile."

After the banishment of Godwin and his sons, the Normans poured in upon England in still greater numbers. A Norman, Robert of Jumieges, became archbishop of Canterbury, another Norman became bishop of London; and Norman noblemen were appointed to all the highest posts of the kingdom. Among the crowd of Norman visitors who came into England about the year 1051, was one whose name was afterwards to be better knownWilliam, the young Duke of Normandy, called at that time William the Bastard. William was the illegitimate son of the last Duke Robert, called, from his violent temper, Robert le Diable, by Arlète, a young girl, the daughter of a tanner of Falaise, whom he chanced to see one day washing linen in a brook. He was born in 1024, and brought up with all the honours of the duke's son. In 1031, when he was seven years of age, his father, Duke Robert, resolved to set out on a pilgrimage of penance to the Holy Land; but before he went, he made the Norman nobility elect young William their duke, and swear fealty to him as such. The boy, as he grew up, manifested a spirit worthy of the descendant of Rollo; ambitious, fierce, and even cruel, he had yet qualities which endeared him to his subjects in Normandy, and made them ready to follow him in any enterprise which he chose to engage in. From his earliest youth he had been occupied in war, especially against the neighbouring provinces of Anjou and Brittany. During the king of England's long exile in Normandy, he had of course become acquainted with the young duke his cousin; and indeed, during a portion of it, he had been indebted to him for liberty to reside in the country, William's accession to the dukedom having taken place ten years before Edward left Normandy. There was, therefore, nothing extraordinary in the circumstance of William's now paying a visit to the dominions of his former guest. The visit, however, was attended by very important results. "In riding through the

land," says the historian Thierry, "the Duke of Normandy might have easily persuaded himself that he had not quitted his own dominions. The captains of the English fleet which received him at Dover were Normans; they were Norman soldiers who composed the garrison of the castle on the neighbouring cliffs; crowds of governors and dignified clergy who came to pay their respects to him were Normans; Edward's Norman favourites respectfully ranged themselves round their feudal chief, so that William appeared in England almost more a king than Edward himself." All these circumstances conspired to nourish in the young duke's mind an idea which he had already begun to entertain, that, on the death of Edward, he might be his successor. No hint, however, escaped him of what was passing in his mind; and after enjoying the hospitalities of Edward for some time, he returned to Normandy.

Meanwhile the banished Godwin and his sons were not idle. In constant correspondence with the Anglo-Saxon party in England, they soon learnt that the state of affairs there was favourable to their return. Accordingly, in 1052, raising some vessels at Bruges, they sailed for the coast of Kent, and after holding communication with the inhabitants, they ventured to land. Immediately finding themselves supported by the population, they marched towards London, and at length compelled Edward to consent to an assembly of the chiefs for revising the sentence of banishment which had been pronounced against them. This assembly reversed the sentence, and readmitted Godwin and his family into England, Edward and he giving each other hostages as a security for their future amicable conduct towards each other. Edward's wife, Edith, now resumed her honours as queen; and all the members of this powerful family were restored to their former dignities, except Sweyn, who, stung with remorse for some crimes which he had committed in his youth, one of which was the abduction of a nun, had resolved to atone for them by walking barefoot to Jerusalem. This painful pilgrimage he accomplished, but it cost him his life.

The Normans at the court of Edward had taken to horse, and fled at the first rumour of Godwin's reconciliation with the king; and in a short time there was not a Norman of consequence remaining in the island. Among the first to fly, as if for their lives, were Robert, archbishop of Canterbury, and William, bishop of London. They and their followers embarked in some fishing-boats, which carried them to France; and so hurried had been their flight, that the archbishop left behind him his pallium, the symbol of archiepiscopal authority with which the pope had invested him. A few Normans, special favourites of the king, were, contrary to Godwin's advice, permitted to return to England; but a sentence of banishment was pronounced against the rest, as enemies to the public peace and to the English nation. Stigand

bishop of Canterbury, and the other places vacated by the Normans were in like manner given to Anglo-Saxons.

Thus was England for a time cleared of the Normans. The expelled Normans, however, especially the expelled Norman clergy, were dangerous enemies. Robert, the ex-archbishop of Canterbury, immediately bent his steps towards Rome, then the centre of the intrigues of all the nations of Christendom. Here he laid his complaint before the pope and the cardinals, demanding a sentence against the Anglo-Saxon Stigand, who had been intruded into his archbishopric. The papal court was at that time very willing to receive a complaint against the English, who, since the death of Hardicanute, had neglected to pay the tax of Peter's pence, imposed by Canute in token of his reverence for the Romish church. Rome, therefore, at this time received no money from England except what was offered in private donations. The Norman priest's complaint was, accordingly, listened to with attention; and the college of cardinals having decided that Stigand was guilty of a crime in retaining the pallium, which Robert had left in his flight, letters were granted to Robert by Pope Stephen IX. declaring him to be the true and lawful archbishop of Canterbury. Stephen's successor, the Antipope Benedict X., during his short papacy, seemed disposed to favour the Anglo-Saxons; but Norman influence again prevailed under the papacy of Nicolas II., which commenced in 1058. The man who appears to have been most efficient in stirring up the wrath of the papal court against the English was Lanfranc, a monk of Lombard origin, celebrated for his learning and abilities, who was then at Rome on a mission from Normandy, connected with the marriage of the Norman duke with his cousin Matilda, daughter of the Count of Flanders. Lanfranc seems to have suggested to the pope, and the heads of the Romish clergy, the idea of regaining their ancient footing in England by means of the Normans, whose duke might one day, he said, sit upon the Anglo-Saxon throne. There was one man then connected with the papacy on whose mind this idea of Lanfranc's was likely to fall like seed upon prepared ground. This was Hildebrand, the monk of Cluni, afterwards Pope Gregory VII., and even now the true ruling mind in the Romish church. The great idea of Hildebrand's soul was the aggrandisement of the spiritual power in all the nations of Europe; and in the proposal of an alliance between the pope and the Norman duke against England, he saw the means of once more subjugating that refractory island under the ecclesiastical power of Rome. Accordingly, he used all his influence to weaken the English interest at the papal court, and to dispose the pope and his cardinals to sanction the claim which it was understood the Norman duke made, of being the rightful successor to the English king Edward.

In the meantime events in England were hastening towards the catastrophe. In 1053, shortly after the expulsion of the

Normans, the great Earl Godwin died. The manner of his death was somewhat remarkable, if we may believe the tradition handed down by several of the old historians, but contradicted by others. We have already mentioned that Godwin was accused by his enemies, the Normans, of being implicated in the death of Alfred, the brother of Edward, who made an expedition into England for the purpose of claiming the throne while it was disputed by the two sons of Canute. The story accordingly is, that one day, when Godwin was dining with the king, one of the attendants, while in the act of filling a cup with wine, slipped with one leg, but saved himself from falling by the other. “Ah," said Godwin to the king, laughing, "there the one brother came to the help of the other." "Doubtless," replied Edward, glancing significantly at the Saxon earl, "one brother needs the help of another; and would to God that my brother were still alive!" “King,” said Godwin, perceiving the meaning of Edward's allusion, why is it that the slightest mention of your brother makes you look with an evil eye upon me? If I had any concern in his death, may the God of heaven cause me to choke on this piece of bread!" He put the bread into his mouth, instantly grew black in the face, and fell from his seat a corpse. So at least say the Norman chroniclers; the Saxons give a less romantic account of the death of their beloved chief, and one more likely to be true.

After Godwin's death, his sons, especially Harold the eldest, and Tostig the third, inherited his power. Harold was appointed governor of the country south of the Thames, while to Tostig was assigned the government of Northumbria. Tostig, however, being of a proud and tyrannical disposition, soon came to a rupture with his Northumbrian subjects, who were for the most part of Danish descent; and as their differences could not be satisfactorily adjusted, he quitted the country, and went over to Flanders, enraged both against the king and his brother Harold, who, he conceived, had not taken his part with sufficient earnestness. Harold, meanwhile, grew in popularity. Equally trusted by the king, and beloved by the nation, he perpetuated the glory of the great earl his father, and was universally acknowledged as the first man in the kingdom. In the spirit of his father, he resolutely resisted the readmission of the Normans into England, as fraught with danger to the independence of the country.

It will be remembered that, on the occasion of the reconciliation of the Earl Godwin and the king, they delivered hostages to each other, as guarantees of their renewed friendship. The hostages given by Godwin to Edward were his youngest son, Ulfnoth, and a son of his second son Sweyn. These had been sent, in 1053, to the court of William of Normandy, where they still remained in a sort of captivity. Harold, becoming anxious for the return of his brother and his nephew to their native

land, begged leave from Edward, in the autumn of 1065, to pay a visit to Normandy, that he might bring them back: Edward was perfectly willing to release the hostages, but he was alarmed at the thought of Harold putting himself in the power of the Norman duke. "I know Duke William," he said, “and his crafty spirit. He will grant thee nothing, unless he can secure some advantage thereby to himself. Stay thou at home, and let another person go instead."

Harold, however, boldly embarked for Normandy. Unfortunately the vessels were wrecked on that part of the coast which belonged to the Count of Ponthieu, and Harold and his companions were made prisoners by the count. In this dilemma the Norman duke interfered in a handsome manner, and ransomed his intended visitor, thus laying him beforehand under an obligation of gratitude. Harold and his suite thus released, were received by William with the most studied attention and kindness; the hostages were liberated at once at Harold's request; and at William's earnest solicitation the Saxons prolonged their visit, not only engaging in friendly jousts and pleasure-parties with the Normans, but even rendering them assistance in a military excursion against the inhabitants of Brittany, between whom and the Normans there had been a feud ever since the time that Charles the Simple made over Brittany as a fief to Duke Rollo. Harold and William became bosom companions; they shared the same tent, they ate at the same table, and when they rode out, in the words of an old chronicler, "tales together they told, ilk on a good palfrey." "One day," says Thierry, "William turned the conversation on his early intimacy with King Edward. 'When Edward and I,' said the duke, 'lived like twin brothers in the same tent, he made me a promise that, if ever he became king of England, he would nominate me his successor to the crown. Harold,' he continued, 'I should like well that you would give me your assistance to make this promise good; and be sure that, if by your help I obtain the kingdom, I will grant you all you choose to ask.' Harold was completely taken by surprise at this sudden disclosure; but he could not avoid using some vague expressions of assent. William then proceeded- Since my friend consents to assist me, I shall take the liberty of telling him what I would like him to do. The castle of Dover must be fortified, a well of water must be ́sunk in it, and it must be given up to my soldiers; moreover, to strengthen the ties between us, you must give me your sister that I may marry her to one of my chiefs, and you yourself must marry my daughter Adela. I expect also that when you go away, you will leave behind you one of the hostages you came to reclaim; I shall bring him to England with me when I come to claim the crown.' At these words Harold perceived all the danger into which he had brought not only himself, but also his young relations. To relieve himself from his embarrassment, he

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