Harold (9 page)

Meanwhile, Edward set about rallying his own supporters. These would no doubt have included his loyal followers like Archbishop Robert and other clerics, but more important in subsequent events were the laymen with military followings. These included his relatives Earl Ralph and possibly Count Eustace, who was apparently still in the country, and perhaps other more minor figures including the Herefordshire Frenchmen. However, Edward’s most vital supporters were the other great earls Leofric and Siward, who alone could provide the necessary counterweight to Godwine. He probably attempted to win them over by complaints of Godwine’s rebellion and by offers of land and offices, or they themselves may have considered that Godwine had now gone too far.
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On 1 September, Edward was resident at Gloucester, awaiting the council called for 8 September, when he was surprised by the arrival of Godwine and his sons at nearby Beverstone, a week early and supported by an armed force. Thus Godwine gained the initiative from the king, though briefly in the event. He demanded at least the opportunity to refute the charges being made against him, including complicity in Alfred’s murder, or alternatively the surrender of Count Eustace and the Frenchmen of Herefordshire for trial for offences allegedly committed by them. Godwine undoubtedly hoped his show of force would intimidate Edward, caught unprepared as he was, and bring about his capitulation. This was a grave mistake. It merely made Edward more determined than ever to deal with him once and for all. He summoned armed assistance from his own supporters, particularly the northern earls, while stalling Godwine and his sons. In his summons to the other earls, Edward portrayed Godwine’s action as that of a rebel against his lawful king. He highlighted those aspects of events which reflected this, namely Godwine’s arrival with an armed force and his demands of the king. Indeed, Chronicle E states that it was claimed that the Godwine family ‘meant to come to betray the king’.
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This tactic proved effective with the northern earls, who had initially brought south only small retinues of followers. On learning of Godwine’s virtually open rebellion and the apparently imminent danger to the king, they called out the full armed forces of their earldoms and prepared to oppose Godwine by force. Godwine’s bluff had been called. Edward had not been intimidated and Godwine could only gain his ends by giving battle. Civil war loomed large, and hotheads on both sides were advocating it, but fortunately wiser counsels prevailed.
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This is a notable aspect of the whole crisis of the years 1051 and 1052 which is worth comment. Neither party involved, no matter how inflamed tempers became, was prepared to resort to open warfare. Thus when Godwine held the initiative at Beverstone on 1 September, he did not attack the king, despite Edward’s rejection of his demands. Similarly, when reinforced by the northern earls, Edward did not crush Godwine by force. This same attitude was to be reflected during the rest of the crisis and it does credit to those involved on both sides. (It probably arose from the nightmare situation towards the end of Aethelred’s reign and immediately thereafter, when opposing forces of Englishmen clashed in support of rival kings, a period which Edward, Godwine and Leofric had all witnessed at first hand.)

Since neither side was willing to resort to force, negotiations got underway and it was agreed to exchange hostages and to reconvene at London at the equinox on 21 September. The hostages given at this stage for Godwine’s side were probably his own youngest son, Wulfnoth, and Swein’s son, Hakon. It is perhaps odd that no mention is made of a hostage for Harold, as might be expected. It seems unlikely that Harold had no sons who might fulfil this role as he was now about thirty years old and had been married since 1044 or 1045. In 1066 he had a total of seven children, three of whom were sons old enough to take part in raids against England. This suggests strongly that at least one of his children, and probably a son, had been born before 1051. If this was the case, it would appear natural for Harold’s son also to be taken as a hostage, but the sources which record details of the hostages at this time mention only two. They may omit Harold’s son in error but it seems possible that Harold was not required to provide a hostage. King Edward perhaps did not consider him to be untrustworthy in the way that his father and elder brother were. Nothing is said of any hostages given by the king’s side, which probably reflects the superiority of his position at this stage, or alternatively they may have been returned in 1052 when Godwine was restored.
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On 21 September at London, the opposing sides faced each other again with their armed forces in support. The delay had worked to Edward’s advantage and against Godwine. The northern earls, who now accepted that Godwine had gone too far by his armed threat to the king, had since had time to gather larger forces from their earldoms. On the other hand, Godwine’s forces had begun to dwindle; although many were prepared to support their earl, as at Gloucester, they were not prepared to oppose their rightful king by force. Indeed, the king may have summoned all royal
thegns
holding land directly of the king to join the royal army and so suborned many of those commended to the Godwine family but holding of the king. Perhaps this is the sense of the curious statement in Chronicle E that ‘the king asked for all those
thegns
that the earls had had, and they were all handed over to him’. Desertions gradually sapped Godwine’s strength and, in particular, the
thegns
of his son Harold transferred their allegiance to the king. This is perhaps not surprising since Earl Harold had only had some seven years to foster the loyalty of East Anglia, unlike his father’s thirty or more in Wessex, and the king’s forces north of the Thames lay directly across the road from the homes of Harold’s men.
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His confidence boosted by knowledge of Godwine’s difficulties, Edward now declared Swein an outlaw, without even waiting for the discussions to start. This precipitate action clearly confirms Edward’s reluctance to permit his return in 1050. He then commanded Godwine and Harold to appear before the council to answer the charges against them. Godwine now feared for his safety and attempted to obtain additional guarantees of safe conduct with hostages, before coming to the council to clear himself. However, these guarantees were refused as Edward became even more adamant that Godwine must be dealt with. Godwine was now in an impossible position, unable to risk meeting the angry king and unable, with his outnumbered forces, to fight to retain his earldom, even if he had been able to persuade his men to do so. He was beaten and began to make preparations for inevitable exile.
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Edward now had Godwine where he wanted him and pushed his advantage, declaring him an outlaw and all his sons with him, around the beginning of October. This message was probably conveyed to Godwine by Bishop Stigand of Winchester, who appears to have acted as an intermediary in these negotiations. He was skilled in diplomacy and trusted by both sides and was to play a similar role in 1052. As a royal bishop he was one of King Edward’s servants, and as current Bishop of Winchester and previously Bishop of East Anglia he would be well known to Godwine and Harold. Edward may even have granted the Godwine family five days’ safe conduct to leave the country, in order to encourage their flight. The considerable organization involved in the exile of the family is a possible confirmation of this.
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Godwine, his wife Gytha and his sons Swein, Tosti and Gyrth all boarded ship at their estate of Bosham in Sussex, taking with them a great hoard of treasure, and crossed to Flanders. They were assured a friendly reception, not just as another group of English refugees like many before, but as a result of Tosti’s recent marriage to Count Baldwin’s sister, Judith. The store of treasure they had taken would not only provide for their own financial needs, but more importantly would pay for Flemish mercenaries to support an attempt to return to England.
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Meanwhile, Godwine’s other sons, Harold and Leofwine, went west to Bristol, avoiding interception by the forces of Bishop Ealdred of Worcester. There they took a ship, initially prepared by Swein for his own anticipated exile, and sailed from the river Avon for Ireland. The likely purpose of Harold’s journey there was also to recruit mercenaries, this time Norsemen from Dublin, to support an attempt by his family to return to power in England. After a stormy voyage, during which they lost a large number of men, the brothers reached Ireland. There they were received by Diarmait Mac Mael-Na-Mbo King of Leinster, who currently dominated the Viking city of Dublin and was to take possession of it directly in 1052. Here Harold’s first efforts at diplomacy were to prove successful. King Diarmait was to provide Harold with aid and treat him well enough for his sons subsequently to seek refuge at his court in the period after Hastings. It was possibly on this occasion that Harold collected the holy relic, the mantle of St Brigit of Kildare, which his sister Gunnhild later donated to St Donation’s in Bruges. It was probably also during his Irish sojourn that Harold had an opportunity to review the events of autumn 1051 that had led to the expulsion of his family from England and to learn important lessons that would benefit him in the future. He had seen that it was foolish for an earl, no matter how powerful, to directly challenge the king, that it was important to ensure the loyalty of one’s own followers, that the English nobility had a strong aversion to the risk of civil war, and that it was vital to consider the reactions of the other earls to any action. He realized that the ability to negotiate and compromise were essential skills for any great man.
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In England King Edward’s triumph seemed complete with the family of Godwine exiled. It was a remarkable turn of events, as emphasized by Chronicle D, which states ‘it would have seemed remarkable to everyone in England if anybody had told them that it could happen’. Edward was now free to deal out the spoils among his supporters. He probably retained most of Wessex for himself. He rewarded Archbishop Robert by finally expelling Spearhafoc from London in favour of William, a Norman priest. In return for Earl Leofric’s support, his son, Aelfgar, received most of Harold’s earldom. In return for his support, Earl Siward probably received Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire from Harold’s earldom. Odda of Deerhurst, a kinsman of Edward, was given an earldom in the south-west with lands taken from Godwine and Swein. Earl Ralph, Edward’s nephew, was re-established in his possession of Herefordshire, and other shires taken from Swein. The Frenchmen of Herefordshire were rewarded with the manors of Burghill and Brinsop in Herefordshire worth some £28. The suggestion that these changes were designed to secure or facilitate a Norman succession seems unlikely given the location of the grants made by Edward, which were all away from any direct Norman invasion routes. The list of those rewarded as a result of King Edward’s triumph certainly included a number of Frenchmen though not necessarily Normans, and they were not shown any particular favour, compared, for example, to the Englishmen Siward, Aelfgar and Odda.
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Freed from Godwine’s influence at last, King Edward now turned his attention to one of the main reasons for disposing of him. He repudiated Queen Edith and deprived her of all she owned, placing her in the keeping of the Abbess of Wilton. Then Edward and Archbishop Robert made arrangements for separation and divorce, since their primary concern was to provide Edward with an heir of his own, rather than to secure the succession of William of Normandy. The author of the
Vita Eadwardi
placed responsibility for Edith’s expulsion from court on Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop, as head of the English Church, would naturally have an important role to play in any royal divorce. The need for his support was a powerful reason for the king, finally, to concede the bishopric of London to Robert’s choice, William, and sacrifice his own nominee, Spearhafoc. It should be recalled here that the
Vita Eadwardi
was written, in part, to celebrate the marriage of Edith and Edward. The author could not therefore portray the king as having himself contemplated a divorce and hence we have the story of the honourable pretext of Edith being sent to Wilton only for her own safety. This circumstance also explains the
Vita Eadwardi
’s hostility to Archbishop Robert, since Edith could hardly have liked someone who had participated in an attempt to deprive her of her royal status. In both real life and as recorded in the
Vita Eadwardi
Robert of Jumieges was to fulfil the role of scapegoat for Edward – not only in this attempted divorce but also in the whole episode of the exile of Godwine – when it was in fact the king who had initiated both of these processes himself.
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And forthwith Earl Harold came from Ireland with his ships to the mouth of the Severn near the boundary of Somerset and Devon. . . .
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C
hronicle D states that it was during the exile of the Godwine family late in 1051 that William of Normandy visited King Edward, though his purpose in doing so is not recorded. This visit has been linked, although not by the Chronicle itself, to later Norman accounts of William’s claim to the English throne, and it is regarded as the likely occasion when King Edward promised the throne to William. However, a number of factors suggest that this episode may be a later interpolation in the Chronicle, made after the events of 1066. In the first place, William Douglas, the foremost authority on William of Normandy, considers such a visit extremely unlikely given the latter’s preoccupations in Normandy at the time. More importantly, the Norman writers William of Jumieges and William of Poitiers fail to record any such visit, in spite of the fact that it could obviously have been employed to reinforce William’s claim to the throne. It seems likely therefore that this visit did not in fact occur, and that the Chronicle record here has been adjusted at a later date.
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