Читать книгу A History of England: Mediæval Monarchy - J. Franck Bright - Страница 11

Edmund Ironside. April to Nov. 1016.

Five great battles.

Division of England.

The Witan of the South immediately, under the influence of the conquerors, elected Cnut as his successor, but London and the rest of the Witan chose Edmund. It was plain that Wessex could acknowledge Cnut only through fear, and thither Edmund betook himself, and collected troops. As if to prove what the English could do if well commanded, in a few weeks he fought, on the whole successfully, five great battles. At Pen Selwood in Somerset; at Sherstone, where the English were only prevented from winning by a trick of Eadric’s, who, raising the head of another man, declared it was the head of the slain English king; at Brentford; and afterwards, when Eadric had again changed sides, at Otford in Kent; and Assandun in Essex. In this last battle the whole forces of England were arrayed. The sudden withdrawal of Eadric, who was commanding the Magesætas, or men of Hereford, secured a victory for the Danes, and Edmund had to retreat across England into the country of the Hwiccas, or Gloucestershire. Not yet wholly beaten, he was preparing for a sixth battle, when he was persuaded to make an arrangement similar, though not identical, with that which Alfred had made with Guthrum. He surrendered to Cnut Northumberland and Mercia, retaining for himself Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, and London. On St. Andrew’s Day of the same year, Edmund Ironside died, a misfortune, like most other acts of villainy of the time, attributed to Eadric. With him fell the hope of the English. The treachery of Eadric, the folly of Æthelred, met with their reward, and Cnut was acknowledged King of England.

Cnut. 1017.

The four Earldoms.

Cnut’s patriotic government.

Indeed, Edmund’s sons were so young that it was not probable that the Witan would elect them. The only other claimant was Edwy, Edmund’s brother. To secure himself against him, Cnut is said to have employed Eadric to put him to death; and though he escaped on that occasion, he was certainly outlawed, and all the old members of the royal family were kept abroad. The children of Æthelred and Emma, Edward and Alfred, were in Normandy with their mother. The children of Edmund Ironside, Edward and Edmund, were sent first to Sweden, and then to Hungary, where Edward married Agatha, niece of the Emperor Henry II. Cnut’s object, on finding himself King of England, appears to have been to obliterate, as far as possible, the idea of conquest, to rule England as an English king, and making that country the centre of his government, to form a great Scandinavian Empire. To this end, pursuing the policy of Dunstan, he divided England into four great earldoms, representing the old kingdoms. Northumberland and East Anglia were intrusted to Danes; Mercia was given to Eadric; Wessex he kept in his own hands. Eadric’s influence had compelled Cnut thus to promote him, but he so mistrusted him, that within a year he caused him to be put to death. In the same year he sent for Queen Emma from Normandy, and married her, though she must have been much older than himself, with the object apparently either of connecting himself with the late dynasty, or of securing the friendship of the Normans. The next year the Danish fleet was sent home. Englishmen were again put in high office. Thus Leofric was made Earl of the Mercians, and Godwine, of whom we now first hear, and whose origin and rise is variously related, was made Earl of Wessex, presumably the second man in the country. Thus, too, Cnut flattered the feelings of the English by moving the body of St. Alphege, who had been killed by the Danes twelve years before, with all honour to his own Church at Canterbury; and thus, too, he did not scruple to fill the English bishoprics with Englishmen, and even to promote them to high office in Denmark. During his reign England was at peace within its own borders, while Scotland was brought to submission. In 1031, Malcolm, King of the Scotch, and two under-kings, did homage to the English King. A strong, well-ordered government was established, supported for the first time by a standing body of troops, known as the House-carls. Early in the reign Eadgar’s law had been renewed with the advice of the Witan, and, in 1028, Cnut promulgated a code of his own, which is little else than repetition of former laws and customs. But the proof of his good government is this, that just as the law of the great Eadgar was looked on as typical, and demanded by Cnut’s Witan, and as after the Conquest the Confessor’s law was demanded, so we find the people of the North demanding Cnut’s law,—in each case law meaning system of government. His importance as a king is marked by the respect shown him on his pilgrimage to Rome in the year 1027. There, as he tells his people in a letter which he sent them, he negotiated with the Pope, the Emperor, and King Rudolph of Burgundy, for the free passage of English pilgrims and merchants; he received large gifts from the Emperor, and made the Pope promise to lessen his extortions upon granting the Pallium or Archiepiscopal cloak. His daughter by Queen Emma, Gunhild, was, moreover, thought a fitting wife for Henry, afterwards the Emperor Henry III. Cnut died still young in 1035.

Disputed succession.

Importance of Earl Godwine.

Harold. 1037.

Harthacnut. 1040.

With him fell his plans, both of the Scandinavian Empire and of good government in England. His sons, Harold and Harthacnut, in no way inherited his greatness; they appear to have been little better than savage barbarians. The succession was disputed between them. Godwine and the West Saxons obtained the South of England for Harthacnut, while Harold reigned in the North. But as Harthacnut did not come to England, but remained in his kingdom of Denmark, Godwine was the practical ruler. This great Earl, whose sympathies were wholly national, was accused of putting to death Alfred, the son of Æthelred and Emma, who seems to have taken advantage of the absence of Harthacnut to aim at re-establishing himself in Wessex. But as the actual murderers were the men of Harold whom Godwine had opposed, it would seem that the charge was a false one. The continued absence of Harthacnut enabled Harold to secure the whole of the kingdom, over which he reigned for two years. On his death, in 1040, Harthacnut stepped unopposed into his position. His short reign was marked by no great events. Godwine, having cleared himself by oath and by compurgation (in which a large number of Earls and Thegns joined) of the charge of murdering Alfred, remained in power. A tyrannical use of the King’s House-carls in collecting a tax produced an outbreak in Worcester, which was punished with brutal severity. And when the King fell dead, while drinking at a bridal feast, the English were glad to be rid of a line of such barbarous sovereigns, and to restore the House of Cerdic in the person of the late king’s half-brother Edward, who, in the absence of direct descendants of the Danish house, entered almost unopposed on the kingdom.

Edward the Confessor. 1042.

Rivalry between Godwine and the French party.

Godwine banished. 1051.

Return and death of Godwine. 1052.

It was the eloquence of Godwine which overcame the slight opposition offered to Edward’s election, and secured him the throne. This nobleman thus reached the summit of his power, and two years afterwards his daughter Edith became the King’s wife. Edward’s education and training had rendered his tastes and policy as decidedly French as those of Godwine were national. There thence arose, and continued throughout the reign, a constant enmity between the two parties—the Frenchmen, whom Edward brought over in great numbers and employed particularly as bishops, and the national party, headed by Godwine and his sons. It is the progress of this quarrel which forms the history of the reign, side by side with the efforts of Godwine to push his family prominently forward in opposition to the family of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. On the one hand, the King lavished favours upon his foreign followers. A Frenchman, Robert of Jumièges, became Bishop of London, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; Ulf, another Norman, became Bishop of Dorchester in Oxfordshire; Ralph, the son of Edward’s sister and the Count of Mantes, was made an Earl; and Eustace of Boulogne, her second husband, was loaded with honours. On the other hand, Godwine succeeded in securing for members of his own family the earldoms of Somersetshire and Herefordshire, and of the East and Middle Angles. The crisis of the rivalry at length arrived. It arose from an outrage committed by the followers of Eustace on the citizens of Dover. The townsmen rose against the insolent Normans and drove them from the city; and when Godwine, as Earl, was called upon to punish the citizens, he positively refused unless they were fairly tried before the Witan. Both sides took up arms,—Godwine and his sons on one side; the King, with Siward of Northumberland, Leofric of Mercia, and his own French partisans on the other. The armies faced each other in Gloucestershire; but Godwine, unwilling to press matters to extremity, accepted the proposal of Leofric that the question should be referred to the Witan. When the Witan assembled, the King was there with a great army. Overawed by this force, the Witan, recurring to the old charge against Godwine and to a late act of violence on the part of his son Swend, ordered Godwine and his sons to appear before them as criminals. This they refused to do unless hostages were given, and as this demand was refused, they would not appear, and were outlawed. Godwine and three sons retired to Baldwin of Bruges, Leofwine and Harold to Ireland. The French party were triumphant. Robert, as we have seen, was made Archbishop, William, another Frenchman, succeeded him as Bishop of London, and Odda, probably an Englishman in the French interest, was given the western part of Godwine’s earldom. Harold’s earldom was given to Ælfgar, son of Leofric. At the same time, to complete the French influence, William of Normandy came over to England, and, as he always declared, received a promise of the succession from his cousin Edward.

The administration of foreigners was so unpopular and so unsuccessful, that Godwine and his family thought that an opportunity had arisen for their return. Unable to procure their restoration by peaceful means, they determined upon using force; and after various expeditions, but feebly opposed by the English, who at heart wished them well, Godwine found himself strong enough to sail up the Thames; and so preponderating was the feeling of the country in his favour, that, as the King refused justice, it was agreed that the matter should be referred to the Witan. What their decision would be was not doubtful, so the French prelates and earls and knights, who had been building feudal castles, at once fled, and Godwine and his sons came back in triumph. Stigand, a priest, who had been originally appointed by Cnut to an abbey raised at Assandun in memory of the Danish victory over Edmund Ironside, and who had acted as principal mediator, was elected to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, left vacant by the flight of Robert. The next year Earl Godwine died suddenly, while at dinner with the King.[1] His death restored the balance between the two great families. While Harold succeeded to the earldom of the West Saxons, and the vacant earldom of Northumbria was given to his brother Tostig, East Anglia was restored to Leofric’s son Ælfgar. Earl Siward of Northumbria had died in 1055.[2]

Importance of Earl Harold.

Death of Edward. 1066.

The succeeding years are marked by the gradual increase of the power of Harold and his family. In 1055 Earl Ælfgar was outlawed, and his earldom given to Gurth, Harold’s brother. The exiled Earl, making common cause with Griffith [Gryffydd] of Wales, defeated Ralph, the French Earl of Herefordshire. To repair this disaster the war was intrusted to Harold; he prosecuted it with success, and Herefordshire, which he had thus rescued, was added to his earldom. The death of Leofric still further increased the power of the House of Godwine, although Ælfgar, the late Earl, was allowed to succeed him; and finally, Essex and Kent were formed into an earldom for Leofwine, the remaining brother of Harold. Godwine’s sons now possessed all England, with the exception of Mercia. The last probable heir to the throne—the Ætheling Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside—had been brought over from Hungary, but had died almost immediately after reaching England. And when, in 1063, Harold, by employing his men as light troops, succeeded in the final subjugation of Wales, his greatness was such that he must almost certainly have been regarded as the next king. Three years afterwards, in January 1066, King Edward, the last male descendant of Cerdic who reigned in England, died. His last year had been troubled by a great insurrection of the Northern counties against the rule of Tostig. The house of Leofric had had a stronghold in the North, and Tostig’s injudicious vigour in attempting to reduce the barbarous population to order had excited great discontent. His energy seems more than once to have led him into murder. The Northumbrian therefore deposed him, and elected Morcar [Morkere], the grandson of Leofric, in his place. His brother, Edwin of Mercia, who had succeeded his father Ælfgar, made common cause with him; and Harold, whose policy was always conciliatory, found it necessary to persuade the King to confirm Edwin and Morkere in their possessions. Tostig retired as an exile to Bruges. While England was thus troubled, the King died—a good man, devoted to the Church and the monks, and therefore afterwards canonized, but as a king unfitted by his pliant character, and more especially by his love of foreign favourites, to rule over England at such a difficult crisis.

Harold elected king. 1066.

Claims of William of Normandy.

The Witan at once assembled, and used its power of election. This power was usually exercised within the limits of the royal family; but on this occasion, as there was no claimant of the royal house but Edmund Ironside’s grandson, the child Eadgar, the Witan looked beyond their usual limit, and elected almost unanimously the great Earl Harold. Though thus King of England by the most perfect title, he found himself opposed by two enemies. On the one hand was his brother Tostig, the exiled Earl of Northumberland, who had been a favourite of the late king, and had perhaps himself hoped to be elected; and upon the other Duke William, who, out of a variety of small and insufficient pretexts, had constructed a very formidable claim to the crown of England. He asserted that the Confessor had promised him the kingdom, that he was the nearest of kin, and that Harold had himself sworn to him to be his man, to marry his daughter, and to own him allegiance. The circumstances under which this last event had taken place are not very certain; but it seems to be true that Harold, on some occasion, had been shipwrecked on the coast of France and taken prisoner, and held to ransom, according to the barbarous custom of that day, by Guy, Count of Ponthieu, lord of the country. The intervention of William as superior lord rescued him from his disgraceful position. He spent some time in friendly intercourse at William’s court, and there probably, as was not unusual, made himself the Duke’s man, and did homage. Such an act could be only personal, and could have nothing to do with the kingdom of England, and even as a personal tie was not very binding. It was his knowledge of this which induced William to play the well-known trick upon Harold. When the Earl had taken what he believed to be only a common oath of homage, the cover of the table on which his hands had been placed was withdrawn, and he found he had been swearing upon most sacred relics. With regard to the other claims, it may be said that Edward the Confessor, in accordance with the constitution of England, could not promise the crown to any one, and, moreover, had nominated Harold on his deathbed; while, although William was the cousin of the late king, it was only through Edward’s Norman mother, Emma, that he was so. But when put forward artfully, and mingled with coloured accounts of the injuries suffered by the French in England at the return of Godwine, these claims seemed very plausible to the French, especially when backed by the influence of the Papal See wielded by Archdeacon Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory VII. The Papal support was won partly by representing Harold as a perjured man, partly because the Normans in Italy were regarded as the great champions of the Papal See, but chiefly because Godwine and Harold had throughout sided rather with the party of the secular clergy in England than with that of the monks,[3] and had been national in their views with regard to the Church as well as in other matters. The Pope, Alexander II., was led by Hildebrand to see the opportunity offered, and expressed his approbation of the expedition by sending a consecrated ring and banner.

William’s preparations.

Tostig’s invasion.

William, immediately after the death of the Confessor, sent to demand the crown, which was of course refused. He then proceeded to collect troops, not only his own Norman feudatories, but also large bodies of adventurers from other parts of France. Aware of the intended invasion, Harold collected his forces, and occupied the Southern coast. But William was so long in coming, that Harold’s militia army, anxious to return to their agricultural works, and straitened for food, could not be kept together. He was left with his immediate followers, his House-carls and Thegns. Just then, when his great host had disappeared, news was brought to him that Tostig had invaded the North of England. Foiled in a weak attempt upon the South near Sandwich, and refused aid by William of Normandy, Tostig had fallen in with the fleet of Harold Hardrada, King of Norway. This king was a great warrior, who had served in the armies of the Byzantine Empire, and fought in Africa and Sicily. He was easily persuaded to join Tostig, and reinforced by the Earls of Orkney, they together sailed up the Ouse, and reached Fulford on the way to York. Edwin and Morkere, the sons of Ælfgar, whose sister Harold had lately married, honestly opposed them, but after a severe battle they were beaten. Arrangements by which the North was to join Harold Hardrada were being made at Stamford Bridge upon the Derwent, when Harold, who had hastened with extreme rapidity from the South, fell upon the invaders. They were taken by surprise, and some, but slightly armed, were overcome; but the bridge over the Derwent was held with determination, and a fierce battle was fought on the other side. The English were entirely triumphant, both Tostig and Harold Hardrada being slain. The Norwegian fleet was forced to withdraw. This was on the 25th of September.

Landing of William.

Battle of Hastings. Oct. 14.

Death of Harold.

On the 28th King William landed at Pevensey. Harold was still at York when the news reached him. He hastily gathered what troops he could round the nucleus of his own immediate followers who had been with him at Stamford Bridge. All the South of England joined him gladly, both from Wessex and East Anglia. But Edwin and Morkere, in their jealousy of the rival house, forgot their patriotism and Harold’s good deeds to themselves, and deserted him. With such an army as he had, Harold took up his position upon the hill of Senlac, where Battle Abbey now stands. This hill runs out from the North Sussex hills southward like a peninsula. There Harold erected palisades, and arranged his men with a view to defensive action only. This step was rendered necessary by the difference of the armies; the English fought all on foot, a large proportion were irregularly armed militia, and the hand javelin—not the bow and arrow—was their national missile. The Normans, on the other hand, fought as chivalry on horseback, and had many archers. Once in the plain Harold’s army might have been crushed by the charge of the mailed cavalry. But repeated charges uphill against an entrenched foe, stubborn and heavily armed, could not but wear out the mounted knight. Our descriptions are all from Norman sources, and the contrast between the religious Norman and the jovial Englishman is fully brought out. On the one side, the night is said to have been passed in prayer, and on the other in revelry. There were certainly, however, priests and monks upon the side of the English, and probably this story is a monkish exaggeration. Harold drew up his forces with his own picked troops upon the front of the hill, between the dragon banner of Wessex and his own banner adorned with a fighting man. The backward curves of the hill were occupied by his worse armed troops. He himself, with his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine, took their place beside the standard. The French advanced in three divisions,—the Bretons, under Alan, on the left; the Normans, under their Duke and his two brothers, Robert and Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, in the centre; the adventurers, under Roger of Montgomery, on the right. They galloped forward, preceded by Taillefer, a minstrel, tossing his sword aloft and singing songs of Charlemagne. But their efforts were vain. The heavy axe of the English hewed down man and horse if any reached the barricade, and the French had to draw back. The Bretons began the flight, and the Normans soon followed, but the English militia were not steady enough to withstand the excitement of victory. The veteran centre stood firm, but the troops opposed to the Bretons broke from their position in pursuit. William saw his advantage, rallied his troops, drove back the pursuers, and made a second vehement assault upon the barricade. The Earls Gyrth and Leofwine were killed, the barricade in part removed, but still Harold held his ground, and William had to have recourse to stratagem before he could secure a victory. His present comparative success had been caused by the accidental over-eagerness of the English. He determined to try whether he could not again induce them to break their line. The Normans turned in apparent flight, the English, heated by the long fight, rushed forward in pursuit. The Norman cavalry turned round and rode down their pursuers, and, driving them before them, again charged up the hill; while the archers, whose skill had been somewhat foiled by the shields of the English, were ordered to drop a flight of arrows upon the heads of Harold and his men. The plan was fatally successful; the battle was still stubbornly contested, though no longer in serried ranks, when Harold fell, pierced in the eye by an arrow. With him disappeared all hope of English success. His body was found, and buried under a cairn by the sea, till afterwards removed to his minster of Waltham.