4
When Edward looked down on the port of Fécamp on a cool spring morning in 1041, he felt sudden doubts. Edward had every reason for concern. Five years previously, he and his younger brother Alfred had been lured back to England on promises of restoration, only to find another elected king in their stead. In returning, he was taking a gamble. Yet if the stakes were high, Edward had little to lose. He’d been made most welcome during his long exile at the Norman court. But without lands and a crown, Edward was a shadow king. In Normandy, he commanded sympathy, not respect.
There were, moreover, grounds for greater optimism now. Alfred had been blinded for the benefit – and probably at the behest – of Harold Harefoot. Since then, Harold’s younger half-brother, Harthacnut, had acceded. The latter may have been of the same Danish line, but he was no friend of Harold’s and took a more conciliatory tone towards the native English dynasty. Moreover, Harthacnut himself was in need of support. He had made enemies soon after his arrival in England. The restoration of the line of his elder English half-brother – the only other serious contender for the throne – promised to calm the waters.
The Channel crossing proved uneventful. Edward’s crew sighted land just off the Isle of Wight, an old Viking haunt, well known to Norman mariners. From there, they proceeded around the coast, before landing at Hurst Head (modern Hurst Point) on the south Hampshire coast. The site had been carefully chosen. Hurst Head lies at the end of a coastal promontory, overlooking the natural port of Keyhaven. This was a place from which either party might rapidly retreat at the first sign of treachery.1
In the end, precautions proved unnecessary. Harthacnut’s offer had indeed been sincere. An outsider to the political scene in England, the young Dane had faced opposition ever since his arrival the previous spring. Harthacnut’s problem was that he was doubly foreign. The son of a Danish conqueror (Cnut) and a Norman queen (Emma), he had little prior acquaintance with the English. Harthacnut’s own rashness did little to help the situation. He’d arrived with an army, and his first act as king was to demand a massive tax to pay the men. His second had been to have his half-brother’s body disinterred and unceremoniously dumped in a fen (or perhaps the Thames – sources disagree on the details) – an act of conscious desecration. These were not actions of a man likely to make friends or win people over. By May 1041, Harthacnut was facing a serious tax revolt in the West Midlands. The situation was reportedly not helped by his own ill health.2
Edward was, therefore, welcomed in style, and formal arrangements for power-sharing were soon put in motion. He swore to uphold the laws of Cnut and his sons, and in exchange was accepted as king. Harthacnut would continue to rule, but Edward would be co-ruler (in name) and take over fully upon Harthacnut’s death. All of Edward’s life had been building up to this moment. The years of exile – the hope, the pain, the misery – had paid off. He would sit on his father’s throne.
Edward the Confessor (as he came to be known) is typically remembered as the last king of England’s native line, a venerable dynasty stretching back to the West Saxon ruler Ecgberht, the grandfather of Alfred the Great. Yet Edward was more than Anglo-Saxon England’s last hurrah; he was also the kingdom’s first Norman monarch. Half-Norman through his mother Emma, Edward had spent much of his teens and all of his adult life in Normandy before his accession. And as his reign would show, Edward was in many respects more Norman than he was English.
The importance of Edward’s exile cannot be exaggerated. The earliest years of this were spent under the protection of his uncle, Duke Richard II. Richard had welcomed Emma and her children when they were driven from England in 1013/14. When Cnut took the realm in 1016–17, the duke welcomed Edward and Alfred – and their sister Godgifu – on their own. Richard had no particular affinity for Cnut, and providing for his nephews was more than a kind avuncular gesture (though it was this too); it was a means of keeping the duke’s northern neighbours on their toes. As long as Edward and Alfred were alive and well, they were a threat to Cnut and his would-be heirs. Moreover, if they were ever able to re-establish themselves, the English princes would owe Richard and his sons a good turn. Ducal support for the two brothers finds its clearest expression in the charters issued by Richard’s sons. Here Edward and Alfred periodically appear as witnesses within the ducal entourage. And when they do, Edward is sometimes styled ‘king’, and once even ‘king of the English’. Here Edward is a king in exile, awaiting his rightful return.3
By the time this came around, Edward was nearly forty and had outlived three Norman dukes (and two Danish kings of England). The years of waiting weighed heavily. In Edward’s eyes, he’d been serially betrayed. By his people, who’d accepted Cnut and his sons in his stead. By Earl Godwin, Cnut’s right-hand man, who’d barred his way to the throne and delivered his brother up to death. And above all by his mother, who’d abandoned her children from her first marriage to seek her own fame and fortune. The only people who’d done right by Edward were his uncle and cousins, the Norman dukes. The Norman court was home; the Normans were his friends. When Harthacnut died in late spring 1042 and Edward became sole ruler, he therefore looked across the Channel for succour.
Before Harthacnut’s body was even in the ground, Edward had himself elected in London. The following Easter, he was formally crowned and consecrated king at the Old Minster (the cathedral) in Winchester by Eadsige, the archbishop of Canterbury. The locations chosen for these acts are significant. Opposition to Cnut and his sons had centred on London (where Edward’s father, Æthelred, lay interred); Winchester, by contrast, had been their base of operations. Edward was thus securing support from a position of strength on the Thames, then presenting it (at greater leisure) to a potentially hostile audience in central Hampshire. That old ills had not been forgotten is revealed by the events of the following autumn. On 16 November, Edward returned to Winchester in haste with an armed following. He caught his mother Emma unawares and proceeded to despoil her of her accumulated wealth, in revenge for her earlier disloyalty.
As king, Edward faced many of the same difficulties as Harthacnut. He, too, was new to the political scene in England. And while the vast estates that came with the crown made Edward the kingdom’s leading landholder, he would have to work with the grain of local politics – at least initially. This meant dealing with those duplicitous souls who’d placed Cnut and his heirs on the throne, foremost amongst them the influential earl of Wessex, Godwin.4 Since the early 1030s, Godwin had been the power behind the English throne. He’d twice played kingmaker, abandoning Harthacnut for Harold Harefoot in 1036, when it became clear that the latter would prevail, then welcoming Harthacnut back with open arms after Harold’s death in 1040. Unlike Emma, Godwin was not dispensable. A deal would have to be struck. Both men had reason to be wary. Edward blamed Godwin for Alfred’s death; he also resented the earl’s ties to his mother, whose neglect still rankled. Godwin, for his part, had spent much of the past decade seeking to prevent Edward’s accession. Edward and Godwin now needed each other, however. The earl’s support was necessary if Edward’s regime was to get off the ground, while Godwin’s continuing influence would depend on Edward’s favour.
As was so often the case in the Middle Ages, compromise was achieved by way of marriage: Edward agreed to take Godwin’s daughter, Edith, as his wife. The match was probably planned at the start of Edward’s reign, but first celebrated in early 1045, perhaps to allow Edith to reach a greater age. This was a marriage of convenience, but convenient it certainly was. Were Edith to bear a son, this would unite the feuding families: the interests of Godwin and Edward would then lie in the succession of their shared progeny. This produced a considerable weight of expectation. The situation was not helped by the fact that at the time of his coronation (Easter 1043), Edward was quite old by medieval standards – at least thirty-eight, and perhaps forty. Only one king had reached a greater age in living memory, Edward’s own father Æthelred; and even he had not made it past fifty. To make matters worse, Edward was without wife or child. The general expectation was a short reign. The only question was what would happen thereafter. From day one, therefore, the succession was the defining issue of Edward’s reign. All eyes were on him and Edith – they needed an heir, and fast. The risks accompanying failure were high. Edith might be put aside for a more fertile bride. And Edward’s position remained precarious till he had a viable successor.
As long as the prospect of an heir was alive, relations between Edward and Godwin remained cordial (if not warm). The earl threw his weight behind the new king, and was rewarded for his support. In 1043, Godwin’s eldest son, Swein – named after Cnut’s father – was appointed to an earldom around Hereford in the West Midlands. Shortly thereafter, Godwin’s second son, Harold – another Danish name – was rewarded with one in East Anglia. In 1045, Beorn, their Danish cousin, was made earl in the East Midlands. With the exception of the large north-west Midlands earldom of Leofric, the Godwin clan now controlled all of southern and middle England – an unprecedented concentration of power and influence in the hands of one family. But their fate was closely linked to that of Edith, and that still stood in the balance. By the late 1040s, it was becoming clear that the couple were having difficulty conceiving. Much has been speculated as to the causes, but what matters are the consequences. Rifts now started to emerge between Edward and Godwin. The king had never liked his father-in-law; and if he could not have a child with Edith, there was little reason to maintain the charade of cosy camaraderie.
The mask started to slip in earnest in 1049. In this year, Edward exiled Swein, Godwin’s eldest, a second time. Swein was the black sheep of the Godwin family. Scarcely had he been made earl of Hereford in 1043, than he’d begun upsetting the balance of power on the Welsh frontier. In 1046, he made matters worse by abducting the abbess of nearby Leominster, apparently in a bid to seize the abbey’s lands. For this, Swein was exiled. He returned to make amends in 1049, but only compounded his problems by killing his cousin Beorn en route to court (a quarrel gone wrong, reportedly). Swein was now exiled afresh and Beorn’s earldom passed to Ralph of Mantes. The latter was not a member of the Godwin clan – indeed, was not even English. He was the Confessor’s nephew, the son of Godgifu. The latter had accompanied Edward and Alfred into exile, marrying the local French count Drogo of the Vexin, a strategic region on the Norman frontier. Ralph probably came to England with Edward in 1041 and his promotion was a reward for loyal service. Still, this was a symbolic gesture, the first time an earldom had been placed in Franco-Norman hands. It was an attempt to cut the Godwins down to size, and the West Saxon earl was wily enough to know it. Ralph was one of a small but significant group of French and Norman magnates who now began to make their influence felt.5
Matters finally came to a head over the succession to the archbishopric of Canterbury. In late October 1049 the previous incumbent, Eadsige, died. Eadsige belonged to the established Anglo-Danish elite, of which Godwin was a leading exponent. He was, however, unpopular with the local monks at Canterbury cathedral, who resented his efforts to sell off Church lands (not least to his patrons, the Godwins). The Godwins thus had a vested interest in the succession and were quick to agitate for Æthelric, a local monk who just happened to be a relative. Edward, however, was not going to let the chance to make further inroads into the Godwins’ stranglehold on power slip, particularly as Canterbury was the most senior ecclesiastical post in England. The king therefore insisted on the appointment of Robert of Jumièges, another of the Norman retainers who’d accompanied him over the sea in 1041. Since 1044, Robert had been bishop of London, a poor but strategically significant see, where Edward’s father, Æthelred, lay buried.6 The scene was set for a showdown.
Godwin may have been a remarkable earl, but he was no match for an anointed monarch – at least in matters ecclesiastical. At a well-attended church council in March 1051, Robert’s nomination was duly confirmed. Robert then travelled to Rome, where he received the pallium – a white, cross-shaped vestment, symbolising his archiepiscopal office – from the reform-minded Pope Leo IX. By June, Robert was back in England, with papal backing for his disputed succession. Edward was now set on breaking free from the influence of the Godwins. Here the king’s childlessness came in handy – there was nothing to bind him to the earl. Later Norman sources claim that Edward promised the young Norman duke, William (the future Conqueror), the succession to the English throne in this connection. William was the grandson of Richard II (and thus Edward’s first cousin once removed), so it’s easy to see why the English king might have done so. It was now clear that Edward would have no children, at least with Edith, and William was one of his closest living relatives. Edward had more than a motive; he had the opportunity. Robert’s trip to Rome took the new archbishop through northern France, offering a chance to make contact with William. Most sources mentioning such promises come from Normandy after 1066, when there was great need to justify William’s (legally dubious) conquest of England. They must, therefore, be treated with utmost caution. Still, the promise is recorded by not only the sycophantic William of Poitiers, but also the more sober William of Jumièges and is mentioned by the later Englishman Eadmer of Canterbury.7
Whatever the nature of contacts between Edward and William, they were not in Godwin’s interests. And when Archbishop Robert returned to England, he too began to move against the earl. Robert demanded the return of lands to Canterbury, which he claimed – perhaps with some justification – the Godwins had misappropriated in previous years. Tensions finally boiled over in late summer, when Edward’s brother-in-law, Eustace of Boulogne – the second husband of Godgifu, following Drogo’s death in 1035 – came to visit Edward. The precise purpose of the trip is unclear, but presumably lay in shoring up the Norman party. Certainly Eustace’s presence raised alarm among the Godwins. When he landed at Dover, in Godwin’s earldom, fighting broke out between the count’s men and the local townsfolk. In response, Edward ordered Godwin to punish the unruly burghers. The earl refused, making armed conflict inevitable.
The king now raised an army against the rebellious earl. Edward’s nephew Ralph rallied to the cause. So, too, did Leofric of Mercia and Siward of York, the only other earls not of Godwin’s kin. Their forces gradually coalesced at Gloucester in the West Midlands. Godwin and his sons also raised an army, converging on Beverston, some 18 miles (29 km) – or about a day’s march – south of Edward’s army. The result was a phoney war. Neither side was confident enough to engage the other, but neither was willing to back down. In the end, it was decided to relocate to London, where Godwin would face trial. As the armies marched east, however, Godwin’s support slowly evaporated. By the time he had reached his Southwark residence, the earl’s forces were no match for Edward’s.8 The king had won, at least for now.
Edward was in no mood for compromise. When Godwin inquired about making amends, the king responded that the earl could have peace and pardon when he’d restored Alfred alive and well.9 The scars of 1036 had yet to heal. Edward did not want conciliation; he wanted the eradication of the Godwins. Realising that the game was up for now, the earl fled to Flanders with three of his sons (Gytha, Swein and Tostig), while the two others (Harold and Leofwine) headed west to Ireland. As this division of forces suggests, the intention was always to return. The choice of destinations is significant in this regard. In Ireland, Harold and Leofwine sought out the court of Diarmait mac Máel na mBó of Leinster, the most powerful ruler on the island, who’d recently gained control of the strategic port of Dublin. In Flanders, Godwin himself was able to secure the support of one of the great northern French sea powers, the counts of Flanders. During this stay (if not before), the earl’s son Tostig married Judith, the count’s half-sister.
Edward took advantage of Godwin’s absence, declaring the earl and his sons outlawed and setting about redistributing their lands and offices. Among those who benefited were Odda of Deerhurst, who was made earl in the West Country, a region hitherto under Godwin’s control; Ralph of Mantes, who now received Swein’s earldom in the West Midlands; and Ælfgar, the son of Earl Leofric, who was entrusted with Harold’s office in East Anglia. The king also packed Edith off to a nunnery – either Wilton or (more likely) Wherwell, both convents with close ties to the royal family.10 Edward was probably contemplating dissolving the union, a line of action advocated by his new right-hand man, Archbishop Robert. It was common for medieval monarchs to separate from wives who’d failed to bear male offspring (Henry VIII was no innovator here). And Edward’s actions look little different from those of his older French counterpart Robert the Pious, who went through three wives in quick succession in his (ultimately successful) quest for an heir. Evidently hopes of a biological successor were not yet dead, and any promises to Duke William must have been provisional.
As it happened, such plans were overtaken by events. In spring 1052, Godwin and his sons did indeed return. Harold and Leofwine harried the south west, while Godwin and the main force landed in the south east. The local people, who’d resisted Eustace a year earlier, now rose again to back their erstwhile earl. By September, the Godwins were in a position to march on London. This time, Leofric and Siward did not rally to the king. They had little to gain from Godwin’s return, but were wary of the growing influence of the Norman party. And so in a reversal of the previous year’s fortunes, it was Edward who was now forced to eat humble pie. It was agreed that Godwin and his men would receive a full pardon, provided the earl publicly submit to Edward and beg forgiveness. This was a face-saving exercise, and the reality of Godwin’s victory was clear for all to see. A number of Norman courtiers were driven from court, while Robert fled for his life and was replaced at Canterbury by Stigand, the bishop of Winchester – a close ally of Godwin. Stigand’s appointment flew in the face of canon (i.e. Church) law, but Godwin cared little. For Edward, it was now a question of damage limitation. He had lost the struggle; all he could hope for was to save his dignity.
These were factional squabbles, but they took on distinctly ethnic undertones. Sources close to Godwin emphasise the foreignness of Edward’s Normans – invariably called ‘Frenchmen’ in the English vernacular – playing on popular anti-immigrant sentiment. There is more than a whiff of sophistry here. Godwin was of good English stock – he hailed from Sussex – but his wife was Danish, his sons were half-Danish and many of his closest associates were Scandinavian too. Yet this does not mean that such rhetoric was any less effective, as the response to Godwin’s return reveals. The Anglo-Danish elite may have been of recent vintage, but it was better established than the Norman incomers. Here Edward’s experiences contrast with those of Cnut. The latter had come to England with an army at his back, able to impose his will; he had little trouble introducing Danish magnates into positions of power and authority. The Confessor had arrived without an army, and had struggled to position his Norman associates. Local aristocrats looked on warily at the growing Norman presence at court. Leofric and Siward were no fans of the Godwins, but they also had little to gain from the promotion of the likes of Robert and Ralph.
It’s easy to tell the story of Edward’s later years as one of stalemate and then decline. And in a sense, this is fair. After failure in 1052, the king did little more to rock the boat. He took Edith back as his wife (and queen); he restored Godwin and his sons to their posts; and he left Stigand on the archiepiscopal seat in Canterbury. But it would be wrong to write off the aging Edward. He continued to balance interests deftly at court, using the Mercian and Northumbrian earls as counterweights to the Godwins when required.11 And while Edward may have stopped showing such ostentatious favour to his Norman companions, Ralph and others remained in place, continuing to add a continental flair to English aristocratic life. It may be in these years that a distinctive stone keep – a proto-castle of sorts – was built in Oxford, within Ralph’s domains.12 And within the Church, Francophone influence actually stepped up apace. Norman appointees were now rare, but there was an influx of bishops from the French-speaking regions between the Meuse and Rhine (known as Lotharingia).13 Likewise, more middling French and Norman mag-nates continued to play a part locally, both within and beyond Ralph’s sphere of influence.14 Most importantly, Edward continued to seek solutions to the succession problem. Remarriage was now off the table; so too was the nomination of Duke William. Godwin and latterly his sons were clearly angling for the throne, but Edward did his best to block their efforts. The Godwins might remain kingmakers, but they would not be kings – at least, not if Edward had anything to say about it.
It was in this context that Edward decided to recall the last remaining branch of his family – his nephew Edward the Exile. The latter was the son of Edmund Ironside, the Confessor’s elder half-brother who’d died in late 1016. Lacking his uncle’s Norman connections, the younger Edward had been forced into more distant exile following Cnut’s conquest, when he was no more than a year old. Edward would eventually make his way to the recently converted Hungarian realm. En route, he passed through the territory of the Kievan Rus’; and either here or at the Hungarian court, he eventually met and married a noblewoman called Agatha. The identification of the latter has been the cause of much head-scratching, but she was evidently of high status, related to both (or either) the German and Hungarian royal houses (and perhaps also to the Rus’ tsar). Edward the Exile offered a convenient solution to the king’s quandary. He was at least a decade younger than the Confessor, so stood every chance of succeeding naturally. Even better, Edward was married to a woman of high nobility, with whom he had a son – Edgar the Ætheling (ætheling being the Old English for prince).
Recalling the exiled Edward took time. The king initially sent Bishop Ealdred in search of him in 1054, but it would be 1057 before the Exile and his son arrived. Yet if the Confessor thought he’d finally solved the succession problem, he was sorely disappointed. Scarcely had Edward set foot in England than he died – before the king had even met him. At this point, it’s traditionally thought that the Confessor accepted the inevitable: that Harold, Godwin’s son and successor as earl of Wessex (and dynastic paterfamilias), would be his heir. The main evidence for this, however, comes from the later Life of Edward. This is a work commissioned by Edith, Harold’s sister. And it speaks with the benefit of hindsight, in full knowledge of Harold’s later kingship. Moreover, it does not actually say that Edward designated Harold his heir, but rather that he entrusted him with his realm on his deathbed (terms which may simply suggest the role of caretaker).15
Greater weight should be accorded to a contemporary piece of evidence. This is the entry of Edward, Edith and Edgar the Ætheling in the Liber Vitae of the New Minster in Winchester. The entry in question has to come from the time between Edgar’s arrival in England (1057) and the king’s own death (5 January 1066), since the entries are all of living figures, and probably dates to the Confessor’s last three years on the throne. What matters is that Edgar’s name is included here alongside those of the king and queen, precisely where we might otherwise expect a son. Moreover, Edgar is accorded the Latin title clito or ‘prince’ – a term reserved for throne-worthy royal offspring. In the eyes of some, Edgar had clearly inherited his father’s role as heir-apparent.16
The Exile’s death had been an unfortunate blip, but Edward remained determined to block the path of the Godwins to the throne, if at all possible. It is this, and not any precise promises to Duke William, which paved the way to the dramatic events of 1066. When Edward died in early January that year, Harold exploited Edgar’s youth to his advantage. Convincing the realm’s leading magnates – many of whom were his brothers – that a mature hand was required, Harold was able to seize the reins of power for himself. His efforts were helped by the fact that he was on the spot when Edward died in London. Against all convention, Harold was elected and crowned the very next day. (By way of contrast, the Confessor had waited over nine months after Harthacnut’s death before his own coronation.) Harold’s accession was a swift coup de main, rushed through in the hope of silencing dissent.
If lining up Edward the Exile and his son Edgar for the succession had been intended to secure the Confessor’s material legacy, the king’s later years saw similar efforts to tend to his spiritual well-being. Childless monarchs frequently embarked on major religious projects. With no biological heirs, they naturally looked to the next world – to works which would serve the Church in the here and now, and their souls in the hereafter. In the earlier years of the century, the childless German emperor Henry II had founded an imposing new bishopric at Bamberg; Edward now did something similar at Westminster.17 This was already a well-established monastery to the west of the main city of London (hence the name, literally ‘the religious house to the west’). Edward now had this rebuilt in style. When construction began is unknown, but by the 1050s it was in full swing.
This new abbey was constructed in a new style, that is known as the Romanesque. This is characterised by thick walls and large, rounded arches. In comparison with the later Gothic style we often associate with the Middle Ages, it displays an elegant simplicity. Romanesque architecture had been gaining popularity on the continent for some time, but this was the first such church to be built in the British Isles. Its novelty was not lost on contemporaries and William of Malmesbury approvingly remarks that it was made ‘in a new manner of construction’.18 The inspiration clearly came from Normandy, where Edward had picked up a taste for such architecture, and the resulting edifice reveals strong similarities with the monastery at Jumièges, which was also built in these years. It’s no coincidence that Robert, a sometime monk of Jumièges, was bishop of London when plans for the church were first laid.19
Westminster was Edward’s crowning achievement. Consecrated on 28 December 1065, just before the king’s own death, it was by far the largest church in the British Isles – indeed, one of the largest in western Christendom. By now, Edward was at death’s door. He began ailing before Christmas 1065 and was not even able to attend the consecration. With his legacy secure, however – or so it must have seemed – Edward could die happily. On 6 January 1066, the day following his death, he was laid to rest with due pomp at his new church.
As his final resting place, Westminster symbolises Edward’s rule. It may have been constructed from English materials and by English hands, but in spirit and style it looked to Normandy. In fact, it’s striking just how Norman England had become. Almost all the features we traditionally associate with the later Conquest of 1066 – Francophone aristocrats, reforming prelates, stone keeps, Romanesque architecture – can be seen under the Confessor. This should not come as a surprise; he was a Norman, after all, both by birth and by choice. Not an arrow had been loosed, yet the Normanisation of England had begun.