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When King Harold the Fair-haired, in 872 A.D., had united all the scattered earldoms of Norway under his own sway, he issued a stringent order forbidding pillaging within his kingdom under penalty of outlawry.
The boy was scarcely fifteen, but his political tone, as of one who knew the world, made his father laugh and say, "Hark to the cockerel crowing loud. Spurs forsooth!" "The Lords Edward and Edmund are knighted," grunted Rob, "and there's but few years betwixt us." "But a good many earldoms and lands," said the Baron. "Hadst spoken of being out of pagedom, 'twere another thing."
He conferred on him the whole estate of William Peverell, which had escheated to the crown: he put him in possession of eight castles, with all the forests and honours annexed to them: he delivered over to him no less than six earldoms, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Nottingham, Dorset, Lancaster, and Derby.
To outward appearance, by this election, the House of Leofric uniting in father and son the two mighty districts of Mercia and the East Anglians became more powerful than that of Godwin; for, in that last House, Harold was now the only possessor of one of the great earldoms, and Tostig and the other brothers had no other provision beyond the comparatively insignificant lordships they held before.
To Bishop Ode of Bayeux, and to William Fitz-Osbern, the son of his early guardian, he gave earldoms, that of Kent to Odo, that of Hereford to William.
He was appealed to as the head of one of the greatest Whig houses, and he was offered a dukedom. He relinquished his boroughs without hesitation, but he preferred to remain with one of the oldest earldoms of England for his chief title.
After this long harangue, which has been fully reported by several historians who were present at the ceremony, the councillor proceeded to read the deed of cession, by which Philip, already sovereign of Sicily, Naples, Milan, and titular King of England, France, and Jerusalem, now received all the duchies, marquisates, earldoms, baronies, cities, towns, and castles of the Burgundian property, including, of course, the seventeen Netherlands.
In 1300, on the death of the king's childless cousin, Earl Edmund, the wealthy earldom of Cornwall escheated to the crown. To Edward's contemporaries the acquisition of the earldoms of Norfolk and Cornwall seemed worthy to be put alongside the conquests of Wales and Scotland. See John of London, Commendatio lamentabilis in Chron. of Edw. I. and Edw. II., ii., 8-9.
Godwin was an able man, and got several earldoms for his wife and relatives at a time when that was just what they needed. An earldom then was not a mere empty title with nothing in it but a blue sash and a scorbutic temperament, but it gave almost absolute authority over one or more shires, and was also a good piece of property. These historical facts took place in or about the year 1054 A.D.
Edward found an easier way of endowing his offspring by politic marriages that transferred to his sons the endowments and dignities of the great houses, which, in spite of lavish creations of new earldoms, were steadily dying out in the male line.
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