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Updated: June 6, 2025
It was while Godwine dwelt as an exile at Bruges, and Harold was planning schemes of vengeance in the friendly court of Dublin, that William the Bastard, afterwards known as William the Conqueror, paid his memorable visit to England, that visit which has already been referred to as a stage, and a most important one, among the immediate causes of the Norman Conquest.
"Aye, and will hold you blameless if she takes the ground before she is beached." Now there was no doubt that Godwine was used to command, and was confident in himself, for he made no more ado, but took charge, and bade Rani signal the rest to follow, while he went to the helm himself.
Then Godwine said: "You have had an ill time with Emma, as I think, if she is all that my father says." "Nay, Godwine," said Relf, "Redwald will not bear much of this. He is the queen's faithful servant, and will have nought against her, and he is right." "So he is, and I am wrong," said the lad at once. "Forgive me, friend; I did not think." Then I laughed, and turned it off.
Securing Romney and Dover, he marched by Canterbury upon London. Faction and intrigue were doing his work for him as he advanced; for Harold's brothers had fallen with the King on the field of Senlac, and there was none of the house of Godwine to contest the crown. Of the old royal line there remained but a single boy, Eadgar the Ætheling.
The bishop wept; the earl sprang to his feet, overthrew the table, leaped on his horse, and, with his sons, rode for his life all that night. In the morning the king held his witenagemot, and by a vote of the king and his whole army, Godwine and his sons were declared outlaws, but five days were allowed them to get out of the land.
Godwine was only too right, but I could not say so. Now, however, I may say that the memory of Emma the queen's ways is to me as a nightmare. "I would that I could meet with this Egil," Godwine said as I gave him sword Foe's Bane to handle; and then he forgot all else in the beauty of the weapon. "What have you done with the brave maiden?" Relf asked me now. "She is in the nunnery here," I said.
His son Swein secured an earldom in the south-west; his son Harold became earl of East-Anglia; his nephew Beorn was established in Central England: while the marriage of his daughter Eadgyth to the king himself gave Godwine a hold upon the throne. Policy led the earl, as it led his son, rather to aim at winning England itself than at breaking up England to win a mere fief in it.
Harold assuredly was not sent to announce to William a devise of the crown in his favour made with the consent of the Witan of England and confirmed by the oaths of Stigand, Godwine, Siward, and Leofric. Stigand became Archbishop in September 1052: Godwine died at Easter 1053.
With the gift of the Northumbrian earldom on Siward's death to his brother Tostig all England save a small part of the older Mercia lay in the hands of the house of Godwine, and as the waning health of the king, the death of his nephew, the son of Eadmund who had returned from Hungary as his heir, and the childhood of the Ætheling Eadgar who stood next in blood, removed obstacle after obstacle to his plans, Harold patiently but steadily moved forward to the throne.
That generous foe of mine, Egil if indeed I should not call him my friend, as he named me once had set two months as the time in which I must bide in peace, and I will not say that this space seemed likely to go over-heavily for me. We could hear little news except from such ships as put in from along the coast, and the first news that came was when Godwine returned from Bosham.
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