Battle of Hastings, The Read Online Free PDF Page B

behind Robert’s
pallium, the symbol of his position as archbishop, in their hurry. Stigand, acting once again as intermediary, arranged the audience with the king, where Godwin and Harold, fully armed, threw
themselves at his feet, casting aside their weapons, and asked for leave to clear themselves. Edward, in no position to refuse, listened to Godwin’s case, gave him the kiss of peace and
restored to him and his sons (with the exception of Sweyn, whose murder of his cousin Bjorn and abduction and rape of the abbess of Leominster had sent him on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the course
of which he died) the earldoms that had been forfeited. His short bid for independence from the Godwins was over. The queen returned from Wilton to which she seems to have been moved from Wherwell
and resumed her usual place at the king’s side. Stigand’s diplomatic efforts were rewarded with Robert’s archbishopric of Canterbury, which he continued to hold in plurality with
his bishopric of Winchester; this caused great offence in Rome, not so much because Stigand retained Winchester (holding appointments in plurality was deplored but hardly unusual in the eleventh
century), but because Robert had been uncanonically superseded. The offence was compounded by the fact that Stigand economically kept Robert’s pallium for his own use.
    The king did not have to maintain his appearance of friendship with Godwin for very long. Godwin died in 1053, felled by a stroke at the king’s Easter feast. He was succeeded as Earl of
Wessex by his son Harold who thus became the richest and most powerful man in the kingdom. On the death of Siward in 1055, Tostig, Harold’s next brother, received his earldom of Northumbria;
Mercia passed to Ælfgar, Leofric’s son, on hisfather’s death in 1057; and Gyrth, Godwin’s fourth son, succeeded to East Anglia, which had been held
successively by Harold and Ælfgar. The possessions of the Godwin family, added together, dwarfed the king’s. On the other hand, Harold’s relationship with the king was much easier
than his father’s had been, and it seems clear that Edward gradually came to rely on his strength and ability more and more, to the extent that he is described in the Chronicles as subregulus, under-king. Edward’s relations with Tostig seem to have been even warmer. But there was still no heir, and it was clearly unlikely that Edward and Edith would have a child,
still less that he would have reached an age to be able to rule by the time his father died. It may have been the urging of his councillors that persuaded Edward to look elsewhere for a successor,
and remember that his half-brother, King Edmund Ironside, had left sons. One of them, Edward the Atheling or Exile, was still living at the court of Hungary, and steps were taken to fetch him home
to England as heir-apparent.
    There were diplomatic problems over this, caused by wars between Flanders, the German emperor and Hungary. Bishop Ealdred of Worcester was sent with a mission to Cologne in 1054 to seek the help
of Emperor Henry III of Germany in contacting the King of Hungary and negotiating for the return of the Atheling. But the diplomatic relations between Germany and Hungary were strained at this
time, and, after waiting for a year, Ealdred was obliged to come home without success. The death of Henry III in 1056 made it possible for a second attempt to be made, and it may well have been
Earl Harold who made it; his name as witness to a Flemish diploma issued by his brother-in-law, the Count of Flanders on 13 November 1056 is suggestive. The count himself travelled on to Cologne
and Regensberg where he spent Christmas; if Harold went with him, it would not havebeen difficult to contact the Hungarian court from Regensburg. There is no proof that he
did so, other than an indication in the Vita Ædwardi that Harold had been travelling on the Continent at about this time, and the fact of his witnessing of the Flemish