saw his mother or not; indeed some say that Emma was so much fonder of her children by Cnut than of her children by Æthelred that she herself had a hand in the bloody work that followed. It seems that Earl Godwine met the Ætheling at Guildford, with what object it is not easy to say. Soon after this the Ætheling was seized by Harold's servants, his companions were killed, tortured, or mutilated, and he himself was taken to Ely, where his eyes were put out, and he soon afterwards died. Now it is clear that some people at the time attributed all this cruelty to Godwine, and many later writers have charged him with it. But the evidence does not seem at all strong enough to convict him,1 and it is most unlikely that he should have had any hand in any such business. For Godwine was not the minister of Harold, but of Harthacnut; he had opposed Harold's election, and he had no motive to betray the Ætheling to him. It is far more likely that Harold's people were looking out, and that they seized Alfred without Godwine's having anything to do with the

matter.

The next year, 1037, men got quite tired of waiting for Harthacnut, so Harold was chosen full King over all England by the whole people. Emma was now driven out of the land. She was afraid to go back to Normandy, where things were just now in great confusion, as I shall tell you presently. So she went to live at Bruges in Flanders, where the Marquess Baldwin received her very kindly.

During the two next years nothing is mentioned except the succession of Bishops, and some fighting, as usual, with the Welsh.

In 1040 Harold died at Oxford, and was buried at Westminster; he was the first King who was buried there.

1 Godwine is charged with this crime in one version, but one only, of the Chronicles, and the story can hardly be reconciled with the history as given in the other versions. The Encomium Emme tells the tale much as I do.

$ 5. THE REIGN OF KING HARTHACNUT.

1040-1042.

When King Harold died, Harthacnut was at Bruges with his mother, having joined her there the year before. He was now chosen King, and messengers were sent to bring him over. So he came and became King over all England, but he reigned only two years, and did no good while he reigned. He brought with him sixty ships with Danish crews, and the first thing he did was to lay a heavy tax on the whole land to pay these Danes, much as we read of in times past. He then caused the body of the late King Harold to be dug up and thrown into a fen, and he sent Ælfric Archbishop of York, and Earl Godwine, and several other great men, to see this pleasant piece of work done. Elfric then accused Godwine and Lyfing Bishop of Worcester of having had a hand in the murder of Alfred the King's half-brother. Harthacnut was very wroth and took away Lyfing's Bishoprick, which he gave to Elfric to hold with his own Archbishoprick. Perhaps you will think that this does not say much for the worth of Ælfric's witness against Lyfing. As for Godwine, he made oath after the usual fashion that he had not done the crime with which he was charged, most of the Earls and Thanes of the land swearing with him. This is what is called compurgation. He had however to purchase the King's favour by giving him a splendid ship, manned by eighty picked men, all magnificently armed.

The tax had now to be levied, and the next thing was that Harthacnut in 1041 sent his housecarls through the land to gather it. I told you a little about the housecarls when I was speaking of the reign of Cnut. I will now tell you

a little more, as you will often hear of them again. They were the first soldiers that were regularly kept and paid in England. In old times, Kings and Aldermen had their own followers, and every man was bound to serve when he was wanted, but there was no standing army as there is now, no men who were soldiers as their regular calling, and who were always under

arms and always paid. Cnut was the first King to keep a force of this kind, which he made of picked men, Danes, Englishmen, and others. These housecarls were very good soldiers, and we shall afterwards see the use of having such a force, but they were not at all the right people to be taxgatherers. So at Worcester the people revolted and killed two of the housecarls who had taken refuge in the tower of the minster. Harthacnut was very wroth at this, and he sent all the great Earls, including the three famous ones, Godwine Earl of the West-Saxons, Leofric Earl of the Mercians, and Siward Earl of the Northumbrians, and bade them kill all the people of Worcester, burn the city, and ravage the country. I suspect that the Earls did not much like their errand, and that they let the people know what was coming; for hardly anybody was killed, the people all getting away into an island in the Severn, called Beverege, that is Beaverey or Beaver-Island.1 But the town was burned and so was the minster, and the country round about was harried. I do not know whether the King thought that Archbishop Ælfric, who was then Bishop of Worcester, had anything to do with the murder of his housecarls. At any rate he took away the Bishoprick from him, and gave it back again to the former Bishop Lyfing. Lyfing had also the Bishopricks of Devonshire and Cornwall, which in the time of the next King, Edward, were joined into the one Bishoprick of Exeter.

I suppose that the Lady Emma had come back again with her son Harthacnut in 1040. The King now sent over to Normandy for his half-brother Edward, who came and lived at his court.

The next year, 1042, King Harthacnut died on the 8th of June. He was at Lambeth, at the wedding-feast of Gytha the daughter of Osgod Clapa, a man of great power. She was married to Tofig the Proud, a Dane and the King's standard-bearer. This Tofig was the first founder of the church at Waltham, of which you

You see that there used to be beavers in England, though there are none now. Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote in the time of Henry the Second and his sons, says that there were none left in his time in any part of Britain, save only in the river Teifi in Cardiganshire.

will hear more. The King stood drinking, I suppose to the health of the new-married pair, when he suddenly fell down, and died. He was carried to Winchester and buried by the side of his father Cnut.

We have now done with the Danish Kings. If Cnut's sons had been like himself, his descendants might very likely have gone on reigning in England. But people were tired of Kings like Harold and Harthacnut, and they were determined to have again a King of their own people. So you will see that two more English Kings reigned before the coming of William the Conqueror and his Normans.

CHAPTER XI.

THE REIGN OF KING EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 1042-1066.

§ 1. FROM THE ELECTION OF KING EDWARD TO THE BANISHMENT OF EARL GODWINE.

1042-1051.

ALL folk, we now read, chose Edward to be King. This was Edward the son of Æthelred and Emma. He was in truth the only man of either the English or the Danish royal family who was at hand. We hear nothing of any children of either Harold or Harthacnut, and, if there were any, they must have been quite little ones. And the other Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, was away in Hungary. There seems to have been a Danish party in favour of Cnut's nephew Swegen Estrithson, the son of his sister Estrith and the Earl Ulf, but the English were determined to have a King of the old house, so they chose Edward at once at London, even before Harthacnut was buried. I am inclined to think, for one or two reasons, that Edward, though he was now living with his brother Harthacnut, was just at this moment in Normandy, on a visit to some of his friends there or on a pilgrimage to some Norman church. It is certain that his coronation happened at Easter the next year, when he was crowned at Winchester; and that, before that, there was another meeting at Gillingham in Dorsetshire, at which Edward was finally chosen. The chief leaders in this business were Earl Godwine and Bishop Lyfing. Godwine was a very eloquent speaker, and could win over everybody to his side. Still there were some people who opposed Edward's election and who were afterwards banished and otherwise punished. It was for this, I suppose, that Osgod