Note Eee. p. . The Exploits and Marriage of Godwine

I copy this tale from Henry of Huntingdon (M. H. B. 757 B) in the belief that, though its details are most likely mythical, Godwine really rose higher in Cnut’s favour through some conspicuous warlike exploit during Cnut’s visit to Denmark in 1019. The Biographer of Eadward (392) distinctly asserts as much, and he makes both Godwine’s marriage with Gytha and his promotion to the West-Saxon earldom to be the rewards of the qualities which he showed on this journey. Cnut goes to Denmark to subdue certain rebels; “absenti enim rebellare paraverant collo effreni ejus abjicientes potentiam.” This may refer either to disturbances in Denmark itself, of which we get some slight hints elsewhere (see Note GGG, and above, p. ), or to revolts on the parts of subject nations. Godwine goes with him—“adhæsit comes individuus per omnem viam.” Cnut remarks Godwine’s great qualities, not only his eloquence (“quam profundus eloquio”) but his military capacity; “Hic ejus prudentiam, hic laborum constantiam, hic virtutis militiam, hic attentius expertus est idem rex tanti principis valentiam.” He feels that such a man will be most useful to him in the government of his newly won kingdom of England. He therefore admits him to his most secret counsels and gives him his sister in marriage (“ponit eum sibi a secretis, dans illi in conjugem sororem suam”), and on his return to England he gives him the great promotion of which I have spoken in an earlier Note (see above, p. ). If then Henry of Huntingdon’s tale of Godwine’s Northern exploit be historical, it must belong to this year, and it seems quite to fall in with the brief hints of the Biographer. He places it in the year 1019; “Tertio anno regni sui ivit in Daciam, ducens exercitum Anglorum et Dacorum in Wandalos.” He then tells the story, and adds, “Quamobrem summo honore deinceps Anglos habuit nec minori quam Dacos.” William of Malmesbury, however (ii. 181), transfers the story to the Swedish war of 1025, waged against Ulf and Eglaf. Cnut wins a victory mainly through the valour of Godwine and the English; “Promptissimis in ea pugna Anglis, hortante Godwino comite ut, pristinæ gloriæ memores, robur suum oculis novi domini assererent.” No details are given; but the English by their valour win fame for themselves and an earldom for their captain; “Angli ... victoriam consummantes comitatum duci, sibi laudem pararunt.” Roger of Wendover (i. 466) also transfers the story to the Swedish war. He tells the tale much as it is told in Henry of Huntingdon, adding, that Godwine took Ulf and Eglaf prisoners. He says nothing about any special reward to Godwine, but of the English in general he says, “ob hanc caussam Cnuto deinceps Anglos summo honore venerans, cum læta victoria ad Angliam navigavit.” But this version is clearly wrong, for in the Swedish war of 1025 Cnut was defeated (see p. , and Note MMM); but William of Malmesbury’s statement, that Godwine, already an Earl, received an earldom as the reward of his conduct in this war, is evidently the true version of Godwine’s appointment to the West-Saxon earldom moved to a wrong year.

The Biographer, as we have seen, distinctly makes Godwine’s marriage as well as his promotion to be part of his reward for his exploits in 1019. He marries him to a sister of Cnut himself, but most of the other authorities make Godwine’s wife Gytha to be the sister of Ulf and daughter of Thorgils Sprakaleg—the same epithet as the Homeric πόδας ὠκύς. So Florence (1049), Adam of Bremen (ii. 52—“dedit ejus Wolf sororem copulatam altero duci Guduino”), and Snorro (Laing, ii. 252). The Knytlinga Saga also (c. 11; Johnstone, 133), as we have seen (see above, p. ), marries Godwine to Ulf’s sister, but seemingly at an earlier time. The words of Saxo (196) are not very clear; “Benevolentiam enim quam Canutus perfidis Ulvonis meritis denegavit, consanguineæ sibi prolis respectui tribuendam putavit. Quinetiam sororem Anglorum satrapæ Godewino nuptiis junxit, gentem genti animis atque affinitate conserere cupiens.” I used to think that this meant that Cnut gave Godwine Ulf’s sister, but it now strikes me that it rather means Cnut’s own sister. The marriage or alleged marriage of Godwine with the sister of Cnut forms the subject of a legend which is found in more than one English writer. Its fullest form is to be found in Walter Map (207). In this version, as soon as Eadmund’s servant (see above, pp. , 741) had announced the murder of his master to Cnut and had received his fitting reward, Cnut and his Danes are guilty of all kinds of oppressions and outrages in England. Godwine, having failed to persuade Cnut to act otherwise, revolts against him (“quod Godwinus Chnuto cum multis afferens lacrimis, ad nullam exauditus est populi sui liberationem, et factus est pietate suorum impius et immitis regis Dacorum hostis, restititque regiæ potestati viriliter, et in plurimis eum ipsi dicunt prævaluisse congressibus, pacem semper Anglicis et libertatem exorans”). Cnut, unable to overcome Godwine, makes a feigned reconciliation with him (“facti sunt amici superficie tenus, et libertas Angliæ restituta”). Cnut still goes on laying various plots against Godwine, and at last tells him that he wishes to send him into Denmark to settle things there. As his credentials, the King will give him a letter to his sister, who will presently call together the chief men of Denmark to receive Godwine’s commands. When he is going to sail, his chaplain Brand (“consilio Brandi capellani sui, quem optimum sciebat in subtilibus artificem”)—can this be meant for the Brand who was chosen Abbot of Peterborough late in 1066? (see vol. iii. p. ; v. p. )—counsels him to open the letter; he does so, and finds that it contains an order for the Danes to put him to death (“non enim sum ipso superstite rex unicus Anglorum et Daciæ”). One expression in the alleged letter is singular (“quod comes Godwinus ... extorsit a me tam dolose quam violenter Daciæ regimen per triennium”). Godwine of course substitutes a forged letter, in which he is invested with the regency of Denmark and is promised the King’s sister in marriage. The description which Godwine is made to give of himself is strange enough. He is “Eboracensium comes, dominusque Lincolniæ, Notingam, Leicestriæ, Cestriæ, Huntendunæ, Northamtunæ, Gloucestriæ, quique nobis diu restitit Herefordiæ.” That is to say, Godwine is described as Earl of exactly those parts of England of which he never was Earl; things are turned about in much the same way as they are turned about by the same writer in his account of the division of the kingdom between Cnut and Eadmund (see above, p. ). Yet the imaginary warfare of Godwine after the death of Eadmund may well be a confused remembrance of real warfare before the death of Eadmund, and one would like to know something about the alleged resistance of Hereford to Cnut, a point on which Walter Map might certainly preserve a genuine tradition. The story here breaks off; but in the romantic Life of Harold (Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, 153, 154) the tale goes on to its natural end. The letter is opened, and another is put in its place, by which the Danes are ordered to receive Godwine as regent, and to give him the King’s sister in marriage. All this is accordingly done, and Cnut then puts the best face upon the matter; he receives Godwine as a brother and gives him the rank of “consul” or Earl. The same story is alluded to in the Chronicle of Ralph the Black (160), who in his account of Godwine (see above, p. ) tells us how “in Daciam cum breve regis transmissus callide duxit sororem Cnutonis.” The same story is told by Saxo (194) of the way in which Ulf obtained his own wife Estrith. We can further compare the stories of Bellerophontês, Uriah—an analogy which does not fail to present itself to the mind of Harold’s biographer—the messenger of Pausanias in Thucydides (i. 132), and the letter given by King Philip of Swabia to Otto of Wittelsbach, Chronicon Slavorum, vii. 14.

In weighing these counter-statements, there is no doubt that, for anything personal to Godwine, the Biographer’s authority is the highest of any. But his authority will hardly bear up against so many opposite witnesses, especially against the distinct, though implied, statement of Florence (1049). Earl Swegen is there described as “Godwini comitis et Gythæ filius,” and directly afterwards we read of “Beorn comes, filius avunculi sui Danici comitis Ulfi ... ac frater Suani Danorum regis.” Florence himself indeed goes wrong when in a later passage (1067, and again in the Genealogia, vol. i. p. ) he calls Gytha “soror Suani regis Danorum;” but this is a slip between Swegen Estrithson’s aunt and his sister, and in no way brings Gytha nearer to Cnut. If Gytha had really been Cnut’s sister, it is inconceivable that any one would have turned her, especially in the elaborate and formal way in which it is done by Florence and Adam, into a sister of Ulf. But a sister of the King’s brother-in-law might be much more easily mistaken for the King’s own sister; perhaps she might be laxly called so. But in any case I accept the statements as to the parentage of Godwine’s wife as alternative statements, and I do not admit that Godwine married twice. It seems to me that, when Ulf’s sister had been mistaken for Cnut’s sister, and when two statements had thus arisen about her, the next stage was to cut her into two separate women. Thus William of Malmesbury (ii. 200) marries Godwine, first to a sister of Cnut, who bears one nameless son, and then to a nameless woman, who was the mother of his historical children. This is clearly an attempt to reconcile the statement that Godwine married Cnut’s sister with the fact that Godwine’s children are never spoken of as in any way of kin to Cnut. William’s account of Godwine’s first wife is an excellent specimen of Norman calumny. She gets great wealth by selling English slaves, especially beautiful girls, into Denmark. Her son, while still a boy, is drowned in the Thames, being carried into the stream by a horse given him by his grandfather—Swegen, Wulfnoth, or whom?—and she herself is killed by lightning for her misdeeds. Mr. Thorpe (Diplomatarium, 312) seemingly accepts this tale, as he takes the marriage settlement of a certain Godwine (Cod. Dipl. iv. 10), containing the names of three other Godwines, all alike unknown, to be a record of the imaginary second marriage of the great Earl. Bromton (934) and Knighton (2333) tell William’s story with improvements, making, with a fine perception of dates and ages, Godwine’s first wife to be a daughter of Cnut by Ælfgifu of Northampton. See above, p. .

I have no doubt that Godwine had but one wife, Gytha, daughter of Thorgils, sister of Ulf, and aunt of Swegen Estrithson, and that all his sons and daughters were her children.