551. The Road to 1066: Countdown to Conquest (Part 4)

0:10Harold, eldest in birth as in wisdom, was by the king's favour appointed to the earldom in his father's place. In the strength of his body and mind, he stood forth among the people as a second Judas Maccabeus, a true friend of his people and his country. He wielded his father's powers even more actively and walked in his ways, that is, in patience and mercy and with kindness to men of goodwill. But disturbers of the peace, thieves and robbers, this champion of the law, threatened with the terrible face of a lion. Well-practiced he was in endless fatigues and doing without sleep and food, and endowed with mildness of temper and a more ready understanding.

0:59He could bear contradiction well, not readily revealing or retaliating, never, I think, on a fellow citizen or compatriot. Indeed, the fault of rashness or levity is not one that anybody could charge against him. So Tom Holland, the name of this paragon, this patriotic icon, Dominic Sandbrook, this hero, this enduring hero of the English people, a man worthy to stand as England's last true born king. it is of course Harold Godwinson Earl of Wessex the man who falls at the Battle of Hastings and last time we were talking about Duke William of Normandy the villain of this story and today we're on somebody who I've always held a candle for held a candle for exactly exactly do you see yourself reflected in his character and his prowess the terrible face of a lion endowed with mildness of temper and a ready understanding he could bear contradiction well I mean, it's all adding up.

2:04It's all there, isn't it? Yeah, it's uncanny. It's uncanny. So this is actually from a biography of Edward the Confessor, not of Harold. That's right. So Harold is a supporting character in this book. Yes. A lot of what we know about the reign of Edward, who was crowned at the end of the last episode and goes on to be called the Confessor, not because he's rushing around confessing to things all the time, which is what people often think. It's because there are multiple Edwards and people haven't yet worked out that you could call them the first, the second, the third or anything like that. I think this is a much better way of doing it.

2:36I agree. So Alfred the Great Son was called Edward. So he's Edward the Elder. And then we had Edward the Martyr. Yeah. And Edward the Confessor is someone who is a saint, but hasn't been martyred, basically. Right. Or that bloke, Harold Harefoot. I mean, if you make up a nickname later, if necessary. Yes. Brilliant. But that passage that you read comes from a life of Edward the Confessor. Yeah. Probably written in the immediate aftermath of his death, early in 1066. and almost certainly commissioned by his queen, who is a woman called Edith, and who just happens to be the sister of Harold. So you can see that this is certain.

3:13I think these are pretty objective people, to be fair. Yes. Well, you say that, except that Harold is not the only member of his family to be praised in the life of King Edward, because there is also his younger brother, Tostig Godwinson. And Tostig, like Harold, is an earl, and he's described in the life of King Edward as a man endowed with very great and prudent restraint, although occasionally he was a little overzealous in attacking evil and with bold and inflexible constancy of mind. And we will see in due course today whether that is a fair description or not. So we're talking today about this family, the Godwinsons, who we left out of the previous episodes because we wanted to do them all today.

3:56And they're obviously massive players in the story of 1066 because we've already had three members of the family. We've had Harold, we've had Tostig, and we have had Edith. And behind them, hence the name Godwinson, is this bloke, Godwin, who is not massively well-known, I would say, in English history today, but is a titanic figure in English history in the 11th century. So tell us a bit about Godwin and why his name carries such significance to people in the 11th century. Well, he is an astonishing example of social mobility. And he's a classic example of how in periods of chaos and change and disaster for lots of people, some can find opportunity.

4:40And so to look at how he emerges to this astonishing position of predominance in England, we need to go back to 1016, the conquest of England by Canute and the Danes. And the consequence of Canute's triumph is not just the toppling of the Kurdik ingas, the traditional ruling West Saxon dynasty, but also the replacement of large numbers of English eldermen, the guys who are in charge of the kind of the various counties and regions in England, by Danish jarls or earls as they come to be anglicised. But there is one Englishman who is appointed to a position of high rank by Canute early in his reign.

5:24And I'm quoting here from the life of King Edward, a man judged by the king, most cautious in council and active in war. And this is Godwin, who is simply an obscure thane from Sussex. He has no real pedigree at all. And in fact, his father had been arraigned by Æthelred on a charge we're not sure exactly what. And he's very cross about this. and he commandeers 20 ships from Ethered's fleet. And basically he kind of turns Viking. He goes off kind of raiding the south coast of England. And it may be that this is how Godwin meets Canute, that because he's essentially turned Viking, maybe he meets the real Vikings.

6:02Maybe Canute recognises a kindred spirit. But certainly once Canute has become king, Godwin's rise is astonishingly rapid. So in 1020, Canute, who up until that point had been serving as Earl of Wessex himself. You know, he's got a large empire to rule. So he doesn't really want to shoulder that burden. So he gives it to Godwin, who becomes Earl of Wessex. Also, he marries him to his own sister-in-law, a Danish woman called Gither. And in consequence of that, you called Harold the last true-born king of England. But I mean, he is half Danish. Right. As is Tostig, as is Edith. so we think of them as the embodiments of Anglo-Saxon England I guess because they're ruling and living in the twilight of Anglo-Saxon England but they are also evidence of the way in which England is a an inextricable part of the Danish world as well so in that sense they I guess they are really good embodiments of Anglo-Saxon England because of course for centuries Anglo-Saxon England has had a huge Danish component to it hence the place names and the you know the people's personal names and the Thor's hammers and all of those kinds of things so just on Godwin you could say about Godwin yes he's a symbol of upward mobility he's also a symbol of collaboration with an occupier yes and it works for him because by the time Canute dies in 1035 he is indisputably the most powerful magnate in the kingdom yeah I mean he is a figure whose support is key for anyone who wants to rule as king.

7:37And it is evidence of these powers of resourcefulness, of prudence, of opportunism, of charm that the life of King Edward alludes to. And this is essentially his own daughter praising him. But clearly the proof of these qualities is the fact that he's able to survive the shipwreck of Aethelred's fortunes, profit from them and then survive this kind of seesaw chain of succession with Canute, his two sons, and then Edward. So Godwin shows an unbelievable talent for swimming with the tide. So first of all, he backs Emma and half a Canute in the wake of Canute's death. Then when it's clear that Harold Harefoot is going to be king, he switches sides.

8:22When Alfred, Emma's son by Aethelred, lands, and people who listened to our previous episode will remember that Alfred gets seized along with his retinue they all get kind of scalped blinded chained up whatever and alfred himself is blinded and dies of his wounds the guy who is responsible for this is godwin right it is godwin who supervises essentially the kind of the slaughter of alfred and his retinue and supervises the guy who is the brother of edward who is going to become king his blinding in ely and then when Harthacnut becomes king, Godwin very smoothly moves back to serving him. But his most startling switchback is still to come because it is Godwin who plays the leading role in finessing the restoration of the original West Saxon ruling line to the English throne in the form of Edward the Confessor.

9:20And just to reiterate, it's startling, partly because Godwin has inherited this grudge from his father against Æthelred. Yeah. Well, obviously, because his entire status as the most powerful magnate in England entirely derives from Danish rule and from the fact that Æthelred's family have been expelled. And above all, I guess, because he's the guy who blinded and essentially killed Edward's brother. But maybe there's an explanation for this, which is that Edward, as we will discuss, has been in Normandy for the great majority of his adult life. So he doesn't have the affinity, the connections, the networks in England.

10:02Whereas Godwin, he may hate Godwin and he may think, you know, I think it's completely reasonable that you might have a grudge against somebody who'd bided and mutilated your brother. But Godwin does have all the patronage networks, all the connections, and it's presumably hard to do without him. Yeah, so it requires both of them to play politics. You know, it's a bit like, I suppose, Starmer bending the knee to Trump, even though he obviously hates him. You know, sometimes you have to do stuff to get on in geopolitics. And this is kind of what's happening. Because they both have every reason for arriving at an accommodation, because both depend on the other.

10:37So when Edward becomes king, Godwin is highly respectful. He gives him an absolutely magnificent warship, which is all ornamented with gold. and it has a kind of crew of 80 warriors who are all wearing gilded armour. And in turn, Edward confirms Godwin in his rank as Earl of Wessex, which of course is what Godwin wants. And more than that, he promotes Godwin's sons. So Harold, for instance, even though he's only just 20 by this point, he becomes the Earl of East Anglia, which is a hugely powerful position. And it means that Godwin and his sons are ruling a large swathe of England, albeit under the headship of Edward.

11:22But there's a sense in which that's quite a nominal headship, because as you pointed out, Edward doesn't really have the contacts and the affinities that a king who had grown up in England would automatically have had. He seems almost like a foreigner, I think. But obviously the biggest symbol of this is who Edward marries, because when he arrives, he needs a wife. And January 1043, he gets married. And three months later, his wife is crowned queen. And the identity of this woman is Godwin's daughter, Edith. I mean, you could hardly have a more powerful, you know, physical, visual symbol of the reconciliation of the two men.

12:01Right. And for Godwin, it means that should Edith bear Edward's sons, then there's every chance that his grandson will be king of England. So, I mean, it's an incredible prize. Now, Edith herself is a very, very impressive woman. So I'm delighted to say that she was educated at Wilton, the great nunnery there. So she's not being ready to be a nun. It's more like a kind of very expensive boarding school. She's very learned in music, in mathematics, in astronomy. She's supposed to have spoken five languages. So her native English, Danish, it got from her mother, Latin, French, and brilliantly Irish.

12:37She's very skilled at embroidery. And she is described admittedly by this life of King Edward that she herself has sponsored as being ineffably beautiful. I'm sure she was. so anyway i i was kind of reading the life of king edward when we got our little kittens that would grow up to become tostig and edith and i called our our girl cat edith because i was reading about this so she's ineffably beautiful and there's this wonderful description of her edith gem like on the kingdom's breast all virtues friend so that's how i like to think of my cat but no harold tom that's no so so we did have a harold as well but he ran away oh yeah really sad So he got lost.

13:15Right. So we just have Tostig and Edith. Okay. I think that it does Edith, my cat, great credit to have been named after this remarkable queen. She's very, very formidable. And on royal charters, the moment that she has been crowned, she is appearing kind of second to Edward himself. And I guess for the people of England, her presence beside Edward on his throne is a kind of moving symbol of this reconciliation between King and the great magnate who had put all England in his shadow, undertaken for the good of the English people and well befitting a Christian king with the care of his people uppermost in his mind.

13:57Right. But there is a cloud, right? There is one issue, which is there's one thing anybody who's ever heard of Henry VIII knows there is one thing a king has to do. And Edward does not do it because they don't have any children. Right. And the years go by. So four, five, six years. And still, Edith hasn't given Edward an heir. It's harsh to blame it on Edith, Tom. I mean. Well, it might be Edward's fault. It might be Edith's. The truth is that this is a marriage that has prompted enormous speculation. And I guess that there are probably two principal theories as to why Edith does not give Edward a son.

14:37And the first of these, which is first mentioned by an English historian writing at Malmesbury called William, William of Malmesbury. I mean, he's very much, I think, like you in your children's book mode. He loves the story. And, you know, if there's a kind of entertaining perspective to adopt, he will absolutely adopt it. Oh, thanks, Tom. That's kind. And he's very patriotic. So the kind of, yeah, the Dominic Sandbrook of the 12th century. So William of Malmesbury's theory is that Edward is consumed with such hatred and resentment of Godwin that he can't bear to sleep with Godwin's daughter, that Edith may be ineffably beautiful and brilliant at speaking Irish and embroidery and stuff, but he doesn't care.

15:18He doesn't want to have anything to do with her. Can't bear to be touched by her. Don't believe it. I just don't believe that story. I think if she's that beautiful, you'd overlook your animus against the father. In fact, the animus against the father might be an incentive. Well, possible support for this theory has been adduced in the life of King Edward, where it says that Edward has consecrated himself to chastity. Okay. So maybe that's Edith's way of saying, well, you know, there were slight problems. But I think there's another reason for that that we'll come to in due course. And I would also just throw in here the opinion of Pauline Stafford, who is the great expert on 11th century English queens.

15:56And she says it is futile to speculate on the sex lives, sex drives or sexuality of 11th century kings from such sparse and partial evidence. Tom, if we if we adopted that attitude, I mean, our podcast would be about 20 minutes shorter by and large. I'm not sure that's true. I think we've repeatedly said that we can't impose kind of 21st century standards of sexual psychology. We have. We try not to. We normally say that after we've spent the previous eight minutes. I agree. I agree. Entertainingly speculating. Which is what we've just done. Yeah, exactly. But I don't think that that is the key to it.

16:30So the other possibility, of course, is that Edith or Edward can't have children. That seems to me a much more plausible explanation. I mean, Edward would want to father children. He would want to propagate his line. And I think the evidence for this is that by the end of 1050, so that's, you know, five years after his marriage to Edith, it's clear that he is manoeuvring to divorce her and by implication, remarry. Right. And I think the consequence of this is the first great crisis in English history precipitated by a king's desire to get a new wife. So you alluded to Henry VIII. This is, you know, this is where that trend all kicks off.

17:08So to pursue that thread, the issue for Henry VIII, of course, was that he was setting himself against the king of Spain, the pope and so on and so forth. the issue for Edward is that he is setting himself against, in the short term, a more dangerous opponent because that, of course, is Godwin, the most powerful person in the kingdom. So, well, he does have allies, doesn't he? I mean, that's one thing we should say because there are other magnates who don't like Godwin. Yeah, so there are two in particular. There's the Earl of Northumberland, which by this point is a Dane called Seward. And people who've read or watched Macbeth may remember that he features in that.

17:44Historically, Seward launches two invasions of Scotland against Macbeth, and Edward really trusts him. The other is a guy called Leofric, and he is the Earl of Mercia. And he, again, is one of the kind of English nobles who has profited from the Danish invasion. It's possible that Alf Giffu, who is Canute's first wife, the mother of Harold Harefoot, that she may have been related to him. Well, that would make sense because he'd backed Harefoot, hadn't he, in the succession crisis. Yes. So this is why Leofric is where he is as Earl of Mercia. And he is probably best known in English folklore as the husband of a woman called Gogifu, which comes to be Godiva, as in Lady Godiva, who rides naked through the streets of Coventry.

18:30Yeah. Best thing that's ever happened in Coventry. And it's interesting because Leofric in that is cast as a man who is exacting too many taxes. And it's a reminder again of the fact that in the 11th century, the English are the most heavily taxed people in Western Europe. Right. So it's all about the ability of earls to extract money from people. And then what about the Normans? Because Edward, of course, has spent so many years in Normandy and he brings some Normans with him when he comes, doesn't he? He does. Yes, he does. And we talked yesterday about how in France there is this brewing military revolution of which the most prominent symbol is the castle.

19:04And actually there are Normans who are given lands in England and who build castles. So one of them is a brother-in-law of Edward. He's called Ralph and he has the brilliant supriché of the Timid, which I think is what I would have if I was a Norman lord. And he becomes the Earl of Herefordshire and he builds a castle there. There is also an abbot from a place called Jumiege. He's called Robert and he is appointed by Edward Bishop of London and then in 1051, Archbishop of Canterbury. So to some degree, the Norman, I mean, people will say, what if the Norman conquest never happened? But the integration of the English and the Norman worlds has already started long before 1066.

19:42Well, it goes all the way back to Emma marrying Æthelred. I mean, it's been an ongoing process, but Godwin certainly doesn't like it. And particularly the appointment of Robert of Jumie as Archbishop of Canterbury. He's furious about this because he'd wanted one of his own placemen to get the job. And it precipitates a rapid meltdown in relations between Edward and Godwin. And I think the pace of the meltdown is reflective of the fact that Edward is starting to angle now to try and get rid of Edith because he wants children. But it's certainly not helped by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, who is openly and repeatedly snubbing Godwin.

20:20And also lots of the Normans who have come over to London or, you know, maybe heading back to Normandy or whatever, are disrespecting Godwin quite seriously. Almost as though they're being prompted to perhaps by the king. I mean, we don't know. That might be a conspiracy through too far. But there's a notorious occasion in August 1051 where there's a massive fracas in Dover when a Norman nobleman in his retinue are supposedly attacked. And Edward is furious about this. And he orders Godwin to go and ravage Dover as a punishment. Right. You know, this is a traditional form of English justice. We talked about how Edgar was always ravaging places that annoyed him.

20:57Yeah, hence his nickname, The Peaceable. Exactly. And Godwin refuses. These are his people. He is the Earl of essentially of Southern England. He doesn't want to have to do that. He's put in a completely invidious position. And you can't help thinking that it's a deliberate maneuver on the part of Edwards to force Godwin into a corner. And the consequence of this is that by September 1051, Godwin and his sons are starting to raise their levies. They're preparing for war. And Edward then summons Seward and Leofric, the earls of Northumberland and Mercia, to raise their levies and come to his defense.

21:30And these two great armies confront each other. You know, they're lined up, but then they hesitate. And the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle explains why. Some of them considered that it would be great folly if they joined battle. Almost all the noblest in England were present in those two companies. And they were convinced that they would be leaving the country open to the invasion of our enemies and be bringing utter ruin upon themselves. Isn't that interesting that they're already anticipating the possibility that, you know, neighbouring predators might make a move? But I mean, think about it. These are all people who've lived through the Danish conquest.

22:05I mean, I'm sure they're thinking of the Vikings rather than the Normans. But I mean, you know, they they know that that a house divided is is I mean, it's not a good place to be. So negotiations are opened and it's agreed that Godwin will come to London in a fortnight's time after this meeting. And he will, you know, he will be put in trial. And Godwin agrees and he's planning to go to London with his army. But his levies start to melt away. And even before the two weeks are up, he realizes that, you know, he's finished. And so he takes horse, takes ship, heads off to Flanders. And his wife and sons also flee.

22:44So Harold flees to Ireland. The only significant figure of the Godwin family who is left is Edith, Edward's queen. And she is immediately packed off to a nunnery. Edith will say that it was Wilton and will imply that it was a kind of a rather pleasant retirement. But probably she is sent off to another nunnery, which effectively serves as a prison. So shades of the Merovingians, which we talked about in the Franks. Right, so here we are in the end of 1051 The Godwins, it looks like they're out, they're down But I guess the issue for Edward now is that by kicking out the Godwins He has thrown his lot in completely with Seward and Leofric And he's in their power to some extent, isn't he?

23:26I mean basically because there is now no counterbalance to them Yes, and so it's not surprising that they are confirmed in more grants of land Harold has been the Earl of East Anglia, there's now a vacancy so Leofric's son Alfgar he gets that job so clearly you know jobs for the boys I mean that's part of the deal but Edward does have other allies beyond England because of course he has all these contacts in Normandy and it is now in the wake of Godwin's flight that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports a key development and it's a sentence that has been you know so discussed and I'll read it Then came Duke William from beyond the sea with a great retinue of Frenchmen, and the king received him and as many of his companions as it pleased him.

24:17What does receive mean? I think it means slightly more than just, you know, oh, come in and have a drink. It's more kind of William is almost becoming his vassal. He's offering him kind of pledges of support in a way that affirms Edward's rank as king. But the question then is, well, what has Edward given William in return? And the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle doesn't say, no English source says, but Norman sources insist that what Edward has done is to promise William the crown, should Edward not have sons. So in the words of David Douglas, who's the author of the definitive recent biography of William, There can be no reasonable doubt that before the end of 1051, he had nominated William of Normandy as his heir.

25:05But some historians do doubt it, though, don't they? I mean, some historians are like, well, we cannot be certain what the arrangement was. And it may have been much less, you know, he may have made noises, but not been definitive. I mean, the fact that it's so vague in the sources. Well, I think that Edward, for as long as he is childless, uses the possibility that he could nominate someone as king as a kind of bargaining chip. In a way, it's almost the strongest card he has to play. And I'm fairly sure he does suggest this to William. but of course one of the reasons why he does it is that he is kind of you know he's looking to get a new wife he's looking to have a son and if he has a son then you know no problem William won't become king but the problem is of course that you know he doesn't yet have a wife or a son in place and you could imagine that if Edward had you know had not had a son and if this agreement on Edward's part that William became king in his succession had gone through you could imagine quite a peaceable process of succession that William might well have become king.

26:15And the whole process would have been a lot less brutal. But the thing is that all of this is dependent on Godwin and his family remaining safely in exile. And I guess that if there is a theme of this series, it's the fact that people who are driven into exile always come back. They always come back. Well, I mean, all of the people, almost all the people we talk about spend time in exile, don't they? And make astonishing comebacks. Astonishing comebacks. And this is what happens in August 1052. So the year after Godwin's flight, Godwin has not been twiddling his thumbs. He has been recruiting an enormous fleet.

26:49He's been raising an army. And in the summer of 1052, he sails from Flanders with his fleet. Harold, meanwhile, has been raising a fleet in Ireland. The two of them meet on the south coast of England and they start kind of ravaging the south coast. and Edward is thrown into a panic. He doesn't have the levies to hand or indeed the fleet because he's actually cut back on the taxes that would have kept the fleet going. Very, very foolish move. And so he's a bit stuck. And 14th of September, the Godwins sail up the Thames in triumph and they dock at the south end of London Bridge, so in Southwark.

27:29London is held against them. It's got the great Roman walls. And Edward thinks, well, I can defy them. But the mass of people, not just in London, but across England, you know, they say it's not worth fighting over. And also there's quite a lot of resentment of the rumours that Edward has nominated William of Normandy. He's there. People don't like the Normans. They think we'd rather have Godwin than a load of foreigners. Right. And so Edward ultimately finds himself with no choice but to welcome the Godwins back. And Godwin plays it very cool. You know, he doesn't humiliate the king. He kneels before him.

28:05He begs his royal forgiveness. He insists that he'd been misrepresented and is innocent of all the charges against him. And Edward has no choice but to accept this. And both Godwin and Harold are restored to their respective earldoms. And Edith returns in triumph from her exile and imprisonment in her nunnery back to her husband's side. There she is, an anointed queen by the side of her husband, the anointed king. And clearly this means that there is now no more talk of divorce, which in turn probably means that there is no more prospect of Edward having an heir. And the life of King Edward, I mean, it celebrates this in delighted tones.