Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/285

 ox THE LIFE AND DEATH OF EAKL GODWIXE. 249 also her offspring. All who mention her parentage represent her as being of Danish origin ; only Florence and Simeon in one place call her the sister"" of Svend Estrithson ; Saxo and the Knytlinga Saga, and Florence himself in another place, call her the sister of Svend's father Ulf. None of these writers had any occasion to allude to any earlier wife of Godwine. Malmesbury alone, while attributing Godwine's historical children to a second nameless mother, marries him first of all to a sister of Cnut.*^ In the later writers we find this sister (or daughter) of Cnut called Thyra, and some of the children attributed to her. T/icir confusions and contradictions I need not stay to examine further than to point out one monstrous absurdity. Some of those who marry Godwine to Cnut's daughter, make her the child of ^Ifwyii or iElfgyfu, the mother of Harold the First ; but Polydore Vergil and Holinshed distinctly say that Godwine's daughter Eadg^' th was the child of a " sister of Harthacnut." Now to speak pointedly of a "sister of Harthacnut," rather than of a " daughter of Cnut the Great," can only mean that the person in question was a daughter of Cnut and Emma. Such an one would, like the Empress Gunhild, have been half-sister to Eadward, and consequently her daughter would have been Eadward's niece. We may, I think, unhesitatingly assert that all Godwine's historical children were born of a Danish wife, Gytha, dauo-hter of Thorgils Sprakalegg, sister of Godwine «/ ' O o 1 o^^ _ married but Ulf, the husband of Cnut's sister Estrith, and once, to oytha. aunt of King Svend Estrithson. The only question is, whether we are, on the authority of Malmesbur}'', to suppose that Gytha was his second wife, having for her predecessor a sister of King Cnut himself I must confess that I doubt it. Malmesbury 's story has a m^'^thical air about it, and the accusations against Godwine's wife are just of a piece with the ordinary Norman fables about himself and his ^ M. de Bonnechose (ii. 81) repeats derous gossip of the Normans exhibits this error, as Sir Henry EUis had done itself most glaringly in representing Harold before him (Introd. to Domesday Book, and his brothers, not as the sons of Gytha ii. 117), where he quotes an account of (whom they erroneously represent to the gifts of Gytha to the church of Win- have been the sister of Cnut), but of a Chester for the benefit of her husband's second unknown wife of Godwine. So soul. Malmesbury, ii. 13." But Malmes- '• Even Dr. Lappenbcrg seems to have bury does not call the supposed sister of got out of his depth among all these fables Cnut, Gytha ; he gives her no name at aud coutradictions. He says, " the slau- all, while the later writers call her Thyra.