Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/403

ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF EARL GODWINE. :i3t3 building up a story on the absurd contradictions of so late and inaccurate a writer, Thierry would have done better to have adopted in full, instead of merely honouring with a brief allusion, the legend of Saxo Gramniaticus, which is at least consistent with itself, and which is worth relating, as a specimen of the way in which the history even of neighbouring countries may be entirely misconceived. Saxo makes Harold, the son of Cnut, die before his father, and consequently never reign in England; Cnut himself dies at Rouen, in a war with Richard of Normandy ; Svend Estrithson acts as his lieutenant in England, and secures the crown for Harthacnut. This prince sends for his half-brother Eadward, whom he associates with himself in the kingdom. Of the royal saint Saxo Gramniaticus does not speak highly; he ventures to talk boldly of Ead ward's "stohditas" and "desidia." On the death of Harthacnut, Svend liopes to succeed both in Denmark and England. Finding his hopes frustrated in the former quarter, he returns to England only to find that Harold, the son of Godwine — Godwine himself is not mentioned — had roused the English against the Danish rule, massacred the Danes at a banquet, and given a nominal royalty to the weak Eadward, reserving the real administration in his own hands. This beautiful story seems to meet with no credence from any writer, except, perhaps, Polydore Vergil and Duchesne. Earlier writers had probably never read the Danish historian; later and more critical ones have generally passed by the story with the contempt it merits. Of both these fictions one need only say, that they must be confused repetitions of the massacre of St. Brice in the time of iEthelred. Knighton's "Howne," indeed, can be no other than the "Huna quidam, Regis Ethelredi militia? princeps, vir strenuus et bellicosus," who, according toWendover,^instigatediEthelredtothatcrime.

Both Eadward and his mother were now in England, under the protection of Harthacnut, who, according to a probable though ill-authenticated statement, had Election of named Eadward as his successor. This is clear Eadward. from Florence, Jralmesbury, and William of Jumieges ; the notion that Eadward was in Normandy, adopted by Thierry, comes from that version of the story of iElfred, which represented the iEthelings as coming over ^ i. 444. VOL. I. Y Y