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Rh doned these outrages, but his attempts to shield his son so damaged his influence, even in his own earldom of Wessex, that Edward plucked up courage in 1050, when Eadsige of Canterbury died, to set aside Godwin's kinsman, the elected Aelfric, and promote Robert of Jumièges to be primate of the English Church. Nor could Godwin obtain the bishopric of London, thus vacated, for his friend Spearhafoc of Abingdon, as Robert of Jumièges maintained that his elevation was forbidden by the Pope, and backed the king in appointing another Norman cleric, named William, in his stead.

A definite breach thus arose between Edward and his father-in-law, leading, a year later, to a serious crisis. This developed out of a visit which Eustace, the Count of Boulogne, paid to Edward in 1051. Eustace had recently married the king's sister Goda, the widowed mother of the Earl of Hereford, and he seems to have come to England on an ordinary family visit or perhaps to look after his wife's English lands. His stay with his brother-in-law at the English court went off quietly enough, but on his return journey his retinue provoked a riot at Dover which resulted in some of the count's men being killed, as well as some of the townsmen. Count Eustace regarded this broil as the fault of the burghers, and immediately demanded reparation for the insult; whereupon Edward called upon Godwin in his capacity of earl of the district to punish the men of Dover. Godwin, however, refused. This gave Edward an opportunity of asserting his authority; he accordingly summoned Godwin to appear before a court at Gloucester to defend his action. At the same time Robert of Jumièges advised Edward to rake up against Godwin the old charge that fifteen years before he had been accessory to, if not the prime mover in, the death of Alfred, the king's brother. Godwin, suspecting that the plan was to involve him in a blood-feud, replied by summoning a large force of his own thegns to a rendezvous at Berkeley within easy reach of Gloucester, and by calling upon his sons Svein and Harold also to come with their forces to his help. As a set-off to the attack of the Kentish men on the French count, he also preferred charges against Ralf of Hereford, alleging that Ralf's French followers had been guilty of many acts of cruelty and oppression towards Englishmen, and further, that, following the French fashion, he had erected a private castle in his earldom, which was a danger to English liberties, such a building being quite unexampled on English soil, where the only fortifications hitherto built were the national boroughs maintained in the king's name for defence against the Danes.

When it became known that Godwin had appealed to arms, Earl Leofric of Mercia and Earl Siward of Northumbria also gathered their forces and came south to the support of the king. The upshot was that Godwin found himself outmatched and, fearing defeat, agreed to disband his forces; whereupon the king summoned another witan to meet at