‘What is done to them, then?’ asked the Lady, trying to show interest in a subject that did not really appeal to her. ‘Does the Duke shave their heads and put them in a monastery, or does he let them go free?’
‘Neither, I am glad to say. Sometimes a wicked man may mend his ways if you put him in a monastery, but more often he corrupts the brethren he finds there. Of course William does not release the criminals he has caught. To do so would be unfair to his honest subjects. No, after a man has been found guilty he is blinded and castrated, and then turned loose to beg, a standing warning to all evildoers.’
‘Is that merciful? Many thieves would prefer the rope if you gave them the choice. Anyway, I don’t suppose the criminal lives very long after his punishment.’
‘That’s not the point. He lives long enough to repent of his sins, while in England many thieves go to the gibbet cursing God. Even if he does not repent, he is incapable of further harm. It is a most enlightened reform, and I wish I could introduce it here.’
‘Do you mean you want to introduce it, but you can’t because Harold opposes it in Council? Shall I persuade Tostig, and get him to persuade Alfgar? I doubt whether Tostig would really approve, though he might back you to vex Harold. Tostig is all for justice, and for hanging every evil-doer.’
‘No, my dear, I shall not try to persuade the Council. It’s too much of an effort. If William comes after me he will bring in the custom. If he doesn’t, each Earldom will soon be following its own customs.’
‘Didn’t Bishop Britwold see your successor chosen in Heaven? If that’s so the Kingdom is destined to endure.’
‘If that is what the Bishop saw there will be a King to succeed me. But we can’t be sure it was a vision. He was asleep, and it may have been nothing but a lying dream.’ Animated, the King strode up and down his bedchamber. ‘In the ordinary human world, without the intervention of a miracle, I don’t see how England can continue as one realm. Never in the past have the Earls been so powerful, or so at enmity with one another. It’s even more curious that the wardens of threatened frontiers are making friends with the aliens over the border. Your Tostig is bloodbrother to Malcolm the Scot; Alfgar is father-in-law to King Griffith. Do you see where that leads? One day Mercia will join Wales, and Northumbria will join Scotland. Then there will hardly be room in Wessex for a King as well as an Earl, and very likely the Kingdom will be abolished.’
‘Would that be a disaster?’
‘I have no reason to suppose so. There was a time when the Emperor ruled all Christendom, and nowadays no one wants that unity to be restored. If there are to be many Christian rulers, who can say how many is the right number? I should be sorry to see this Kingdom dismembered. But that is a mere sentiment, on a level with my fondness for an old book or an old building. My mind can supply no reason why Winchester and York should obey the same ruler, when we are all agreed that it is right for, say, Wales or Orkney to have rulers of their own.’
‘Then you are not really worried about what will happen to the English after you are dead?’
‘I would like them to be ruled by Duke William, because that would be good for them. But it is not the guiding passion of my life. I am not a very effective King, and I am not very interested in Kingdoms. What matters most to me, as it matters most to every man and woman, is that I should scrape into Heaven after I am dead. At my coronation I took oath to guard the Church, and I cannot lay down that responsibility. I am also under a vow to found a great community at Westminster. If anyone wants to rule the country, your brother Harold or your brother Tostig or some other, I shall not interfere. The foundation of Westminster, and my obligations as a Christian, will occupy the years I have left.’
The King was as good as his word. Henceforth he played little part in the administration of the country; though he used his great influence to appoint worthy Bishops, and his great wealth to found religious houses. All else was left to Earl Harold.
In the summer of 1058 Earl Harold went to Rome on pilgrimage. He was rich enough to travel in comfort, and he thought he could spare time for the journey; though in this he may have been mistaken. Clever politicians who always search for hidden motives tried hard to find some dubious secondary object for the pilgrimage, but sensible men will see that it needs no explanation. Wouldn’t we all visit Rome if we had the time and the money? It was said that Earl Harold wanted to have a look at Duke William, and to stir up other Frenchmen to make trouble for Normandy. Of course he rode to Rome through France; perhaps he tried to conclude a few alliances that did him no good in the end. But he went to Rome because Rome is worth a visit.
He sought also a pallium for Stigand. Archbishop Robert had died in his Norman monastery; and if Stigand was not canonical Archbishop of Canterbury at least the Archbishopric was vacant. At Rome they granted whatever the great Earl asked. But Stigand never enjoyed the luck that such a painstaking intriguer might seem to deserve. Within a year the long-awaited pallium proved worthless, for it had been granted by the wrong Pope. During 1058 Benedict X held the Holy City; but in April of the next year he was overthrown, and Nicholas II reigned in his stead. Everyone now agrees that Benedict was a usurper; though he was not exactly an anti-Pope, for at that time there was no other claimant. Earl Harold, a layman, cannot be blamed for accepting the authority he found ruling in the Lateran; but the position of Stigand was now weaker than before. Hitherto he had been an Archbishop as yet unconfirmed by the Holy See; now he was marked as the adherent of a schismatic, probably himself in schism. Even in his own province no Bishop-elect would seek consecration at his hands.
While Earl Harold was absent on pilgrimage the Kingdom of the English was very nearly overthrown. The danger was soon past, and the fighting did little material damage; so the ordinary thanes of the countryside hardly recognised the peril they had escaped. At court we could appreciate it; we knew we had been saved from disaster only by the interposition of God, or by very good luck – which comes to the same thing.
It all began with a quarrel between the Earls Tostig and Alfgar. I don’t know the cause of the quarrel, for it happened in Coventry while we were on Cotswold. Earl Tostig was honest and just and brave, but when he was on the scent of wrongdoing it was impossible to deflect him; the story I heard was that he had hanged some Mercian who was under the protection of Alfgar. When Tostig visited Coventry Alfgar reproached him for this, and Tostig retorted that Alfgar was a Viking. Alfgar did not care to be reminded of his part in the sacking of Hereford, and one thing led to another until the Earls parted, vowing open war. Tostig had the greater influence in the Council; Gyrth, Leofwin and Stigand backed a Godwinsson, the King backed a lover of justice. For the second time Alfgar was outlawed, and once again he fled to his son-in-law, King Griffith of the Welsh.
An attack by the combined forces of Mercia and Wales could be very dangerous, as had been shown at the defeat of Earl Ralph. What made it much worse was that Magnus, son of Harold Hardrada King of the Norwegians, happened to be cruising in the Irish Sea with a great fleet of Vikings. The rebels got in touch with him – and there was no one to lead the army of England. The King was too old for war, Gyrth and Leofwin too young; Earl. Harold was somewhere on the Continent.
Stigand and Bishop Aldred came in panic to warn the King. Our housecarles were equally alarmed, and talked of fleeing to the traditional stronghold of Athelney, where long ago King Alfred hid from the Danes. Tostig was mustering the levy of Northumbria, but it was known that the West Saxons would not follow him. In this emergency only the King kept his head. I heard him encourage the Bishops as they sat at the supper table.
‘We are faced by three dangerous foes, I grant you,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But if you will stop and think you will see that these foes cannot long remain allied. Magnus would like to restore the realm of King Canute; Griffith wants land unencumbered with English settlers; Alfgar wishes to expand the bounds of Mercia. Magnus will favour the Anglo-Danes, who are hated by all Mercians and Welshmen. Gri
ffith and Alfgar must quarrel over the boundary of Mercia. After they have won a battle they will at once fight among themselves. But they may be unable to win the first battle. Combined, their armies would be formidable, but they are unlikely to march in company. Magnus will strike for Chester and the Anglo-Danes of Westmorland. Alfgar will march on York, to cut off the head of Earl Tostig. Griffith still hankers after Hereford. If Tostig can defend himself during the summer we shall spin out the campaign until Harold returns.’
As a matter of fact there was hardly any fighting. Tostig gathered a strong force in York, for his friendship with the King of the Scots made it safe to reduce his northern garrisons; Alfgar dared not march against him.
King Griffith yet again wasted the countryside round Hereford; but the new walls of the city, and the neighbouring castles built by Earl Ralph, kept him west of the Severn. The incursion of the dreaded Vikings was an utter failure. Magnus, hoping to gather recruits from among the Anglo-Danes, commanded his pirates not to plunder; of course they did not obey him, and their ravages set the men of Westmorland against him. But the mere issuing of the order displeased the Vikings, who complained that they did not voyage oversea to conquer thrones for princes, but to win booty. Threatened by mutiny if he continued to march inland, Magnus returned to his ship and presently sailed off to plunder in Orkney. By the time Earl Harold landed at Bosham all the foreigners had gone, and the native rebels were eager for peace if it could be had without loss of dignity.
Bishop Aldred could always arrange that kind of peace. Soon Alfgar had been restored as Earl of the Mercians, and Griffith, King of all the Welsh, had once more promised obedience to the King of all the English. In the south it was not generally known that the Vikings who had plundered Westmorland came from a great fleet commanded by a son of the King of the Norwegians. That was as well, for in those days an invasion of Vikings was greatly dreaded by all Englishmen.
Earl Harold was a very competent ruler, chiefly because he had no other interests and dealt with any pressing matter as soon as it came to his attention. Even if King Edward had been supreme he would have needed someone to do his work for him; a man who prayed all the morning and hunted all the afternoon had no time for petty details of administration.
Earl Harold was temperate in eating and drinking; whenever he rode on a journey he carried a hawk, but he did not often ride out solely for sport; since his great private wealth supplied his needs he never robbed the treasury. If there had to be a minister no better minister could be found. But the King had not chosen him, and he never liked him.
Harold’s gravest fault, as a nobleman and a Christian, was his custom of living openly and scandalously with concubines. Even in this he was no worse than many great men. He was reasonably faithful to Edith Swanneck, who had a comfortable establishment in Canterbury; there were other girls dotted about in his provinces, but he did not give great estates to their kin. As I say, many great men live after this fashion, and no one takes it very tragically. But Harold was unlucky in that most of his eminent rivals lived much better. The King was a virgin; Tostig was completely faithful to Judith, whom he loved; the Norman clerks at court constantly reminded us that Duke William kept his marriage vows.
Sometimes the King would suggest to Earl Harold that it was time he married and settled down. But there was no house in England grand enough to furnish a bride for the great Earl, now that Alfgar and his kin were his implacable enemies; and if Harold should marry and still keep on Edith Swan-neck things would be worse than before.
For two years England was so peaceful that in truth the land had no history. For the Christmas crownwearing of 1059 the King of the Scots came to Gloucester and swore loyalty and friendship. It was a very magnificent embassy; with Malcolm came all the great men of the north: the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Durham, and the Earl of the Northumbrians. King Malcolm owed his throne to an English army. All the same, gratitude is a rare virtue in foreign policy, and I think his peaceful conduct was due rather to his friendship with Earl Tostig than to the memory of the gallant deeds of old Siward.
Earl Tostig was frequently at court. He was the Lady’s closest friend, and even the King sometimes seemed to forget that he was a Godwinsson. In Northumbria he was doing very good work; he enforced such stern peace that travellers could journey singly, whereas in Siward’s day men had not ventured on the open moors save in companies of at least thirty. Because of his love of order he cut off a great many heads, and his subjects murmured. He himself disliked living in the cold, unfriendly, crowded city of York. To keep order in the north would take all the time of an ordinary governor; but Earl Tostig was exceptionally efficient, and if he thought he could safely pay long visits to Wessex we took it for granted that he had judged the situation correctly.
The Archbishop of York was another frequent visitor to the southern province, a thing that I believe had never happened before. But then never before had southern England been stuck with an uncanonical Archbishop of Canterbury. Stigand would not resign peacefully, and Harold would not permit the Council to declare him outlaw. Stigand the Anglo-Dane had stood by Earl Godwin in the old days, and Harold would not desert any veteran adherent of his father. But even Harold had to admit that Stigand was no true Archbishop; when his new-built minster at Waltham was finished he brought Cynesige down from York to consecrate it. Cynesige was always being asked to come south to consecrate a Bishop or a church, or perform any of the other functions that must normally be done by a Metropolitan. It seems odd that Stigand should have swallowed these insults, especially as they came from an Anglo-Dane of his own faction; but he was a politician before he was anything else, and he valued the precedence in Council which he derived from Canterbury. Ill-wishers added that he valued Canterbury’s endowments, but I do not believe that weighed with him so much as the vulgar supposed. Even if he should resign Canterbury he would still be the undoubted and canonical Bishop of Winchester, which gave him an ample revenue. He did not need money, since his private life was chaste and he gave no scandal. If only he had submitted to the rightful Pope he would have passes anywhere as a good Bishop.
The court lived quietly; as he grew older the King hunted less and prayed more. But we remained in touch with the great events we could no longer control. Of course we saw Stigand and the Godwinsson Earls at every Council; in addition Tostig, Alfgar, and the Archbishop of York came to us frequently on private visits.
Then, in December 1060, while the great men were assembling in Gloucester for the Christmas crown-wearing, came news that Archbishop Cynesige was dead.
‘Very distressing, but this is no time to discuss the virtues of the late Archbishop,’ said Harold, after Stigand, a fine preacher, had held the whole supper table for five minutes with an extempore panegyric. ‘Before this Council ends we must choose a successor. I hope, lord King, that we can fix on an English clerk who is worthy to fill the great position.’
‘Yes, there’s no time to be lost. At Easter the holy oils must be blessed, and for that we must have another Archbishop with a genuine pallium from Rome,’ said the King. Stigand blushed.
‘An English Archbishop, a competent man of business, familiar with episcopal ritual. He will have to be young enough to travel fast, if he is to be back from Rome by Easter,’ Tostig put in. ‘In a sense he will be specially the Archbishop of the Northumbrians, so perhaps I may suggest a name. Would Bishop Aldred accept promotion? I am sure there is no English clerk more worthy.’
The Bishop of Worcester gave a little start of pleasure; then pulled himself together to sit looking woodenly down his nose. He would be shamed if he accepted Tostig’s offer, and then found it forbidden by the King.
‘I won’t propose a Norman, because popular feeling is against them,’ said King Edward, ‘but couldn’t we find some energetic reforming Lotharingian? The north is so riven by bloodfeuds that a stranger will suit it better than an Englishman. At present Bishop Aldred bears heavy responsibilities. It will be hard to replace hi
m in Worcester, Hereford and Wiltshire. Do you insist on an Englishman, Earl Harold? Well, in that case I agree that there is no one more worthy than Aldred.’
King Edward could never manage men. In the same speech he reaffirmed his unpopular preference for foreigners, allowed himself to be overruled by Earl Harold, and paid Bishop Aldred a very left-handed compliment.
‘There’s no need to replace Aldred in any of his dioceses,’ said Harold, as though his decision must be final. ‘The Danes smashed up most of the churches in the north, and no one has rebuilt them. The Archbishop of York has a very small flock and a very small revenue. Aldred can govern York in his spare time, and the combined incomes of all his dioceses will enable him to live in the state proper to an Archbishop.’
‘You are too gracious, my lord. But I think I could do all the work you propose,’ said Bishop Aldred.
The King sighed. Even in religious questions, which interested him more than military or financial affairs, Harold had the last word.
‘Then that’s settled,’ said Tostig cheerfully. ‘How soon can you be ready to start, Aldred? I shall come with you. I’ve never made the pilgrimage to Rome, and Judith likes travel.’
‘Can you leave the Northumbrians? Remember the mess I found when I got back from my pilgrimage,’ said Harold with a frown. That made Earl Alfgar look uncomfortable; but then these meetings of the Council were never very friendly gatherings, and there were frequent sly reminders of past wars.
‘The Northumbrians will have to manage without me. What’s the use of being an Earl if you can’t sometimes enjoy yourself? Of all the wonderful world oversea I have seen only Flanders.’
‘You will find Rome very different from the Viking camps of Bruges,’ said the King sarcastically. ‘I wish I could come with you. The English can spare me, now that Earl Harold takes so much work off my hands. But I fear I am too old to undertake the journey.’
The Cunning of the Dove Page 17