<h2><SPAN name="page26"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>CHAPTER III.<br/> <span class="GutSmall">WILLIAM’S FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND.</span><br/> <span class="GutSmall">A.D. 1051–1052.</span></h2>
<p><span class="smcap">While</span> William was strengthening
himself in Normandy, Norman influence in England had risen to its
full height. The king was surrounded by foreign
favourites. The only foreign earl was his nephew Ralph of
Mentes, the son of his sister Godgifu. But three chief
bishoprics were held by Normans, Robert of Canterbury, William of
London, and Ulf of Dorchester. William bears a good
character, and won the esteem of Englishmen; but the unlearned
Ulf is emphatically said to have done “nought
bishoplike.” Smaller preferments in Church and State,
estates in all parts of the kingdom, were lavishly granted to
strangers. They built castles, and otherwise gave offence
to English feeling. Archbishop Robert, above all, was ever
plotting against Godwine, Earl of the West-Saxons, the head of
the national party. At last, in the autumn of 1051, the
national indignation burst forth. The immediate occasion
was a visit paid to the King by Count Eustace of Boulogne, who
had just married the widowed Countess Godgifu. The violent
dealings of his followers towards the burghers of Dover led to
resistance on their part, and to a long series of marches and
negotiations, which ended in the banishment of Godwine and his
son, and the parting of his daughter Edith, the King’s
wife, from her husband. From October 1051 to September
1052, the Normans had their own way in England. And during
that time King Edward received a visitor of greater fame than his
brother-in-law from Boulogne in the person of his cousin from
Rouen.</p>
<p>Of his visit we only read that “William Earl came from
beyond sea with mickle company of Frenchmen, and the king him
received, and as many of his comrades as to him seemed good, and
let him go again.” Another account adds that William
received great gifts from the King. But William himself in
several documents speaks of Edward as his lord; he must therefore
at some time have done to Edward an act of homage, and there is
no time but this at which we can conceive such an act being
done. Now for what was the homage paid? Homage was
often paid on very trifling occasions, and strange conflicts of
allegiance often followed. No such conflict was likely to
arise if the Duke of the Normans, already the man of the King of
the French for his duchy, became the man of the King of the
English on any other ground. Betwixt England and France
there was as yet no enmity or rivalry. England and France
became enemies afterwards because the King of the English and the
Duke of the Normans were one person. And this visit, this
homage, was the first step towards making the King of the English
and the Duke of the Normans the same person. The claim
William had to the English crown rested mainly on an alleged
promise of the succession made by Edward. This claim is not
likely to have been a mere shameless falsehood. That Edward
did make some promise to William—as that Harold, at a later
stage, did take some oath to William—seems fully proved by
the fact that, while such Norman statements as could be denied
were emphatically denied by the English writers, on these two
points the most patriotic Englishmen, the strongest partisans of
Harold, keep a marked silence. We may be sure therefore
that some promise was made; for that promise a time must be
found, and no time seems possible except this time of
William’s visit to Edward. The date rests on no
direct authority, but it answers every requirement. Those
who spoke of the promise as being made earlier, when William and
Edward were boys together in Normandy, forgot that Edward was
many years older than William. The only possible moment
earlier than the visit was when Edward was elected king in
1042. Before that time he could hardly have thought of
disposing of a kingdom which was not his, and at that time he
might have looked forward to leaving sons to succeed him.
Still less could the promise have been made later than the
visit. From 1053 to the end of his life Edward was under
English influences, which led him first to send for his nephew
Edward from Hungary as his successor, and in the end to make a
recommendation in favour of Harold. But in 1051–52
Edward, whether under a vow or not, may well have given up the
hope of children; he was surrounded by Norman influences; and,
for the only time in the last twenty-four years of their joint
lives, he and William met face to face. The only difficulty
is one to which no contemporary writer makes any reference.
If Edward wished to dispose of his crown in favour of one of his
French-speaking kinsmen, he had a nearer kinsman of whom he might
more naturally have thought. His own nephew Ralph was
living in England and holding an English earldom. He had
the advantage over both William and his own older brother Walter
of Mantes, in not being a reigning prince elsewhere. We can
only say that there is evidence that Edward did think of William,
that there is no evidence that he ever thought of Ralph.
And, except the tie of nearer kindred, everything would suggest
William rather than Ralph. The personal comparison is
almost grotesque; and Edward’s early associations and the
strongest influences around him, were not vaguely French but
specially Norman. Archbishop Robert would plead for his own
native sovereign only. In short, we may be as nearly sure
as we can be of any fact for which there is no direct authority,
that Edward’s promise to William was made at the time of
William’s visit to England, and that William’s homage
to Edward was done in the character of a destined successor to
the English crown.</p>
<p>William then came to England a mere duke and went back to
Normandy a king expectant. But the value of his hopes, to
the value of the promise made to him, are quite another
matter. Most likely they were rated on both sides far above
their real value. King and duke may both have believed that
they were making a settlement which the English nation was bound
to respect. If so, Edward at least was undeceived within a
few months.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>The notion of a king disposing of his crown by his own act
belongs to the same range of ideas as the law of strict
hereditary succession. It implies that kingship is a
possession and not an office. Neither the heathen nor the
Christian English had ever admitted that doctrine; but it was
fast growing on the continent. Our forefathers had always
combined respect for the kingly house with some measure of choice
among the members of that house. Edward himself was not the
lawful heir according to the notions of a modern lawyer; for he
was chosen while the son of his elder brother was living.
Every English king held his crown by the gift of the great
assembly of the nation, though the choice of the nation was
usually limited to the descendants of former kings, and though
the full-grown son of the late king was seldom opposed.
Christianity had strengthened the election principle. The
king lost his old sanctity as the son of Woden; he gained a new
sanctity as the Lord’s anointed. But kingship thereby
became more distinctly an office, a great post, like a bishopric,
to which its holder had to be lawfully chosen and admitted by
solemn rites. But of that office he could be lawfully
deprived, nor could he hand it on to a successor either according
to his own will or according to any strict law of
succession. The wishes of the late king, like the wishes of
the late bishop, went for something with the electors. But
that was all. All that Edward could really do for his
kinsmen was to promise to make, when the time came, a
recommendation to the Witan in his favour. The Witan might
then deal as they thought good with a recommendation so unusual
as to choose to the kingship of England a man who was neither a
native nor a conqueror of England nor the descendant of any
English king.</p>
<p>When the time came, Edward did make a recommendation to the
Witan, but it was not in favour of William. The English
influences under which he was brought during his last fourteen
years taught him better what the law of England was and what was
the duty of an English king. But at the time of
William’s visit Edward may well have believed that he could
by his own act settle his crown on his Norman kinsman as his
undoubted successor in case he died without a son. And it
may be that Edward was bound by a vow not to leave a son.
And if Edward so thought, William naturally thought so yet more;
he would sincerely believe himself to be the lawful heir of the
crown of England, the sole lawful successor, except in one
contingency which was perhaps impossible and certainly
unlikely.</p>
<p>The memorials of these times, so full on some points, are
meagre on others. Of those writers who mention the bequest
or promise none mention it at any time when it is supposed to
have happened; they mention it at some later time when it began
to be of practical importance. No English writer speaks of
William’s claim till the time when he was about practically
to assert it; no Norman writer speaks of it till he tells the
tale of Harold’s visit and oath to William. We
therefore cannot say how far the promise was known either in
England or on the continent. But it could not be kept
altogether hid, even if either party wished it to be hid.
English statesmen must have known of it, and must have guided
their policy accordingly, whether it was generally known in the
country or not. William’s position, both in his own
duchy and among neighbouring princes, would be greatly improved
if he could be looked upon as a future king. As heir to the
crown of England, he may have more earnestly wooed the descendant
of former wearers of the crown; and Matilda and her father may
have looked more favourably on a suitor to whom the crown of
England was promised. On the other hand, the existence of
such a foreign claimant made it more needful than ever for
Englishmen to be ready with an English successor, in the royal
house or out of it, the moment the reigning king should pass
away.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>It was only for a short time that William could have had any
reasonable hope of a peaceful succession. The time of
Norman influence in England was short. The revolution of
September 1052 brought Godwine back, and placed the rule of
England again in English hands. Many Normans were banished,
above all Archbishop Robert and Bishop Ulf. The death of
Godwine the next year placed the chief power in the hands of his
son Harold. This change undoubtedly made Edward more
disposed to the national cause. Of Godwine, the man to whom
he owed his crown, he was clearly in awe; to Godwine’s sons
he was personally attached. We know not how Edward was led
to look on his promise to William as void. That he was so
led is quite plain. He sent for his nephew the
Ætheling Edward from Hungary, clearly as his intended
successor. When the Ætheling died in 1057, leaving a
son under age, men seem to have gradually come to look to Harold
as the probable successor. He clearly held a special
position above that of an ordinary earl; but there is no need to
suppose any formal act in his favour till the time of the
King’s death, January 5, 1066. On his deathbed Edward
did all that he legally could do on behalf of Harold by
recommending him to the Witan for election as the next
king. That he then either made a new or renewed an old
nomination in favour of William is a fable which is set aside by
the witness of the contemporary English writers.
William’s claim rested wholly on that earlier nomination
which could hardly have been made at any other time than his
visit to England.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>We have now to follow William back to Normandy, for the
remaining years of his purely ducal reign. The expectant
king had doubtless thoughts and hopes which he had not had
before. But we can guess at them only: they are not
recorded.</p>
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