after the death of Harthacimt. Or rather, as Dr. Lingard truly says, m the form which it assumes in William of Poitou, it is an interested Norman fiction. That writer would have us believe that Eadward was elected under a letter missive from "William the Bastard, with threats of a Norman invasion as his writ of præmunire. Very different is the authentic narrative, whether in the unadorned simplicity of Florence, or in the more elaborate periods of Malmesbury. This last writer gives us a long story of the way in which Godwine Eloquence of Godwine. persuaded the unwilling Eadward to accept the crown, of which Florence and the Chronicle say nothing. It is chiefly valuable for the character which it gives of Godwine as an eloquent speaker, skilled in the art of guiding popular assemblies,[1] on which the novelist well remarks, that "when the chronicler praises the gift of speech, he unconsciously proves the existence of constitutional freedom."[2] If Malimesbury be correct in his statement (not found in all his ISS.), that a few persons opposed the election of Eadward, and were banished from the kingdom, one can only imagine them to have been a small Danish party, who supported the pretensions of Svend. That prince certainly claimed the crown, and is said to have professed that Eadward named him as his successor.[3] If so, we may here have some slender additional groundwork for the war or the massacre dreamed of by Saxo and Thierry. It is however certain that Svend was treated, if not as a friend, at least as one whom it was wished to provoke as little as possible. This may have been owing to his connexion with Godwine as the nephew of Gytha, as well as to his own position as the nephew of the great Cnut. Certainly he was dealt with in a very different way from his Norwegian rival Magnus, who also claimed the throne by virtue of an alleged convention between him and Harthacnut, and to whom Eadward was made to return an answer of magnanimous defiance.[4] Godwine even went so lar as to counsel vigorous aid to Svend in his war with Magnus, which the Witan refused on the motion of Leofric. The result was that, alter the defeat
- ↑ "Homo affectai leporis, et ingune gentiliti{{subst:a^}} linguTemplate:Susbt:a^ eloquens, mirus dicere, mirus populo persuadere quæ placerent."
- ↑ Harold, i. 165
- ↑ Lappenberg, ii, 236.
- ↑ Ibid. Saga of Magnus, ap. Laing, ii 398. Eadward somewhat strangely says "After him [Cnut] my brother Harald was king as long as he lived, and after him my brother Hardicanute took the kingdoms both of Denmark and England."
