Godwin of Wessex
Earl of Wessex
Years: 1001 - 1053
Godwin of Wessex (1001 – 15 April 1053) is one of the most powerful earls in England under the Danish king Cnut the Great and his successors.
Cnut makes him the first Earl of Wessex.
Godwin is the father of King Harold Godwinson and Edith of Wessex, wife of King Edward the Confessor.
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Cnut is succeeded by his sons, but in 1042 the native dynasty is restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor.
Edward's failure to produce an heir causes a furious conflict over the succession on his death in 1066.
His struggles for power against Godwin, Earl of Wessex, the claims of Cnut's Scandinavian successors, and the ambitions of the Normans whom Edward has introduced to English politics to bolster his own position causes each to vie for control Edward's reign.
Norsemen had first begun raiding in what became Normandy in the late eighth century.
Permanent Scandinavian settlement occurred before 911, when Rollo, one of the Viking leaders, reached an agreement with King Charles the Simple of France, who surrenders to him the county of Rouen.
The lands around Rouen had thus become the core of the later duchy of Normandy.
Normandy may have been used as a base when Scandinavian attacks on England were renewed at the end of the tenth century, which would have worsened relations between England and Normandy.
In an effort to improve matters, King Æthelred the Unready took Emma of Normandy, sister of Duke Richard II, as his second wife in 1002.
Danish raids on England continued, and Æthelred had sought help from Richard, taking refuge in Normandy in 1013 when King Swein I of Denmark drove Æthelred and his family from England.
Swein's death in 1014 had allowed Æthelred to return home, but Swein's son Cnut had contested Æthelred's return.
Æthelred died unexpectedly in 1016, and Cnut became king of England.
Æthelred and Emma's two sons, Edward and Alfred, had gone into exile in Normandy while their mother, Emma, became Cnut's second wife.
After Cnut's death in 1035, the English throne had fallen to Harold Harefoot, his son by his first wife, while Harthacnut, his son by Emma, had become king in Denmark.
England remains unstable.
Alfred returns to England in 1036 to visit his mother and perhaps to challenge Harold as king.
One story implicates Earl Godwin of Wessex in Alfred's subsequent death, but others blame Harold.
The father of Godwin was probably Wulfnoth Cild, who was a thegn of Sussex.
His origin is unknown but 'Cild' normally refers to a man of rank.
In 1009, Wulfnoth had been accused of unknown crimes at a muster of Æthelred the Unready's fleet and fled with twenty ships; the ships sent to pursue him were destroyed in a storm.
Godwin was probably an adherent of Æthelred's eldest son, Æthelstan, who left him an estate when he died in 1014.
This estate in Compton, Sussex, had once belonged to Godwin’s father.
Although he is now always thought of as connected with Wessex, Godwin had probably been raised in Sussex, not Wessex and was probably a native of Sussex.
After Cnut seized the throne in 1016, Godwin's rise was rapid.
By 1018 he was an earl, probably of eastern Wessex, and then by around 1020 of all Wessex.
Between 1019 and 1023 he accompanied Cnut on an expedition to Denmark, where he distinguished himself, and shortly afterwards married Gytha, the sister of the Danish earl, Ulf, who was married to Cnut's sister, Estrid.
A the death of Cnut on November 12, 1035,his kingdoms had been divided among three rival rulers.
Harold Harefoot, Cnut's illegitimate son with Ælfgifu of Northampton, had seized the throne of England.
Harthacnut, Cnut's legitimate son with Emma of Normandy, reigns in Denmark.
Norway had rebelled under Magnus the Good.
The throne of England was reportedly claimed in 1035 by Alfred Ætheling, younger son of Emma of Normandy and Æthelred the Unready, and half-brother of Harthacnut.
Alfred had landed on the coast of Sussex with a Norman mercenary body guard and attempted to make his way to London.
Godwin is reported to have either captured Alfred himself or to have deceived him by pretending to be his ally and then surrendering him to the forces of Harold Harefoot.
Either way, Alfred was blinded and soon dies at Ely, probably on February 5, 1036.
During the 1920s, the remains of several hundred soldiers, probably Normans, were found to the west of Guildford.
They were bound and had been executed.
The grave has been dated to about 1040.
It is believed to be likely that they were the guards of Prince Alfred.
Harold is generally accepted as king of England in 1037, while Emma has fled to Bruges, in Flanders.
Emma of Normandy, in exile in Bruges, had plotted to gain the English throne for her son Harthacnut.
She has sponsored the Enconium Emmae Reginae, which eulogizes her and attacks Harold, especially for arranging the murder in 1036 of her son, Alfred Atheling, by Æthelred.
The work describes Harthacnut's horror at hearing of his brother's murder, and was probably influential in finally persuading the cautious Harthacnut to invade England.
According to a later edition of the Enconium, the English took the initiative in communicating with Harthacnut in 1039, possibly when it was known that Harold had not long to live.
Harthacnut travels to England with his mother.
The landing at Sandwich on June 17, 1040, is a peaceful one, though he has a fleet of sixty-two warships.
Even though he has been invited to take the throne, he is taking no chances and comes as a conqueror with an invasion force.
The crews have to be rewarded for their service, and to pay them, he levies a geld of more than twenty-one thousand pounds, a huge sum of money that makes him unpopular, although it is only a quarter of the amount his father had raised in 1017-1018 in similar circumstances.
Harthacnut had been horrified by Harold's murder of Alfred, and his mother has demanded vengeance.
With the approval of Harold's former councilors, his body had been disinterred from its place of honor at Westminster and publicly beheaded.
It was disposed of in a sewer, but then retrieved and thrown in the Thames, from which London shipmen had rescued it and had it buried in a churchyard.
Godwin, the powerful earl of Wessex, had been complicit in the crime as he had handed over Alfred to Harold, and Queen Emma charges him in a trial before Harthacnut and members of his council.
The had king allowed Godwin to escape punishment by bringing witnesses that he had acted on Harold's orders, but Godwin had then given Harthacnut a ship so richly decorated that it amounted to the wergild that Godwin would have had to pay if he had been found guilty.
Bishop Lyfing of Worcester had also been charged with complicity in the crime and deprived of his see, but in 1041 he makes his peace with Harthacnut and is restored to his position.
The English had become used to the king ruling in council, with the advice of his chief men, but Harthacnut had ruled autocratically in Denmark, and he is not willing to change, particularly as he does not fully trust the leading earls.
At first he had been successful in intimidating his subjects, though less so later in his short reign.
He has doubled the size of the English fleet from sixteen to thirty-two ships, partly so that he has a force capable of dealing with trouble elsewhere in his empire, and to pay for it he has severely increased the rate of taxation.
The increase coincides with a poor harvest, causing severe hardship.
Two of his tax gatherers are so harsh in dealing with people in and around Worcester in 104 that they riot and kill the tax gatherers1.
Harthacnut reacts by imposing a legal but very unpopular punishment known as 'harrying'.
He orders his earls to burn the town and kill the population.
Very few people are killed, however, as they know what is coming and flee in all directions.
The earl of Northumbria is Siward, but Earl Eadwulf of Bernicia ruls the northern part in semi-independence, a situation which does not please the autocratic Harthacnut.
Earl Eadwulf in 1041 gives offense to the king for an unknown reason but seeks reconciliation.
Harthacnut promises him safe conduct, then colludes in his murder by Siward, who becomes earl of the whole of Northumbria.
The crime is widely condemned, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle described it as "a betrayal" and the king as an "oath-breaker".
Harthacnut is generous to the church.
Very few contemporary documents survive, but a royal charter of his transferred land to Bishop Ælfwine of Winchester, and he makes several grants to Ramsey Abbey.
The twelfth-century Ramsey Chronicle speaks well of his generosity and of his character.
Harthacnut had suffered from bouts of illness even before he became King of England.
He may have suffered from tuberculosis, and he probably knows that he has not long to live.
He invites his half-brother Edward the Confessor (his mother Emma's son by Æthelred the Unready) back from exile in Normandy in 1041 and probably makes him his heir.
He may well have been influenced by Emma, who hopes to keep her power by ensuring that one of her sons is succeeded by another.
Harthacnut is unmarried and has no known children.
Harthacnut attends a wedding on June 8, 1042, in Lambeth.
The groom is Tovi the Proud, former standard-bearer to Cnut, and the bride is Gytha, daughter of the courtier Osgod Clapa.
Harthacnut presumably consumes large quantities of alcohol.
As he is drinking to the health of the bride, he convulses and dies.
The likely cause of death is a stroke, though in The Death of Kings: A Medical History of the Kings and Queens of England (2000), Clifford Brewer suggests a cardiac arrest as the immediate cause of death.
Godwin, Earl of Wessex, had supported the accession of Harthacnut to the throne of England.
When Harthacnut himself dies in 1042, Godwin supports the claim of Æthelred's last surviving son Edward the Confessor to the throne.
Edward has spent most of the previous thirty years in Normandy.
Proclaimed king after Harthacnut's death in June 1042, Edward’s reign restores the native royal house of Wessex to the throne of England.
Edward apparently prefers Norman life and people as a more attractive and natural alternative than the folk and ways of England.
Under his weak rule, regal power passes, with his blessing, to his relatives, the house of Godwin.
Godwin, despite his alleged responsibility for the death of Edward's brother Alfred, in 1045 secures the marriage of his daughter Edith (Eadgyth) to Edward.
Edith’s mother Gytha was sister to the late Ulf, a Danish earl who was Cnut the Great's brother-in-law.
Brought up at Wilton Abbey, Edith is an educated woman who speaks several languages, skills she probably acquired at Wilton, to which she will remain attached to it; in later years, she will rebuild its church.
As Edward draws advisors, nobles and priests from his former place of refuge in a bid to develop his own power base, Godwin soon becomes the leader of opposition to growing Norman influence.
