King Alfred of England Part 9

It is very probable that G.o.dwin himself was uncertain, at first, what course to pursue, and that he intended to have espoused Prince Alfred's cause if he had found that it presented any reasonable prospect of success. Or he may have felt bound to serve Harold faithfully, now that he had once given in his adhesion to him. Of course, he kept his thoughts and plans to himself, leaving the world to see only his deeds. But if he had ever entertained any design of espousing Alfred's cause, he abandoned it before the time arrived for action. As he advanced into the southern part of the island, he called together the leading Saxon chiefs to hold a council, and he made an address to them when they were convened, which had a powerful influence on their minds in preventing their deciding in favor of Alfred. However much they might desire a monarch of their own line, this, he said, was not the proper occasion for effecting their end.

Alfred was, it was true, an Anglo-Saxon by descent, but he was a Norman by birth and education. All his friends and supporters were Normans. He had come now into the realm of England with a retinue of Norman followers, who would, if he were successful, monopolize the honors and offices which he would have to bestow. He advised the Anglo-Saxon chieftains, therefore, to remain inactive, to take no part in the contest, but to wait for some other opportunity to re-establish the Saxon line of kings.

The Anglo-Saxon chieftains seem to have considered this good advice.

At any rate, they made no movement to sustain young Alfred's cause.

Alfred had advanced to the town of Guilford. Here he was surrounded by a force which Harold had sent against him. There was no hope or possibility of resistance. In fact, his enemies seem to have arrived at a time when he did not expect an attack, for they entered the gates by a sudden onset, when Alfred's followers were scattered about the town at the various houses to which they had been distributed. They made no attempt to defend themselves, but were taken prisoners one by one, wherever they were found. They were bound with cords, and carried away like ordinary criminals.

Of Alfred's ten princ.i.p.al Norman companions, nine were beheaded. For some reason or other the life of one was spared. Alfred himself was charged with having violated the peace of his country, and was condemned to lose his eyes. The torture of this operation, and the inflammation which followed, destroyed the unhappy prince's life.

Neither Emma nor G.o.dwin did any thing to save him. It was wise policy, no doubt, in Emma to disavow all connection with her son's unfortunate attempt, now that it had failed; and ambitious queens have to follow the dictates of policy instead of obeying such impulses as maternal love. She was, however, secretly indignant at the cruel fate which her son had endured, and she considered G.o.dwin as having betrayed him.

After this dreadful disappointment, Emma was not likely to make any farther attempts to place either of her sons upon the throne; but Harold seems to have distrusted her, for he banished her from the realm. She had still her Saxon son in Normandy, Alfred's brother Edward, and her Danish son in Denmark. She went to Flanders, and there sent to Hardicanute, urging him by the most earnest importunities to come to England and a.s.sert his claims to the crown. He was doubly bound to do it now, she said, as the blood of his murdered brother called for retribution, and he could have no honorable rest or peace until he had avenged it.

There was no occasion, however, for Hardicanute to attempt force for the recovery of his kingdom, for not many months after these transactions Harold died, and then the country seemed generally to acquiesce in Hardicanute's accession. The Anglo-Saxons, discouraged perhaps by the discomfiture of their cause in the person of Alfred, made no attempt to rise. Hardicanute came accordingly and a.s.sumed the throne. But, though he had not courage and energy enough to encounter his rival Harold during his lifetime, he made what amends he could by offering base indignities to his body after he was laid in the grave. His first public act after his accession was to have the body disinterred, and, after cutting off the head, he threw the mangled remains into the Thames. The Danish fishermen in the river found them, and buried them again in a private sepulcher in London, with such concealed marks of respect and honor as it was in their power to bestow.

Hardicanute also inst.i.tuted legal proceedings to inquire into the death of Alfred. He charged the Saxons with having betrayed him, especially those who were rich enough to pay the fines by which, in those days, it was very customary for criminals to atone for their crimes. G.o.dwin himself was brought before the tribunal, and charged with being accessory to Alfred's death. G.o.dwin positively a.s.serted his innocence, and brought witnesses to prove that he was entirely free from all partic.i.p.ation in the affair. He took also a much more effectual method to secure an acquittal, by making to King Hardicanute some most magnificent presents. One of these was a small s.h.i.+p, profusely enriched and ornamented with gold. It contained eighty soldiers, armed in the Danish style, with weapons of the most highly-finished and costly construction. They each carried a Danish axe on the left shoulder, and a javelin in the right hand, both richly gilt, and they had each of them a bracelet on his arm, containing six ounces of solid gold. Such at least is the story. The presents might be considered in the light either of a bribe to corrupt justice, or in that of a fine to satisfy it. In fact, the line, in those days, between bribes to purchase acquittal and fines atoning for the offense seems not to have been very accurately drawn.

Hardicanute, when fairly established on his throne, governed his realm like a tyrant. He oppressed the Saxons especially without any mercy.

The effect of his cruelties, and those of the Danes who acted under him, was, however, not to humble and subdue the Saxon spirit, but to awaken and arouse it. Plots and conspiracies began to be formed against him, and against the whole Danish party. G.o.dwin himself began to meditate some decisive measures, when, suddenly, Hardicanute died.

G.o.dwin immediately took the field at the head of all his forces, and organized a general movement throughout the kingdom for calling Edward, Alfred's brother, to the throne. This insurrection was triumphantly successful. The Danish forces that undertook to resist it were driven to the northward. The leaders were slain or put to flight.

A remnant of them escaped to the sea-sh.o.r.e, where they embarked on board such vessels as they could find, and left England forever; and this was the final termination of the political authority of the Danes over the realm of England--the consummation and end of Alfred's military labors and schemes, coming surely at last, though deferred for two centuries after his decease.

What follows belongs rather to the history of William the Conqueror than to that of Alfred, for G.o.dwin invited Edward, Emma's Norman son, to come and a.s.sume the crown; and his coming, together with that of the many Norman attendants that accompanied or followed him, led, in the end, to the Norman invasion and conquest. G.o.dwin might probably have made himself king if he had chosen to do so. His authority over the whole island was paramount and supreme. But, either from a natural sense of justice toward the rightful heir, or from a dread of the danger which always attends the usurping of the royal name by one who is not of royal descent, he made no attempt to take the crown. He convened a great a.s.sembly of all the estates of the realm, and there it was solemnly decided that Edward should be invited to come to England and ascend the throne. A national messenger was dispatched to Normandy to announce the invitation.

It was stipulated in this invitation that Edward should bring very few Normans with him. He came, accordingly, in the first instance, almost unattended. He was received with great joy, and crowned king with splendid ceremonies and great show, in the ancient cathedral at Winchester. He felt under great obligations to G.o.dwin, to whose instrumentality he was wholly indebted for this sudden and most brilliant change in his fortunes; and partly impelled by this feeling of grat.i.tude, and partly allured by Edith's extraordinary charms, he proposed to make Edith his wife. G.o.dwin made no objection. In fact, his enemies say that he made a positive stipulation for this match before allowing the measures for Edward's elevation to the throne to proceed too far. However this may be, G.o.dwin found himself, after Edward's accession, raised to the highest pitch of honor and power.

From being a young herdsman's son, driving the cows to pasture in a wood, he had become the prime minister, as it were, of the whole realm, his four sons being great commanding generals in the army, and his daughter the queen.

The current of life did not flow smoothly with him, after all. We can not here describe the various difficulties in which he became involved with the king on account of the Normans, who were continually coming over from the Continent to join Edward's court, and whose coming and growing influence strongly awakened the jealousy of the English people. Some narration of these events will more properly precede the history of William the Conqueror. We accordingly close this story of G.o.dwin here by giving the circ.u.mstances of his death, as related by the historians of the time. The readers of this narrative will, of course, exercise severally their own discretion in determining how far they will believe the story to be true.

The story is, that one day he was seated at Edward's table, at some sort of entertainment, when one of his attendants, who was bringing in a goblet of wine, tripped one of his feet, but contrived to save himself by dexterously bringing up the other in such a manner as to cause some amus.e.m.e.nt to the guests; G.o.dwin said, referring to the man's feet, that _one brother saved the other_. "Yes," said the king, "brothers have need of brothers' aid. Would to G.o.d that mine were still alive." In saying this he directed a meaning glance toward G.o.dwin, which seemed to insinuate, as, in fact, the king had sometimes done before, that G.o.dwin had had some agency in young Alfred's death. G.o.dwin was displeased. He reproached the king with the unreasonableness of his surmises, and solemnly declared that he was wholly innocent of all partic.i.p.ation in that crime. He imprecated the curse of G.o.d upon his head if this declaration was not true, wis.h.i.+ng that the next mouthful of bread that he should eat might choke him if he had contributed in any way, directly or indirectly, to Alfred's unhappy end. So saying, he put the bread into his mouth, and in the act of swallowing it he was seized with a paroxysm of coughing and suffocation. The attendants hastened to his relief, the guests rose in terror and confusion. G.o.dwin was borne away by two of his sons, and laid on his bed in convulsions. He survived the immediate injury, but after lingering five days he died.

Edward continued to reign in prosperity long after this event, and he employed the sons of G.o.dwin as long as he lived in the most honorable stations of public service. In fact, when he died, he named one of them as his successor to the throne.

[Footnote 1: p.r.o.nounced _Oolf_]

[Footnote 2: Spelled sometimes Herald]

THE END.