HAROLD IL was the second of the aons of Godwin, earl of Kent. This Godwin, or Gudiu, makes his first appearance iu inglish history in the reign of Canute, and appears to have been born a few years before the close of the 10th century. He was undoubtedly of Saxon descent. The English writers call him the son of Wulfuoth, a 'child' (which may perhaps mean a peasant) of Suasex. One writer, Radul phus Niger (whose manuscript chronicle is in the British Museum), says distinctly that he was the son of a cowherd (' filius bubulci '). These statements are consistent, so far as they go, with a curious account which Mr. Turner has translated from the Knytlinga Saga, and which represents Godwin to have been the son of a peasant named Ulfnadr (evidently the same name with Wulfnoth), and to have owed his introduction at the court of Canute to a service which he performed to Ulfr, one of the noble captains of that Danish con queror, who, having lost himself in a wood after the battle of Skorsteio, or Sceorstan [Enstusres II ], accidentally met with Godwin driving his father's cattle. and was by him conducted in safety first to the cottage of Ulfnadr and then to the camp of Canute. This story however makes Ulfnadr to have had AD uncle Edric who had already raised himself from the same humble station to bs duke or chief governor of Mercies Godwin's talents and address, his handsome person and fluent speech, speedily enabled him to make his way at court. In course of time he married Gyda, or Githa, the sister of Ulfr, who was himself married to a sister of Canute; and on this Canute made him a jarl, or earl. Earl Godwin's first appearance in political history is after the death of Canute, as a supporter, in concert with Queen Emma, of the succession of Hardicanute. [HARDICANUTE.] On this occasion, as in the general course of his afterlife, he attaceed himself to the Saxon, in opposition to the Danish or other foreign interest. It seems improbable therefore that he should soon after this have been a party, as the historians after the Norman Conquest allege, to the treacherous murder of Prince Alfred, the younger brother of Edward the Confessor. [EDWARD THE Coseasson.] The common story indeed affirms that Godwin in this instance acted again iu concert with Queen Emma; but, besides the extreme unlikelihood that the mother should thus plot the destruction of her own child, whose death was, at the moment at least, to benefit nobody except Harold Barefoot, the enemy of herself and of her families by both her husbands, the actual immediate result of this murder was her own exile as a fugitive, and the complete overthrow, for the time, of what ever power she or her son Hardicanute, for whom she was acting, possessed in Eogland. The oontemporary author, it may be further observed, of the 'Encomium Emmm,' addressed to her, and written by her orders, never would have made the murder, as he does, one of the subjects of his detail, if there had been the least suspicion of her participation in it. If Emma was innocent, Godwin, who was and had all along been her associate in governing Wessex for Hardicanute, waa in all probability equally so. It is true that a few years after, in the reign of Hardicanute, he was, in a quarrel with Alfric, archbishop of York, passionately accused by that prelate of having been the instrument through whom the murder was effected ; but he imme diately met the charge by demanding to be put upon his trial, and the result was his complete acquittal Wheu Alfred and his followers were fallen upon by the soldiers of Harold, they were ruder the pro tection of Godwin, who had met them on their landing, having, as he asserted, been sent by Emma to be their conductor ; this circumstance seems to have formed the sole ground for an imputation which pursued him to the grave, and after his death was eagerly taken up by the Norman historians, when everything that could blacken the characters of Godwin and his family was grateful to the reigning dyuasty. After the accession of Hardicanute, Godwin was employed in conjunc tion with Archbishop Alfric to disinter the body of Harold Harefoot, and see the fragments thrown into the Thames. It was a disagree ment arising out of this barbarous commission that gave occasion to the quarrel between the archbishop and the earl. The history of Godwin and his family during the next reign has been sketched in the notice of Edward the Coufessor. The historians after the Conquest assert that his death, which certainly happened in conse quence of a sudden seizure of illness as he aat at the royal table on Easter Monday, 1053, was oce taloned by his being choked in attempting to swallow a piece of bread, which, in reply to an observa tion of tho king obliquely hinting that he had been the murderer of Prince Alfred, he had wished might stick in his throat if there was any truth in the charge. The story, which was unknown to the
contemporary annalists, is of a kind too well adaptett to the credulous superstatiou of the age in which its first relaters lived, as well as to their interests and prejudices, to leave much doubt as to ice origin. At the time of his death Godwin was the most powerful subject iu England, he and his sons dividing among them the government of a keg., portion of the kingdom, while his only daughter was the wife of the king. Ills eldest son, Swept, Indeed, after having been repeatedly pardoned for resistance to the royal authority and other crimes, had died abroad a short time before the death of his father. On Godwiu's death his earldom of Kent, which besides that county comprehended all Wessex and Sussex, was given to his second son, Harold ; Harold's own earldom, under which were included the counties of Essex, Middlesex Huntingdon, Cambridge, and the rest of the ancient king dom of /1st Anglia, being at the same time transferred to Altgar, the eon of Leofric, styled Earl of Leicester, the potent rival of the Oodwin family. This latter arrangement e as not tamely submitted to by Harold Alfgar was outlawed by the witenagemot on a charge of treason which Harold brought agalust him ; on which, flying to Ireland, he speedily returned with a force of Danes from that country, and of auxiliaries from to levy open war against the Saxon king. Harold was despatched by Edward to meet the rebels ; but a contest of arms was prevented by a negociation which restoped the earldom to Altgar, who soon after also succeeded to the honours and estates of his father Leofric, but did not live above a year to enjoy them. Harold meanwhile, as the king's commander-in chief, turned to chastise the Welsh for the aid they had given to the revolt; and a series of hos tilities with that people commenced which did not finally terminate until in 1063, after Harold had twice carried fire and sword through their country, they sent him the head of their Prince Griffith, iu token of their entire submissiou. It was about two years after this that Harold was shipwrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, where he was immediately seized by the Earl Guy, and on the demand of William, duke of Normandy (afterwards king of England), delivered over to that prince. William did not permit hie prisoner to embark for England till he had compelled him to take a solemn oath, in presence of the assembled Norman barons, that he would do everything in his power, ou the decease of Edward, to promote the duke's succession to the English crown. It would appear to have been already well under stood, or at least generally suspected, that the English earl looked to this prize for himself. Immediately after he returned home, Harold found himself involved in a new affair of difficulty. This was the insurrection of the people of Northumberland against his younger brother Tostig, who a few years before had been appointed their earl on the death of the great Siward, but whose misgovernment and savage excesses of despotism had at length become insupportable. The insurgents had placed at their head %lorcar, the eldest of the two eons of the recently-deceased Earl Alfgar; and he and his brother Edwin had come to their assistance witu the men of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester, and also a body of Welsh auxiliaries. Harold, who was sent to meet them, either deemed their force too formidable or their demands too just., to be resisted ; it was agreed, without coming to blows, that the earldom should be taken from Tostig and given to 3Iorear. On this Toetig retired to Bruges, brooding, as it presently appeared, on schemes of vengeance. The death of Edward the Contessor (January 5th 1066) followed in little more than a month after this pacification, which had been perhaps the more readily accorded by Harold iu consequence of the near prospect of that event : he was at hand when it took place. On the evening of the same day, a report having been circulated that Edward had named him for his successor before he breathed his last, he was proclaimed king iu an assembly of the thanes and of the citizens of London, held in the cathedral of St. Paul's. The next day he was solemnly crowned iu the same place, a few hours after the interment of the late king.