The Cunning of the Dove Read online

  The King sat down, staring. ‘But Godwin was at war with Harefoot,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Godwin was fighting on behalf of Canute’s legitimate son, Hardicanute, against Canute’s bastard, Harefoot. It didn’t suit him that a third claimant should appear, to remind Englishmen of the claims of the Cerdingas. It didn’t suit Harefoot either. Even though they were at open war, they worked together on the murder.’

  ‘And my mother? Both Alfred and Hardicanute were her sons.’

  Robert nodded grimly. ‘She was faithful to the memory of Canute. She tried to carry out his will. By her advice Alfred trusted Godwin.’

  ‘Perhaps she was deceived. Let us hope so. In any case I never see her nowadays, even when I visit Winchester. But, look here, Robert, Hardicanute inquired into all this. Godwin was charged with the murder. He cleared himself by his oath, and the oaths of his oath-helpers. All the magnates of England swore with him. Godwin would perhaps lie to save his head, but why should all the other Earls support him in a false oath?’

  ‘The oath was not exactly false. He was accused of murder, and he did not murder Alfred. He handed him over, bound, to those who would kill him. The magnates knew the truth; nearly everyone knows it. But no one wanted to stir up civil war between Hardicanute and the great Earl who had been Canute’s favourite.’

  ‘I suppose all England knows it, except the King. I believe you. But I also cannot accuse Godwin, unless I am willing to begin a civil war. I shall say nothing, unless he puts himself outside the law and gives me a genuine excuse to attack him. Oh, do you think Edith knows of her father’s crime?’

  I had heard this story years ago, like everybody else in Winchester. Perhaps it was a good thing that at last the King’s eyes had been opened. But I could not stand by and see all his happiness destroyed. I joined in this exchange between the King of the English and his greatest subject.

  ‘The Lady probably suspected her father – as you, my lord, suspected your mother. You were careful never to inquire into the part played in the tragedy by the Old Lady, for fear you would find out too much. Perhaps the Lady also was reluctant to learn the whole truth.’

  ‘Leave me, both of you. Tonight I shall sleep alone. If I am murdered in consequence I hope you are both impaled on blunt stakes. Now go away, leave me.’

  I slept outside the door of the King’s chamber. He did not sleep.

  During August the King was continually called from his hunting to judge disputes about the boundaries and immunities of the Archbishop’s lands in Kent. These disputes arise every time a new Archbishop is appointed, especially if he is an energetic man of business. There is no room in one small province for a metropolitan Archbishop and a great Earl; the sensible solution would be to make the Archbishop ruler of all Kent, as the Bishop of Durham rules the patrimony of St. Cuthbert; but no one more important than a chamberlain has ever thought of this simple remedy. It made the dispute more bitter that the Earl of Kent, the rival of Archbishop Robert, happened to be Godwin. But there would have been trouble even if a devout lay warrior had been responsible for the secular affairs of the district.

  Earl Godwin was used to having his own way whenever he chose to stand up for his rights. He was surprised to find the King hostile to him, and he made little effort to conceal his anger. Harold and Tostig were even more outspoken. Among the clergy there was strife between the supporters of Spearhavoc and those of William, the King’s chaplain. Altogether it was an uneasy, unhappy time. The royal household was gloomy and upset, until we all cheered up at the news that the Count of Boulogne was coming to visit us.

  Whether it is pleasant to obey a Norman master is a question on which two opinions can be held; but there is no doubt that Normans are stimulating guests. They are alert and full of exciting modern ideas; they consider it part of good manners to be amusing, while many English magnates of those days held that pompous dullness was a sign of deep wisdom.

  Count Eustace was the King’s brother-in-law, and stepfather to Earl Ralph. I suppose he came on business, probably to put in a good word for the young man who had shown himself so incompetent as a defender of Wessex against Welsh raids; but his business was discussed privately, while he hunted with the King, and I never learned its nature. In the end Earl Ralph was farther than ever from a formal nomination to be the King’s heir; but he was consoled with a royal licence to build castles to defend the district round Hereford. In those days castles in England were a novelty, and the peasants disapproved of them as a likely shelter for outlaws; but they kept out the Welsh as well as the sheriff which made them useful on that troubled border.

  Then Count Eustace set out for home, with his great company of foreign knights. A few days later he was back, riding up to the King’s hall in Gloucester in the gathering dusk. The King had just sat down to supper, and I stood behind his chair.

  We were startled to see armed men enter the hall at that late hour, and a glance showed that they had ridden hard after a hard fight; some were wounded, and all were exhausted. But since the King and Count Eustace conversed in French there was little excitement among the common housecarles at the lower tables.

  ‘My lord,’ began Count Eustace, ‘it seems we must fight our way out of your country. The coastlands are in revolt. You said your writ would get us free quarters in Dover. It didn’t. Then there was a bit of a brawl, with a score of men killed on either side. I didn’t want to sack your town without consulting you; so I broke off the action and hurried here.’

  ‘Dover shall be sacked, never fear,’ answered the King, his eyes flashing. ‘I shall send off a messenger tonight, commanding Earl Godwin to burn it. The town lies in his government, and he must take responsibility for the evil deeds of its burgesses. What an ungrateful set of men! When the fleet was laid up I gave them extra privileges on condition they kept ships ready for my service. They enjoy more freedom than any other borough, and they use it to make war on the guests of the King!’

  ‘They are useful warriors,’ said Eustace professionally, as one leader to another. ‘You don’t often find axemen who will stand their ground against cavalry. I could have scattered them in the end, if I had tried hard enough. But it seemed wasteful to send in valuable trained warhorses to be killed in street fighting.’

  ‘My lord, you are a Christian King. You can’t wage war on your own subjects just because some of your guests have been hurt in a riot. There are two sides to every quarrel. Send for the portreeve of Dover, and hear his excuses before you pronounce him guilty.’ That was Archbishop Robert, speaking from his place at the King’s right hand: he could follow this French conversation while the English courtiers sat with puzzled frowns.

  ‘I do not wage war. The sacking of a town in which the King’s guests have been injured is the penalty laid down by English law. King Hardicanute sacked Worcester because two of his housecarles had been killed there. Godwin commanded the troops who did it, so he will know how to do it again. You don’t need a formal inquiry before sacking a town as the penalty for riot. In any case, no lives will be lost. None were lost when Godwin sacked Worcester. The burgesses will run away, and there will be no pursuit. Their houses will be burned, and that will be the end of it. I know I am right on the point of law. Edith, that is the law, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the law, or that’s what it used to be. If the King’s officers are attacked in a town, that town should be burned. All the same, Edward, these gentlemen are not exactly your officers, and my father won’t be pleased to sack a town which has been under his special protection for more than thirty years.’ In her excitement the Lady rose to her feet, and spoke loudly in English so that all the hall could hear.

  There was a buzz of conversation among the lesser courtiers. Perhaps the Lady had not intended to stir up discontent, but her plea for the men of Dover sounded as though she thought they were in the right.

  ‘The law is the law, and never changes,’ said the King fiercely. ‘Men have been killed, and a score of them were within
the special peace of the King, his guests journeying from his court. Robert, get one of your clerks to make out the order at once, before we finish supper. Edgar, see that the messenger rides tonight, and reaches Earl Godwin without delay.’

  ‘I don’t like it. You are behaving like a bloodthirsty tyrant,’ muttered the Archbishop.

  ‘I don’t like it. All England will see that you back foreigners against true Englishmen,’ murmured the Lady.

  ‘I don’t like it. You try the Earl too high, and he may not carry out his orders,’ I grumbled under my breath, though of course no one heeded my opinion.

  But we were none of us prepared for Godwin’s answer, which was to gather an army on Cotswold.

  It was done quite openly, without subterfuge. Sweyn and Harold marched to join him, with the men of East Anglia and Danish Mercia. They issued a manifesto, saying that they ‘wished to meet the King and his Council and consult with them concerning the disgrace that had been brought on the King and all his people by the wicked attack of the Count of Boulogne’. In other words, they did not seek to depose King Edward, but merely to deprive him of his royal power.

  To give him his due, Godwin never aimed higher than that. He never tried to make himself King of the English; he was content to be the King’s master.

  In Gloucester we were cut off from the rest of England. The King had no army with him. Luckily, when Earls ride in arms other Earls muster their men. Ralph of course was with us, and his small force of mounted Normans; Siward and Leofric came up by forced marches with the men of Northumbria and English Mercia. By the end of August the King also had an army, strong enough to march against the rebels on Cotswold.

  On the 1st of September we marched. In this crisis even I bore arms, carrying an axe in the rear rank of the King’s bodyguard. My lord looked very warlike as he rode at our head, with a long lance and a great five-foot shield; he proposed to fight on horseback after the Norman fashion. But all the talk in the army was of the disaster civil war would bring to the English, who must be conquered again by the Danes as soon as our best warriors had killed one another.

  That was what they were saying also in Godwin’s army. When it came to the point no one was willing to fight. We saw them, drawn up in the shieldwall on a ridge by Beverstone; and very unpleasant they looked, so that I tried to edge farther to the rear. Then Earl Siward sent out a mounted man waving a green branch, and though the King fretted and wished to lead a charge by himself very soon all the Earls were meeting at a peace conference between the armies.

  Siward, who feared no man, was chosen to tell the King that peace had been made with the rebels. He rode up to the bodyguard with a cheerful grin, though I noticed that his toes were free of the stirrups and that his great axe dangled from his wrist by a short thong. He was a Dane of the old-fashioned kind, who prefer to fight on their feet.

  ‘No heads loosened as yet, my lord,’ he called gaily, ‘though before the month is out there may be killing enough to content even your Norman cut-throats. In three weeks from now we meet Godwin in London, and each side brings all the men it can. That means that Godwin has lost, though so far he hasn’t seen it. He has his whole power on the ridge over there, and in three weeks’ time his men will be anxious to go home. Half my Northumbrians haven’t yet found their marching boots; northerners are always slow to start. They will be in London, ready for any excitement, just when Godwin’s men are wondering how the harvest will be got in without them. You’ll see. Every day our strength will grow, and Godwin’s will dwindle. By the way, I had to promise in your name that Godwin may come safely to London. I hope you consider yourself bound by that promise. At my time of life I should not care to be forsworn.’

  For all his carefree voice he looked straight at the King from under bushy brows, and his hand touched the haft of his axe.

  ‘If peace has been promised in my name I must keep the peace; though this is a just war,’ my lord answered. ‘Yet even if the land has peace these rebels deserve punishment.’

  ‘Their leader shall be punished, if we can get the better of him. The ordinary axemen shall be spared, to fight under your banner and maintain the Kingdom of the English. If we kill them Hardrada will add England to his dominions, and that would not please even the Anglo-Danes.’

  ‘Then go away and ratify the truce in my name. Tell all my loyal Earls to meet me tonight, so that we can plan our march on London. So after all I am not to fight a battle. Where’s Edgar? I may as well get out of this cumbersome armour.’

  The King drooped in his saddle. He looked suddenly miserable, like a child disappointed of an expected treat. I realised that he had been genuinely looking forward to leading his first charge. He was a good man, not eager to shed the blood of his own people; but he was also descended from a line of warriors, and he hated Godwin as a personal enemy.

  ‘It’s all over,’ he said as I disarmed him, ‘or rather, it never began. For eight years I have been King of the English, I am nearer fifty than forty years old, and I have never struck a blow in anger. Do you think I shall be remembered by posterity as the only King of the English who never risked his life on the field? If only God would permit me to share in some little unimportant skirmish, just to prove to the world that I am not a coward.’

  ‘Posterity will remember you as the good King who kept peace and reformed the Church,’ I answered soothingly, for I myself was delighted to be saved from a dangerous battle. ‘And if you really get the new minster going outside London,’ I added cunningly, ‘that great building will keep your memory green for ages to come.’

  ‘Ah, the West Minster,’ said the King, brightening at once. ‘Archbishop Robert and Bishop William are here with the army. Tonight we shall talk over our plans once again; and in three weeks I shall be in London, where I can mark out the foundations on the ground. I hope those Earls don’t interrupt our discussion by talking endlessly about warfare.’

  The army that rode with us to London was splendidly armed, but not very large. In September it is useless to call up the general levy of all free men entitled to bear arms, because peasants will not answer the summons in harvest time unless their own fields are menaced by hostile ravaging. Behind the King rode Bishops and abbots, for the Church was solidly on his side. The loyal Earls, Siward, Leofric and Ralph, brought their housecarles and the free thanes of their shires; in addition they brought other well-equipped warriors, thanes from every corner of the land who had commended themselves to these great men after the new fashion of service. But in our host there were hardly any foot, and wherever we halted we could find provisions to feed us.

  We travelled slowly, to allow time for the men of farthest Northumbria to join us. Our line of march lay north of the Thames, and at Oxford we halted for two days to organise the army. Meanwhile we had word that the Godwinssons were marching eastward a few miles south of the river. Earl Godwin had built a great hall at Southwark, facing London, and there he would stay while he drew up his men at the southern end of London Bridge.

  The rebel army comprised the free thanes of all the Godwinsson shires, East Angles and South Saxons and those Mercians who obeyed Sweyn. The dismissed sailors from the fleet and certain others of the old housecarles of Canute also joined the great man who had been Canute’s minister. It seemed likely that by Michaelmas a great battle would be fought, and it was not at all certain that the King would win it.

  But as we passed Reading armed men came to us from the far side of the river, waving branches to show that they came in peace. Earl Leofric rode out to parley with them, and then came bustling up to the King in high spirits. Among all the magnates of that time Leofric was the only true Englishman, born and bred in England; he was more eager for peace than Siward the Dane or Ralph the Norman, or than the King who had been reared oversea.

  ‘It’s the beginning of the rot,’ he shouted gaily, telling his news to all who would hear. ‘By the time Godwin reaches Southwark he will have no army. These men have been rebels, but now they wish
to join us. They are the free thanes of Kent and the South Saxons, and they have been considering their rights and obligations, as free thanes should. When their Earl called up the levies of his shires they came to the muster, as was their duty. But they are not commended to Godwin, and now they see that duty does not compel them to follow their Earl against their lawful King.’

  ‘Of course. That’s true of free thanes anywhere,’ said the King placidly. ‘If we point it out to the thanes of East Anglia they may agree that Siward is as good a Dane as Godwin, and also come over. I’m not so sure about the men who commended themselves to Godwin. I suppose they ought to follow their lord in any quarrel. If we try to win them over we may be procuring perjury, and that would be sinful. But I don’t understand the ins and outs of commendation. When I was a young man they were doing it all over Normandy, but in those days I was not interested in military affairs. Ralph, do you know how we ought to treat men who have taken oath to Godwin or one of his sons? Must we make war on them, or can we honourably ask them to desert their lords?’ He spoke in English, out of courtesy to the English Earls round him; but Earl Ralph knew something of his mother’s language.

  ‘You may not steal another man’s vassals. But if Godwin yields we can compel him to release them. It’s really quite simple. He gives them back their oath, and then they commend themselves afresh to the King.’

  ‘And after that they must follow me against any foe. Very well, that’s what we’ll do. No need to punish them for rebellion. Just ask them to swear another oath. I like this commendation business. Properly managed, it can give the lesser landowners a stake in the government.’

  ‘If they did their duty they would have that already, in the shire court,’ grumbled Earl Leofric. ‘Nowadays no one bothers to attend, and it’s all left to the Earl and his housecarles.’