fred; there was
something shadow-like in his thin form, his delicate complexion, his
transparent womanly hands; and it is almost as a shadow that he glides
over the political stage. The work of government was done by sterner
hands.

[Sidenote: Godwine]

Throughout his earlier reign, in fact, England lay in the hands of its
three Earls, Siward of Northumbria, Leofric of Mercia, and Godwine of
Wessex, and it seemed as if the feudal tendency to provincial separation
against which AEthelred had struggled was to triumph with the death of
Cnut. What hindered this severance was the greed of Godwine. Siward was
isolated in the North: Leofric's earldom was but a fragment of Mercia.
But the Earl of Wessex, already master of the wealthiest part of England,
seized district after district for his house. His son Swein secured an
earldom in the south-west; his son Harold became earl of East-Anglia; his
nephew Beorn was established in Central England: while the marriage of
his daughter Eadgyth to the king himself gave Godwine a hold upon the
throne. Policy led the earl, as it led his son, rather to aim at winning
England itself than at breaking up England to win a mere fief in it. But
his aim found a sudden check through the lawlessness of his son Swein.
Swein seduced the abbess of Leominster, sent her home again with a yet
more outrageous demand of her hand in marriage, and on the king's refusal
to grant it fled from the realm. Godwine's influence secured his pardon,
but on his very return to seek it Swein murdered his cousin Beorn who had
opposed the reconciliation and again fled to Flanders. A storm of
national indignation followed him over-sea. The meeting of the Wise men
branded him as "nithing," the "utterly worthless," yet in a year his
father wrested a new pardon from the King and restored him to his
earldom. The scandalous inlawing of such a criminal left Godwine alone in
a struggle which soon arose with Eadward himself. The king was a stranger
in his realm, and his sympathies lay naturally with the home and friends
of his youth and exile. He spoke the Norman tongue. He used in Norman
fashion a seal for his charters. He set Norman favourites in the highest
posts of Church and State. Foreigners such as these, though hostile to
the minister, were powerless against Godwine's influence and ability, and
when at a later time they ventured to stand alone against him they fell
without a blow. But the general ill-will at Swein's inlaw