Godwin, Earl of Wessex
Godwin | |
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Reign | 1020–1053 |
Born | c. 1001 probably Sussex[1] |
Died | 15 April 1053 Winchester, Hampshire, England |
Spouse | Gytha Thorkelsdóttir |
Issue more... |
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House | Godwin (founder) |
Father | Wulfnoth Cild |
Godwin of Wessex (
Rise to power
Godwin was born c. 1001, likely in Sussex.[1] Godwin's father was probably Wulfnoth Cild, who was a thegn of Sussex. His origin is unknown but 'Child' (also written Cild) is cognate with 'the Younger' or 'Junior' and as today associated with some form of inheritance. In 1009 Wulfnoth was 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.[2] This estate in Compton, Sussex, had once belonged to Godwin's father.[3] Although he is now always thought of as connected with Wessex, Godwin had probably been raised in Sussex, not Wessex[3] and was probably a native of Sussex.[1]
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.
Reigns of Cnut's sons
Cnut died in 1035 and England was disputed between
In 1040, Harold Harefoot died and Godwin backed the successful accession of Harthacnut to the throne of England. Following Harthacnuts death in 1042 Godwin supported the claim of Æthelred's last surviving son Edward the Confessor to the throne. Edward, who was crowned the following year, had spent most of the previous thirty years in Normandy. His reign restored to the throne of England the "native" royal house of Wessex, a branch now in blood intertwined with the Danish-Norman dynasty of Emma of Normandy.[5]
Later conflicts, decline, and death
Soon after Edward became king, he extended Godwin's jurisdiction to include Kent.[6] Then in January 1045, Godwin secured the marriage of his daughter Edith (Eadgyth) to the king.[7]
As Edward drew advisors, nobles and priests from his – and his mother's – Normano-French circle to develop his own power base, Godwin led opposition to the influx of the nascent European
The year after his restoration to earldom, on 15 April, Godwin died suddenly, days after collapsing at a royal banquet at Winchester. Contemporary accounts indicating that he just had a sudden illness, possibly a stroke. According to the Abingdon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 1053: "On Easter Monday, as he was sitting with the king at a meal he suddenly sank towards the footstool bereft of speech, and deprived of all his strength. Then he was carried to the king's private room and they thought it was about to pass off. But it was not so. On the contrary, he continued like this without speech or strength right on to the Thursday, and then departed this life."[8] But according to one colourful account by the 12th-century writer Aelred of Rievaulx, which appears to be no more than Norman propaganda, Godwin tried to disclaim responsibility for Alfred Ætheling's death with the words "May this crust which I hold in my hand pass through my throat and leave me unharmed to show that I was guiltless of treason towards you, and that I was innocent of your brother's death!". The work says he then swallowed the crust, but it stuck in his throat and killed him.[9]
His son Harold (Godwinson) succeeded him as Earl of Wessex, that is, overlord of roughly the southernmost third of England. On the deaths of Earl Siward of Northumbria (1055) and later Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia (1062), the children of Godwin were poised to take near-total overlordship of England, under the king. Tostig was helped into the earldom of Northumbria, approximating to England's northern third. The Mercian earl for the central third of England was then sidelined, especially after Harold and Tostig broke the Welsh-Mercian alliance in 1063. Harold later succeeded Edward the Confessor and became King of England in his own right in 1066. At this point, both Harold's remaining brothers in England were among his nominally loyal earls, Wessex vested in the King directly, and he had married the sister of Earl E(a)dwin(e) of Mercia and of
Family
Children
- Sweyn Godwinson, Earl of Herefordshire (c. 1020 – 29 September 1052)
- Harold II of England (c. 1022 – 14 October 1066)
- Edith of Wessex, (c. 1025 – 18 December 1075), queen consort of Edward the Confessor
- Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria (c. 1026 – 25 September 1066)
- Gyrth Godwinson, Earl of East Anglia (c. 1032 – 14 October 1066)
- Leofwine Godwinson, Earl of Kent (c. 1035 – 14 October 1066)
- Wulfnoth Godwinson (c. 1040 – died after 1087)
- Alfgar, possibly a monk in Rheims
- Edgiva
- Elgiva (died c. 1066)
- Gunhilda, a nun (died 24 August 1087)[10]
Family tree
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See also
- Ancestry of the Godwins
- House of Wessex family tree
- Cnut the Great's family tree
Citations
- ^ a b c Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b Bibbs, Hugh (1999). "The Rise of Godwine Earl of Wessex". Retrieved 17 January 2013.
- ^ Pauline Stafford, 'Edith, Edward's Wife and Queen', in Richard Mortimer ed., Edward the Confessor: The Man and the Legend, The Boydell Press, 2009, p. 121
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8516. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Baxter, p. 1191 and n. 14; Licence, pp. 101-102
- ^ Weir, p. 33
- ISBN 0-413-24320-6, p. 412.
- ISBN 0-413-24320-6, pp. 412–413.
- ^ Weir, pp. 34–36
Sources
- Baxter, Stephen (December 2007). "MS C of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Politics of Mid-Eleventh-Century England". English Historical Review. 122 (499): 1189–1227. ISSN 0013-8266.
- Licence, Tom (2020). Edward the Confessor: Last of the Royal Blood. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-21154-2.
- Mason, Emma. The House of Godwine: The History of Dynasty. Hambledon Press, 2003.
- Stenton, F.M. Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford History of England), 2001.
- Thorne, J.O. and Collocott, T.C. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, Revised Edition. (Edinburgh: Chambers, 1984) ISBN 0-550-16010-8
- Walker, Ian. Harold: The Last Anglo-Saxon King, 1997.
- ISBN 0-7126-7448-9
Further reading
- ISSN 1754-372X.