BOOKS.
FREEMAN'S NORMAN CONQUEST.*
Ma. FREEMAN'S first volume on The Norman Conquest is entirely occupied with the previous history of England. Passing rapidly over what we may call the mythical period in our annals between the departure of the Romans and the introduction of Christianity, and the uncertain period from Ethelbert of Kent to the great Alfred, it gradually dilates into a very full narrative of the sixty- three years between Edward the Martyr and Edward the Con- fessor. A chapter on the constitution of England in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and another on the history of Normandy during the tenth century, complete the plan of the work. Per- haps it may be best described as the political history of England during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with the Norman Con- quest as the central point around which all is grouped. Consider- ing the extent of the subject and the great growth of material, not so much in new sources of history, as in new inferences of critics like Palgrave and Lappenberg, it can hardly be said that Mr. Freeman's volume is unduly long. Apart from its plan and full- ness of detail, its chief merits seem to us to lie in the freshness of its battle narratives, and in the skilful manipulation of the intri- cate genealogies which contain the family history and explain the political factions of early times. That it does not deal except in- directly with Church history or what is called social life we regard as a positive merit. The epical unity of a political history would only be impaired by digressions into subjects that demand a single and full treatment.
We cannot pretend to review adequately a volume like Mr.
* The History of ae Norman Conquest of England. By E. A. Freeman. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press.
Freeman's in these columns, but we may instance the reign of Canute as one in which we think he has succeeded in evolving a certain order out of chaos. Nothing at first sight can be more difficult than to understand Canute's reputation in English history. Though a good soldier, he was not a first-rate general, and though he founded a great federal sovereignty, his dominions crumbled from the hands of his successors. Mr. Freeman brings out into strong relief the important point that Canute's policy was
English. The Danish nobles who had served or rivalled him were banished or murdered off ; and in the King's later years "the highest places were all filled by Englishmen." "As far as England and Englishmen were concerned, Canute might seem to have acted on the principle of the Greek poet, that unrighteousness might be fittingly practised in order to obtain a crown, but that righteous- ness should be practised in all other times and places." We pre- sume "keeping a crown" comes under the same exceptional law of morality as obtaining it, since otherwise the war with Olaf and the murder of Ulf Jan l are a little difficult to justify, but with this reserve we believe the explanation to be sound. Canute in fact was like the French lady who could always be very good "when she was not tempted." Casuists must decide how far this complex determination to follow right, yet not to forsake interest, may exist without a taint of conscious dishonesty. Mr. Freeman seems to us happier in proving that Canute's government was consistent in its regard for law and its respect for the Church, than in rehabilitat- ing the man himself. The fact that he was not revolutionary in dealing with native laws and interests is, we think, partially ex- plained by a certain sense of weakness that seems always to have haunted him. He temporized with Scotland, he delayed the war with Olaf till he could bring overpowering forces into the field and was sustained by the revolted Norwegian nobility, he sub- mitted to insults from Robert of Normandy, and his reign is happily conspicuous for the absence of ware in Wales. We should be inclined to compare him to Henry I., who was equally unscrupu- lous in his grasp of power, comparatively the patron of Englishmen and the English Church, and who gave the country peace to the best of his power, simply because he was a statesman rather than a soldier. Nevertheless, Mr. Freeman's higher estimate deserves to be studied even by those who may not accept tt unreservedly.
We are less inclined to agree with Mr. Freeman in a point that may seem one of detail, but which really involves, like most matters of nomenclature, an important principle. Mr. Freeman rejects the common terms "Saxon" and "Anglo-Saxon," and speaks always of "Englishmen." He says, what is undoubtedly true, that though we often hear of West Saxons or South Saxons, as dis- tinguished from their neighbours, "the word 'Saxon' is never used in the native tongue to express either the whole nation or any part of it which was not strictly Saxon." On the other hand, the words "Engle" or " Angeicyn" are distinctly so used, so that Eadric Streona, for instance, at Assiugton, called upon Edmund's army to flee with the words, "Flee, flee ! Angles, Edmund is dead 1" But the question really is not whether the South or West Saxons were occasionally called Englishmen in the tenth and eleventh centu- ries, just as the Welsh spoke of all their English enemies indiffer- ently as "Saxons," but whether there was not a real division in England of two great races, Angle and Saxon, who were not welded into one till after the Conquest. Dismissing all theories as to origin, we merely take the facts in historical times. The dis- tinctly Anglian districts were separated from the rest of England by the great forest that stretched from Lancashire into Notting- hamshire, and by seventy miles of fen country between the Wash and Bedfordshire. The natives of this district spoke a widely different dialect from the rest of England; they were governed for long periods by different dynasties, first native and then Danish ; they repeatedly tried to assert their independence ; and to the last they retained a native nobility, so that no Southern noble was made Ealdorman of Northumbria till the time of the Confessor. As late as the reign of the Conqueror the Anglian laws were so different from the West Saxon and Mercian codes, that when William attempted to make the Anglian Code universal on account of its Norman affinities, remonstrances poured in from the other provinces, and he was forced to abandon the design. We know from the Domesday Survey that the proportion of slaves in the purely Saxon counties was as one-fourth, and in the purely Anglian as one-fortieth. Throughout the Danish wars the Angles, easily fusing with the invaders, were among the most dangerous enemies of the Saxon Monarchy. The change from provinces to counties that takes place under the Norman Kings, was nearly as great a fact for England as the change from pro- vinces to departments for France. It was gradual and un-
designed, for county divisions had existed before, and provinces continue for some time to be spoken of ; but it was eminently real, the old names losing their meaning as Earls ceased to be named for more than a single county, and as the country was broken up by new settlers and deportations of the old inhabitants. The Saxon colony which Rufus planted at Carlisle, the Flemings whom Henry I. settled in Wales, the Frenchmen who were allured to the different towns by the offer of houses rent free, are all instances of the same instinctive policy. Accordingly, Mr. Free- man's altered nomenclature will, we think, conceal from others, though it may not disguise from himself, one of the most cardinal facts in our early history, that the two great tribes of the Germanic conquerors of England were never fused into one under a native sovereign. The "golden words" of Sir F. Palgrave can- not over-ride obvious facts. That the English of books is histori- cally derived with many incidents of change from early dialects, does not prove that a native of Yorkshire and a native of Sussex in the eleventh century were not as distinct from one another as Englishmen and Scotchmen before the Union, and it is scarcely more reasonable to confound nationalities in the one case than in the other.
An interesting question concerning Earl Godwin's family is dis- cussed by Mr. Freeman in an appendix, and is a good instance of the way in which pedigrees bear upon general history. Florence of Worcester, one of our best authorities, says that Godwin was the nephew of Eadric Stre,ona, the unworthy favourite of Ethelred, and the man whose singular treachery ruined two Kings succes- sively. Mr. Freeman points out two difficulties,—that Wulfnoth, Godwin's father, was ruined by the influence of another brother of Eadric, his own uncle by this theory ; and that as Eadric married a daughter of Ethelred, her brother, Edward the Confessor, in taking to wife Godwin's daughter, would have married the great- great-niece of his own brother-in-law. Neither of these objections is, we think, conclusive. Brictric's quarrel with Wulfnoth may be paralleled by Swezen's murder of his cousin, Boom, and Harold's death-feud with Tostig ; both instances from Godwin's family. Nor is it impossible that Eadric's nephew may have been as old as him- self, as he was one of a large family, while Eadric's wife, married to him in 1007, must have been much older than her half-brother, born between 1003 and 1005. It is curious, however, that Edward who seemingly disliked his marriage, did not raise the point of affinity, though perhaps scruples of this kind may have influenced his conduct as a married man. Mr. Freeman next draws atten- tion to a will of the /Etheling 2Ethelstan, bequeathing land at Compton to Godwin, son of Wulfnoth ; proves from Domesday that there were two South-Saxon Comptons, one held by Harold, the other by a tenant of Earl Godwin ; and argues that Godwin was the son of Child Wulfnoth, the South Saxon, whom he distin- guishes from Eadric's great-nephew,--solely, as far as we under- stand him, on the ground that Florence, in his mention of Wulf- noth's disgrace, does not expressly identify him with the son of 2Egelmair, whom he had mentioned twelve lines before. We con- fess this seems to us insufficient. 2Ethelstan's bequest is perhaps more likely to have been made to a connection by marriage, and he mentions Godwin soon after his brothers and before his foster-mother. The name Wulfnoth is not altogether a common one, like Godwin, Almar, or Edric, and in fact only occurs once in the Domesday Survey. The Ulnods, if this be the same name, are not numerous, while the Elnods and Alnods, with one exception at most, probably refer to /Elfnoths. In the charters of Ethelred's reign there is no " Wulfnoth, Min- ister," till 1005, three years before the South-Saxon Wulfnoth's disgrace, and the name does not occur again except as a Church- man's till 1024, when Godwin was Duke. It is difficult, therefore, to suppose that there were two Wulfnoths, each father of a Godwin living at exactly the same time, and so alike in circumstances that the reproach of low extraction rested upon each, though each was estated and noble by office. Yet this would certainly be true of Wulfnoth, Eadric's nephew, and of Wulfnoth, Godwin's father, and the silence of friendly historians about Godwin's ancestry surely implies that some slur attached to it. Nevertheless, in the absence of certainty, Mr. Freeman's doubts are urged with sufficient force to justify a suspended judgment from those who see no family resemblance between Eadric, Godwin, and Harold.
Our space forbids us to quote at length from Mr. Freeman's volume, and it is impossible in a short notice to do justice to a narrative that is of necessity largely blended with argument. This first part will naturally be more interesting to professed students of history than to the general public. We may say briefly, however, that as the fullest account in existence it is indispensable to all who wish to follow the consecutive history of the period,
and that even where we differ from Mr. Freeman's conclusions, we willingly admit that he has stated his case fairly. We shall look forward to the second volume with much interest. Mr. Freeman's peculiar talents will have free play in dealing with that difficult time, and it will be a great advantage to history that the period should be treated by one who evidently sympathizes with Thierry's views, and whose care and critical habits are in direct antithesis to Thierry's unscrupulous method of misusing authorities.
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