But,although she was a gentle lady,in all things worthy to be beloved-good,beautiful,sensible,and kind-the King from the first neglected her.Her father and her six proud brothers,resenting this cold treatment,harassed the King greatly by exerting all their power to make him unpopular.Having lived so long in Normandy,he preferred the Normans to the English.He made a Norman Archbishop,and Norman Bishops;his great officers and favourites were all Normans;he introduced the Norman fashions and the Norman language;in imitation of the state custom of Normandy,he attached a great seal to his state documents,instead of merely marking them,as the Saxon Kings had done,with the sign of the cross-just as poor people who have never been taught to write,now make the same mark for their names.All this,the powerful Earl Godwin and his six proud sons represented to the people as disfavour shown towards the English;and thus they daily increased their own power,and daily diminished the power of the King.
They were greatly helped by an event that occurred when he had reigned eight years.Eustace,Earl of Bologne,who had married the King's sister,came to England on a visit.After staying at the court some time,he set forth,with his numerous train of attendants,to return home.They were to embark at Dover.
Entering that peaceful town in armour,they took possession of the best houses,and noisily demanded to be lodged and entertained without payment.One of the bold men of Dover,who would not endure to have these domineering strangers jingling their heavy swords and iron corselets up and down his house,eating his meat and drinking his strong liquor,stood in his doorway and refused admission to the first armed man who came there.The armed man drew,and wounded him.The man of Dover struck the armed man dead.
Intelligence of what he had done,spreading through the streets to where the Count Eustace and his men were standing by their horses,bridle in hand,they passionately mounted,galloped to the house,surrounded it,forced their way in (the doors and windows being closed when they came up),and killed the man of Dover at his own fireside.They then clattered through the streets,cutting down and riding over men,women,and children.This did not last long,you may believe.The men of Dover set upon them with great fury,killed nineteen of the foreigners,wounded many more,and,blockading the road to the port so that they should not embark,beat them out of the town by the way they had come.Hereupon,Count Eustace rides as hard as man can ride to Gloucester,where Edward is,surrounded by Norman monks and Norman lords.'Justice!'cries the Count,'upon the men of Dover,who have set upon and slain my people!'The King sends immediately for the powerful Earl Godwin,who happens to be near;reminds him that Dover is under his government;and orders him to repair to Dover and do military execution on the inhabitants.'It does not become you,'says the proud Earl in reply,'to condemn without a hearing those whom you have sworn to protect.I will not do it.'
The King,therefore,summoned the Earl,on pain of banishment and loss of his titles and property,to appear before the court to answer this disobedience.The Earl refused to appear.He,his eldest son Harold,and his second son Sweyn,hastily raised as many fighting men as their utmost power could collect,and demanded to have Count Eustace and his followers surrendered to the justice of the country.The King,in his turn,refused to give them up,and raised a strong force.After some treaty and delay,the troops of the great Earl and his sons began to fall off.The Earl,with a part of his family and abundance of treasure,sailed to Flanders;
Harold escaped to Ireland;and the power of the great family was for that time gone in England.But,the people did not forget them.
Then,Edward the Confessor,with the true meanness of a mean spirit,visited his dislike of the once powerful father and sons upon the helpless daughter and sister,his unoffending wife,whom all who saw her (her husband and his monks excepted)loved.He seized rapaciously upon her fortune and her jewels,and allowing her only one attendant,confined her in a gloomy convent,of which a sister of his-no doubt an unpleasant lady after his own heart-was abbess or jailer.
Having got Earl Godwin and his six sons well out of his way,the King favoured the Normans more than ever.He invited over WILLIAM,DUKE OF NORMANDY,the son of that Duke who had received him and his murdered brother long ago,and of a peasant girl,a tanner's daughter,with whom that Duke had fallen in love for her beauty as he saw her washing clothes in a brook.William,who was a great warrior,with a passion for fine horses,dogs,and arms,accepted the invitation;and the Normans in England,finding themselves more numerous than ever when he arrived with his retinue,and held in still greater honour at court than before,became more and more haughty towards the people,and were more and more disliked by them.
The old Earl Godwin,though he was abroad,knew well how the people felt;for,with part of the treasure he had carried away with him,he kept spies and agents in his pay all over England.