340 ON THE LIKE AND DEATH OF EAEL GODWINE. after the death of Harthacimt. Or rather, as Dr. Lingard truly says, m the form ^Yhich it assumes iu WilHam of Poitou, it is an interested Xorman fiction. That writer would have us believe that Eadward was elected under a letter missive from "William the Bastard, with threats of a Norman invasion as his writ of praemunire. Very difierent is the authentic narrative, whether in the unadorned simplicity of Florence, or in the more elaborate periods of Malmesbury. This last writer gives us a long story of the way in which Godwine persuaded the unwilling Eadward to accept the Eloquence crowu, of which Florence and the Chronicle say of Godwine. i^othing. It is chiefly valuable for the character which it gives of Godwine as an eloquent speaker, skilled in the art of guiding popular assemblies,^' on which the novelist well remarks, that " when the chronicler praises the gift of speech, he unconsciously proves the existence of constitutional freedom." ^ If jMalincsbury be correct in his statement (not found in all his jISS.), that a few persons opposed the election of Eadward, and were banished from the kingdom, one can only imagine them to have been a small Danish party, who supported the pretensions of iSvend. That prince certainly claimed the crown, and is said to have professed that Eadward named him as his successor.^ If so, we may here have some slender additional groundwork for the war or the massacre dreamed of by Saxo and Thierry. It is however certain that Svend was treated, if not as a friend, at least as one whom it was wished to provoke as little as possible. This may have l)een owing to his connexion with Godwine as the nephew of Gytha, as well as to his own position as the nei»hew of the great Cnut. Certainly he was dealt with in a very difierent way from his Norwegian rival Magnus, who also claimed the throne by virtue (tfaii alleged convent i(»ii between him and llai'thaeinit, and to whom Eadward was made to I'etui-n an answer of magnanimous defiance. Godwine even went so lar as to counsel vigorous aid toSvend in his wai- with jMagnus, wliieh the AVilan refused on the motion ofiieoirie. The result was that, alter the defeat
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