dom extend beyond Cheshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, and the North Welsh border (Norman Conquest, ii. 557–61; Green, Conquest of England, p. 498). Yet he was possessed of immense power in middle England, and ranked with Godwine and Siward as one of the three great earls among whom the government of the kingdom was divided. Chester was the head of his earldom, and no doubt the place where he chiefly resided, and he was therefore sometimes described as Earl of Chester (Kemble, No. 939).
The rise to power of Godwine and his house was evidently grievous to Leofric, and this feeling must have deepened as governments were heaped on members of Godwine's family until they hemmed the Mercian earl in on every side except the north. While, however, he was constantly opposed to Godwine, he always deprecated violent measures, and played the part of a mediator, ‘which was dictated to him by the geographical position of his earldom’ (Norman Conquest, ii. 49). On the death of Cnut, in 1035, he upheld the claim of Harold at a meeting of the witan at Oxford, and was the means of bringing the dispute to an end by his proposal, which was adopted in spite of Godwine's opposition, that the kingdom should be divided [see under Godwin and Harold I]. In 1041 Harthacnute sent him with Godwine, Siward, and other great men to punish the people of Worcester and the neighbourhood for a revolt [see under Hardecanute]. On the accession of Edward the Confessor [q. v.] he was again employed in conjunction with the two other great earls, being ordered to despoil the king's mother, Emma [q. v.], of her treasure. In 1047, and perhaps again in 1048, he successfully opposed in the witenagemot Godwine's proposal that help should be sent to Swend of Denmark. It is probable that he profited by the decline of Godwine's influence at court, and that the death of Beorn [q. v.], in 1049, led to a large increase in his power; for it must have been at that time that Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, and perhaps some other districts over which Beorn had been earl were reunited to the Mercian earldom (ib. p. 561). In 1051 Leofric received a summons from the king to come to his help; for Godwine and his sons had taken up arms. He marched with a small force to Gloucester, where Edward was, but when he and the other earls who were on the king's side saw how matters stood, they sent messengers through their earldoms to raise all their forces. War seemed imminent, when Leofric interposed, declaring that it would be folly for Englishmen to fight with one another, and so lay their land open to the attack of a foreign enemy; for the chiefest men in the country were in the two armies. He advised, therefore, that both sides should give hostages, and should keep the peace, and that the quarrel should be decided at a future meeting of the witan. His advice was followed. That the banishment of Godwine and his sons implied an increase of Leofric's power is evident from the grant of Harold's earldom of East Anglia to Leofric's son Ælfgar [q. v.] When, on the return of Godwine, the foreign officials were expelled, two Normans, Osbern, the son of Richard, builder of Richard's castle, Herefordshire, and his ally, Hugh, surrendered to Leofric, as probably the superior of Ralph, earl of the Magesætas, and Leofric granted them a guard to take them safe to Scotland. If, as is supposed (Freeman), Odda held the earldom of the Hwiccas, he was also no doubt more or less subordinate to Leofric (comp. Kemble, Nos. 766 and 805), and by one means or another the Mercian earldom had by this time been greatly extended (Conquest of England, p. 536). The assertion which, according to William of Poitiers (p. 130), was made by Duke William, that Leofric, with the two other great earls, advised Edward to declare the duke heir to the throne in a meeting of the witan, and confirmed the decree by oath, is certainly untrue (Norman Conquest, iii. 678–681). The predominance of Earl Harold [see Harold II] in the affairs of state after 1053 must have been galling to Leofric, and was resented by Ælfgar. Leofric evidently remained loyal during his son's revolt, and in 1056 joined Harold in making peace between the king and Gruffyd. He died in his house at Bromley, Staffordshire, on 31 Aug. 1057, at a good old age, and was buried in the minster, which he and his wife had built, at Coventry. By his wife Godgifu—the Godiva [q. v.] of legend—he had, as far as is known, only one son, Ælfgar, the notion that Hereward [q. v.] was his son being erroneous. Leofric was temperate in counsel, patriotic, and religious (his reputation for piety is illustrated in the legendary life of the Confessor, Lives of Edward the Confessor, p. 401); he was bountiful to ecclesiastical foundations, and in common with his wife appears ‘to have taken a special interest in the buildings and ornaments of the houses which he favoured’ (Norman Conquest, ii. 48). His character alone is sufficient to prove the absurdity of the part assigned to him in the legend of which his wife is made the heroine. At Coventry he and his wife built the church and monastery
