Godwin and Edward. In 1051 the king, contrary to the desire of the earl and of the monks of Canterbury, saw fit to advance to the Archbishopric a Norman, Robert of Jumièges, who had previously been for six years Bishop of London. Another Norman had been made Bishop of Dorchester, and the English party was greatly annoyed. It was then that Godwin was ordered to Dover to punish the townsmen for their behaviour to some piratical followers of Baldwin of Flanders. Godwin declined to do this unless the men were first given a fair trial. It was then also that complaints were made by the people of Sweyn's earldom of Hereford that some Normans or French had established themselves there, and were illtreating the country folk.
Godwin and his family seem to have thought that the moment had come for stern resistance to Edward's unreasonable preference of foreigners. Sweyn and Harold, and even Tostig, who had lately married a sister of Baldwin, were of one mind. The Witan at Gloucester summoned Godwin to attend before it. The earl replied by collecting his friends at Beverstone, near Malmesbury. The Witan removed to London, and outlawed Sweyn, but contented itself with again summoning the earl and Harold, to whom, however, safe conduct and hostages were refused; so that their only course was flight.
Godwin and Sweyn went to Bosham, embarked thence for Flanders, and stayed abroad during the winter.[1] Harold embarked at Bristol for Ireland. Sweyn, recollecting the abducted abbess and the murder of Beorn, departed on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and died while on his way back; but early in 1052 the other members of the exiled family began active operations with a view to return.
Harold, with a squadron, appeared off the mouth of the Severn, sacked some places in Somersetshire and Devonshire, and killed a number of people, including "more than thirty good thanes." The threat of an invasion from Flanders by Godwin prevented interference; for forty ships[2] of Edward's fleet, probably nearly all the vessels then in commission, lay at Sandwich under the Earls Ralf and Odda, or cruised in the offing, on the look-out for the enemy. Godwin evaded them and landed at Romney, where, in his own territories, his popularity raised him a large force, all the "butsecarls," or boatmen, of Hastings and the neighbouring ports joining him enthusiastically. It is less than forty miles by sea from Sand-
