Scholarly Info
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Edward 15 believed the accusations of Robert 5 against Godwine 51, and all the nobles and earls from the whole of Britain assembled in the royal palace of Gloucester; and there, after Edward 15 had complained of all these things, he guiltless earl [Godwine 51] was formally charged with [killing of Alfred 54 and plotting against the king's life]. Godwine 51 asked through messengers for the king's peace, and offered to purge himself by ordeal of the crime with which he had been charged. Edward 15 refused. Gathered there were Siweard 11, Earl Leofric 49, and Ælfgar 46. And after they had all struggled in vain to get the foul charge put to the ordeal, the royal court moved from that palace to London. The earl [Godwine 51] too, guiltless and trusting in his conscience, which was for ever clear of such a crime, approached it with his men from the other side, and took up position outside the walls of that city on the River Thames, on a manor that belonged to him. From here he again sent messengers and showed himself in every way ready to satisfy the king in accordance to the law or beyond it. Whereupon by the efforts of Stigand 1, bishop of Winchester, the day of judgment was postponed. Meanwhile Archbishop Robert 5 stood fiercely in the way of the earl, and at length at his instigation there was declared by the king against the earl this insoluble judgment: that he could hope for the king's peace only when Godwine 51 gave him back his brother [Alfred 54] alive together with all his men and all their possessions. |
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