The House of Godwin (Old English: Godƿine) was the house consisting of the Anglo-Saxon family who were one of the leading noble families in England during the last fifty years before the Norman Conquest. Its most famous member was Harold Godwinson, King of England for nine months in 1066.
The founder of the family's greatness, Earl Godwin, was raised from comparative obscurity by King Cnut and given the Earldom of Wessex 1018–1019. He retained his position during the reigns of Cnut's sons Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut, and consolidated it when King Edward the Confessor conferred earldoms on Sweyn and Harold, Godwin's two eldest sons by his Danish wife Gytha.
The family survived a short-lived exile in Flanders 1051–1052. After Godwin's death in 1053, his sons held the earldoms of Wessex, East Anglia, and later Northumbria; Harold, in particular, became the most powerful man in England, eclipsing the power of the king. When Edward the Confessor died childless in 1066, he was succeeded by Harold Godwinson.
Harold gained a great victory over the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada and his own estranged brother Tostig Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Three weeks later, with his defeat and death at the Battle of Hastings, Anglo-Saxon self-rule came to an end. Later generations of the family were scattered around Northern Europe. Through female lines, the Godwin family are ancestors of royal houses across Europe, including the Grand Princes of Kiev and the modern British royal family.
Patrilineally, agnates of the House of Godwin have lived in Norway since 1067, where they belonged to the kingdom's greatest aristocratic dynasties. King Olaf III of Norway installed Skule Kongsfostre, a son of Earl Tostig, at the Rein estate in Trøndelag (Central Norway), establishing the Rein dynasty. Among his descendants were King Inge II of Norway, Duke Skule Bårdsson, and Queen Margaret Skulesdottir.
Earl Tostig's younger son, Ketil Hook, was given the Torgar estate in Hålogaland (Northern Norway) and married a granddaughter of chieftain Hárek of Tjøtta, establishing the younger Torgar dynasty. Finally, King Harold Godwinson's son Harold Haroldson joined the retinue of King Magnus III of Norway; his descendants may have been the many Godwins who appear in Eastern Norway from the early 13th century.
As earls, that is, quasi-sovereign princes, the family maintained its own hirð (pre-nobility retinue), including housecarls. In contemporary sources, including Vita Ædwardi Regis, the Godwins are described as dux (duke) and princeps (prince). The earls under King Edward the Confessor 'enjoyed viceregal powers' in their respective jurisdictions, according to Ian W. Walker (1997). Modern historians have characterised Godwin and his family as among the most famous in English history (David Bates) and one of the greatest noble houses in England in the first half of the 11th century (Frank Barlow).
Origins
Godwin, Earl of Wessex, after whom the family is named, was the son of one Wulfnoth, probably to be identified with Wulfnoth Cild, a Sussex thegn who in 1009, having been accused of unspecified crimes, deserted the service of the English king Æthelred the Unready along with a fleet of twenty ships. Wulfnoth Cild may also have been father of Ælfwig, abbot of New Minster, who died at the battle of Hastings, and of a daughter called Æthelflaed; he is known to have died by 1014. The writer Alfred Anscombe claimed a lineage for this Wulfnoth stretching back through Æthelmær the Stout and the chronicler Æthelweard to king Æthelred I of Wessex, which would make the house of Godwin a branch of the house of Cerdic; but most historians are skeptical of this theory and treat Wulfnoth's ancestry as unknown.
Godwin under the Danish kings
The date of Godwin's birth is estimated to have been around the year 993. He first appears in history as an adherent of Æthelstan Ætheling, the eldest son of Æthelred the Unready, and when that prince died in 1014 he left Godwin an estate. Godwin is surmised to have then given his allegiance to Athelstan's brother Edmund Ironside during the short remainder of Æthelred's life and Edmund's own brief reign, and to have supported him in his campaigns against the invading Danish king Cnut. With Edmund's death in 1016 and Cnut's acquisition of the English crown Godwin seems to have made his peace with the new king. He survived Cnut's purge of English nobles, and indeed prospered, being made earl first of the eastern part of Wessex and then, perhaps in 1020, of the whole province. He also about 1022 married Gytha, sister of the Danish earl Ulf, who was himself Cnut's brother-in-law. He was, by 1023, considered the leading magnate in Cnut's English kingdom, loyally supporting Cnut and implicitly trusted by him. When Cnut died in 1035 the succession was disputed between Cnut's two sons Harthacnut and Harold Harefoot; Godwin was one of Harthacnut's most influential supporters, but Harold ultimately prevailed. In 1036 another of Æthelred's sons, Alfred, made an expedition to England, where he fell into the hands first of Godwin and then of Harold Harefoot, who had him blinded. Alfred did not survive this operation, but it is unclear whether this was a deliberate execution on Harold's part, and still more unclear how much responsibility, if any, attaches to Godwin. Nevertheless, a cloud of suspicion hung over him for the rest of his life, and when, in 1040, Harold died, the new king, Harthacnut, exacted an oath from Godwin that he had been innocent of everything except obeying Harold's orders.
Godwin's rivalry with Edward the Confessor
In 1042 Harthacnut died, and was succeeded, with Godwin's hefty support, by Edward the Confessor, brother of the unfortunate Alfred. Godwin by now had a large family, six sons and three daughters, and the elder sons were becoming old enough to take on responsibilities of their own, while Edward needed to reward the man who had, more than any other, secured him the crown. Sweyn is usually accounted Godwin's eldest son, though the monk Hemming reported him as believing his real father had been Cnut; in 1043 he was given an earldom consisting of Somerset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Godwin's second son, Harold, was made earl of East Anglia the following year. In 1045 Beorn Estrithson, Godwin's wife's nephew, was given an earldom in the east Midlands, and the same year the seal was set on the family's grasp of power when Godwin's eldest daughter, Edith, married king Edward. The Godwin family now held four English earldoms, only Mercia and Northumbria remaining in other hands, and had their representative even in the king's bedchamber. By contrast, Edward's personal estate, though very large, was probably smaller than that held by his ancestors, and was scattered between various earldoms, meaning that he had no local power base; moreover he had only recently returned to England as a half-Norman stranger with no experience of English politics or of any kind of leadership. A struggle for power between king and earl now began.
The first setback for the Godwin family stemmed from Sweyn's wild and irresponsible conduct. He first allied himself with Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, king of Gwynedd and Powys, who might be considered a natural enemy of the English, and launched with him a joint expedition into south Wales. On his return he either seduced or abducted the abbess of Leominster and kept her as his wife for a year, a scandal which resulted in his being outlawed by the king. Sweyn's lands were divided between his brother Harold and cousin Beorn, while he himself moved on first to Flanders and then to Denmark. Two years later, in 1049, he returned intending to regain his lands, but instead murdered Beorn. He was again outlawed and returned to Flanders, but the king allowed him to return in 1050. Despite his leniency in this matter, Edward was beginning to move against the Godwin family. He gave the murdered Beorn's earldom to his own nephew Ralph the Timid rather than to anyone allied to Godwin; he countermanded the election to the archbishopric of Canterbury of Godwin's kinsman Ælric, substituting instead Robert of Jumièges, an enemy of the Godwin clan; and he allowed a small number of castles to be built, or at least planned, by various of his foreign favourites in the earldoms held by Godwin and his sons.
Matters came to a head in 1051 when the men of Eustace, Count of Boulogne, who was passing through Dover, got involved in a fight with the townspeople. King Edward decided that Dover should be harried as a punishment, and ordered Godwin, within whose earldom Dover lay, to carry out the sentence. Godwin refused, and prepared for the king's displeasure. He and his sons gathered an army, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria assembled their men in defence of the king, and the result was a stalemate in which neither side wanted to attack the other. It was agreed that a meeting of the witan would resolve the dispute, but when the king called up the English militia Godwin's side found themselves outnumbered there. The result was that the whole family was banished. Godwin, his wife, and their sons Sweyn, Tostig and Gyrth fled to Bruges in Flanders, and Harold and his brother Leofwine to Ireland, while their sister queen Edith was sent to a nunnery.
The following year, 1052, Godwin and Harold both launched small fleets, joined up off the south-west coast of England, then recruited support from the ports of Sussex and Kent. This combined and augmented fleet sailed to London, where Godwin forced a new settlement of his differences with the king, entirely in his own favour. His and his family's earldoms were restored to them, the queen was recalled, and most of the king's numerous French favourites were outlawed. So firmly had the family regained its grip on power that Edward never again tried his strength against them. But Godwin did not enjoy his triumph long. In 1053, while celebrating Easter at Winchester along with some of his sons and the king, he suddenly collapsed and after a few days died. In the following century chroniclers embroidered the story with details suggesting that this was divine retribution; in the fullest form of the legend he takes a mouthful of bread, praying that he may not be allowed to swallow it if he was guilty of murdering the king's brother Alfred, then chokes and dies.
Godwin's sons
Godwin's second son, Harold, succeeded him in the earldom of Wessex, while Harold's old earldom of East Anglia was taken by Ælfgar, son of the earl of Mercia. Godwin's eldest son, Sweyn, could not be considered for any title since he had gone on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and indeed was to die in September 1052 on the return journey. Over the next few years one earldom after another fell vacant and was granted to Harold's various younger brothers. First Siward, Earl of Northumbria, died in 1055 and was succeeded by Tostig. Then in 1057 the earl of Mercia died and was succeeded by his son Ælfgar, freeing up East Anglia; a reduced form of this earldom was bestowed on Gyrth, while the counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Middlesex, Surrey and Kent were formed into a new earldom for Leofwine. The same year king Edward's nephew Ralph the Timid died, and his earldom of Hereford was added to Harold's Wessex. The Godwin family thus held the whole of England apart from Mercia under the kingship of Edward the Confessor, who was by now largely content to leave effective rule to his earls.
In 1063 Harold launched a cavalry raid intended to kill Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, who since 1055 had been ruling the whole of Wales, but it failed in its objective. He returned to the attack the same year along with his brother Tostig in a joint invasion of Wales, using both land and naval forces, which wreaked such destruction that Gruffydd's own men killed him and sent his head to Harold.