THE death of Cnut left Godwine the greatest political power in the land. For years he had stood second only to the king in his English realm; as Earl of Wessex he was master of the wealthiest and most powerful portion of the kingdom; and Cnut's absences on foreign campaigns had accustomed Englishmen to look on Godwine as the real centre of administrative government. The will of Cnut, that he should be succeeded by Harthacnut in the English kingdom and the over-lordship of his north- ern realms, embodied no doubt not the king's pur- pose only, but that of the minister who had been his chief counsellor for fifteen years past, and repre- sented that connection with the North, that main- tenance of a Scandinavian empire, which was as yet the policy of Godwine as it had been the policy of the king. For English as was his blood, and Eng. lish as his policy was to become in later days, God- wine can have shared but little the general drift of English feeling against the Dane. As yet, indeed, he must have seemed to Englishmen more Dane than Englishman. He had risen through the favor, he had guided the counsels, of a Danish conqueror. His renown as a warrior had been won in Danish
Position of Godwine.
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Publication Information: Book Title: The Conquest of England. Contributors: John Richard Green - author, Alice Stopford Green - author. Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1884. Page Number: 460.
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