seems
probable enough, and it is corroborated indirectly by the Saxon
chroniclers, when they unite in relating Edward's warnings to Harold
against his visit to the Norman court. Edward might well be aware of
William's designs on the crown (though in those warnings he refrains from
mentioning them)--might remember the authority given to those designs by
his own early promise, and know the secret purpose for which the hostages
were retained by William, and the advantages he would seek to gain from
having Harold himself in his power. But this promise in itself was
clearly not binding on the English people, nor on any one but Edward,
who, without the sanction of the Witan, could not fulfil it. And that
William himself could not have attached great importance to it during
Edward's life, is clear, because if he had, the time to urge it was when
Edward sent into Germany for the Atheling, as the heir presumptive of the
throne. This was a virtual annihilation of the promise; but William took
no step to urge it, made no complaint and no remonstrance.

Secondly, That Godwin, Siward, and Leofric, had taken oaths of fealty to
William.

This appears a fable wholly without foundation. When could those oaths
have been pledged? Certainly not after Harold's visit to William, for
they were then all dead. At the accession of Edward? This is obviously
contradicted by the stipulation which Godwin and the other chiefs of the
Witan exacted, that Edward should not come accompanied by Norman
supporters--by the evident jealousy of the Normans entertained by those
chiefs, as by the whole English people, who regarded the alliance of
Ethelred with the Norman Emma as the cause of the greatest
calamities--and by the marriage of Edward himself with Godwin's daughter,
a marriage which that Earl might naturally presume would give legitimate
heirs to the throne.--In the interval between Edward's accession and
Godwin's outlawry? No; for all the English chroniclers, and, indeed, the
Norman, concur in representing the ill-will borne by Godwin and his House
to the Norman favourites, whom, if they could have anticipated William's
accession, or were in any way bound to William, they would have naturally
conciliated. But Godwin's outlawry is the result of the breach between
him and the foreigners.--In William's visit to Edward? No; for that took
place when Godwin was an exile; and even the writers who assert Edward's
early promise to William, declare