Godwin,

Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons, the greatest Englishman in the first half of the 11th century, was most probably son of the South-Saxon Wulfnoth, who was outlawed in 1009, and regained his father's lands by his conduct in the contest with Canute; but according to others his father was merely a churl, and Godwin found means to ingratiate himself with Earl Ulf, the brother-in-law of King Canute. At any rate, by 1018 he was an earl, and the year after he married the daughter of Ulf, and soon became Earl of the West Saxons. In 1042 he took the foremost part in raising Edward to the English throne, and was rewarded by the marriage of his beautiful daughter Edith to the English king—a union which, however, turned out unhappily. Godwin had to lead the struggle against the worthless king's fondness for foreign favourites, and thus drew upon himself the violent enmity of the court party. With more than feminine bitterness and spleen, the unmanly king revenged himself by heaping insults upon Queen Edith, seized her dower, her jewels, and her money, and, allowing her only the attendance of one maiden, closely confined her in the monastery of Wherwell. Godwin and his sons were banished, but they contrived to keep alive the antipathy of the English to the Norman favourites of Edward, and in the summer of 1052 landed on the southern coast of England. The royal troops, the navy, and vast numbers of the burghers and peasants went over to Godwin; and finally the king was forced to grant his demands, and replace his family in all their offices. Godwin died 7th April 1054. His great-hearted son Harold was for a few months Edward's successor on the throne. See the appendices to vols. i. and ii. of Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest.