Gloucester as a criminal. He and his sons now gathered the whole force of their earldoms, and marched towards Gloucester in arms. They demanded the surrender of Count Eustace and of the other strangers who had done outrages, whether at Dover or in Herefordshire. The king called the other earls to his help; war was hindered by the mediation of Leofric, and matters were adjourned to another meeting in London. There the king appeared with an army ; Godwine and his sons were arraigned as criminals, and, on refusing to appear without a safe-conduct, were outlawed. Godwine and his whole family now left the kingdom, except his daughter, the Lady Eadgyth, who was banished from
court to the monastery of Wherwell. The foreign favourites of the king were now supreme.The next year the tide turned ; the feeling of the nation showed itSelf in favour of Godwine. When his petition for a removal of his outlawry was refused, he came back from his shelter in Flanders at the head of a fleet. In most parts of England he was welcomed; he sailed up the Thames to London ; the army gathered by the king refused to fight against him; and in a great meeting outside the walls of London, he and his family were restored to all their offices and possessions, and the archbishop and many other Normans were banished. Godwine’s friend Stigand succeeded to the arehbishopric. The next year Godwine was smitten with a fit at the king’s table, and died three days later, April 15, 1052. His death was worked up into a fabulous tale by his Norman enemies.
The patriotism and good government of Godwine are un- doubted; but it is plain that he accumulated vast wealth for himself. Sometimes, it was said, he showed little regard to the rights of the church; but in the only case where we hear both sides, that of some lands in Kent disputed between him and the Norman archbishop, it appears that he had a legal claim. It is much more certain that he was unduly bent on the promotion of his own family. His eldest son Swegen gave great and deserved offence by the seduction of Eadgifu, abbess of Leoniinster, and still more by the treacherous murder of his cousin Beorn. He was out— lawed, but was afterwards restored to his earldom. He accom- panied his father to Flanders, but did not come back, having gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, on his return from which he died. Of his other sons, the second, Harold, succeeded Godwine in his earldom and Eadward in his kingdom; Tostig, Gyrth, and Leofric, all earls, play a part in the later history; \Vulfnoth, the youngest, was a captive of William. Of his daughters the Lady Eadgyth survived her father, husband, and brother, and lived in great honour under the Conqueror. The others were Gunhild and flilfgifu, the latter of whom appears in the story of Harold’s oath to “'illiam.
See the English Chronicles and Florence of “'orcester, 1035–52 ; the Life of Eadward, published in the Chronicles and Memorials; the Eucomium Emma: or 005m Cautom's, published by Pertz, and elsewhere; various notices in Domesday, and in the writers of the time generally. All the assages, historical and legendary, bearing on Godwine's life, are col ected and examined in the appendices to Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest, vols. i. ii.
GODWIT, a word of unknown origin, the name com- monly applied to a marsh-bird in great repute, when fattened, for the table, and formerly abundant in the fens of Norfolk, the Isle of Ely, and Lincolnshire. In Turner’s days (1544) it was worth three times as much as a Snipe, and at the same period Belon said of it—“ C’est vn Oyseau es delices des Francoys.” Casaubon, who Latinized its name “ Dei ingenium ” Ephemerides, 19th September 1611), was told by the “ ornithotrophceus ” he visited at \Visbech that in London it fetched twenty pence, Its fame as a delicacy is perpetuated by many later writers, Ben Jonson among them, and Pennant says that in his time (1766) it sold for half~a-crown or five shillings. Under the name Godwit two perfectly distinct species of British birds were included, but that which seems to have been especially prized is known to modern ornithologists as the Black-tailed Godwit, Limusn (egoceplmlu, formerly called, from its loud cry, a Yarwhelp,[1] Shriekcr, or Barker, in the districts it inhabited. The practice of netting this bird in large num- bers during the spring and summer, coupled with the gradual reclamation of the fens, to which it resorted, has now rendered it but- a visitor; and it probably ceased from breeding regularly in England in 1Q24 or thcreabouts, though under favourable conditions it may have occasionally laid its eggs for some thirty years later or more (Stevenson, Birds of Nmfolk, ii. p. 250). This lodwit is a species of wide range, reaching Iceland, where it is called Janlra'lm (= earth-raker), in summer, and occurring numerously, it is said, in India in winter. Its chief breeding-quarters seem to extend from Holland eastwards to the south of Russia. The second British species is that which is known as the Bar-tailed Godwit, L. lappom'ca, and this seems to have never been more than a bird of double passage in the United Kingdom, arriving in large flocks on the south coast about the 12th of May, and, after staying a few days, pro- ceeding to the north-eastward. It is known to breed in Lapland, but its eggs are of great rarity. Towards autumn the young visit our coasts, and a few of them remain, together with some of the other species, in favourable situa- tions throughout the winter. One of the local names by which the Bar—tailed Godwit is known to the Norfolk gunners is Scamell, a word which, in the mouth of ('aliban (Tempest, act ii. scene 2), has been the cause of much perplexity to Shakespearian critics.
The Godwits belong to the group Limit-01w, and are about as big as a tame Pigeon, but possess long legs, and along bill with a slight upward turn. It is believed that in the genus Limosa the female is larger than the male. “'hile the winter plumage is of a sober greyish-brown, the breeding-dress is marked by a predominance of bright bay or chestnut, rendering the wearer a very beautiful object. The Black: tailed Godwit, though varying a good deal in size, is con- stantly larger than the Bar-tailed, and especially longer in the legs. The species may be further distinguished by the former having the proximal third of the tail-quills pure white, and the distal two-thirds black, with a narrow white margin, while the latter has the same feathers barer with black and white alternately for nearly their whole length.
America possesses two species of the genus, the very large Marbled Godwit or Marlin, L. fedoa, easily recogniZed by its size and the buff colour of its axillaries, and the smaller HudSOnian Godwit, L. lauds-onion, which has its axillaries of a deep black. This last, though less numerous than its congeuer, seems to range over the whole of the continent, breeding in the extreme north, while it has been obtained also in the Strait of Magellan and the Falkland Islands. The first seems not to go further southward than the Antilles and the Isthmus of Panama.
From Asia, or at least its eastern part, two species have been described. One of them, L. mclmzzu'oz'des, differs only from L. cegocephala in its smaller size, and is believed to breed in Aniurland, wintering in the islands of the Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia. The other, L. uropyyiuh's, is closely allied to and often mistaken for L. Iappmu'm, from which it chiefly differs by having the rump barred like the tail. This was found breeding in the extreme north of Siberia by Dr von )Iiddendorfl‘, and ranges to Australia, whence it was, like the last, first described by Mr Gould.
province of Zealand, on the island of South Beveland, with railway communication since 1868 with Bergen-op-Zoom,
and since 1872 with Middelburg, its distances from these
- ↑ This name seems to have survived in Whelp Moor, near Brandou, in Suffolk.
