Sweyn Godwinson was the eldest child of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. To call his father a man of high expectations is a mild underestimate. Godwin had come from the backgrounds of a weak Anglo-Saxon nobility and become the man second to the king with arguably more power and influence. History would remember the Godwinsons for Harold, the second son, who would become King, but the father held a greater grip on England than Harold ever managed.
This was the Eleventh Century, and primogeniture did not exist. Sweyn would only be heir to this great legacy, fit with titles, estates and power, if he lived up to expectations. I covered in my previous blog on the Godwinsons the origin of the dynasty, and that comes into play here.
The legacy Godwin wanted was of the new ruling caste of England; the Anglo-Danish aristocracy, all political players based on ability to rule rather than the honours of their ancestors. There was no room for the man who had won his power solely through the death of his father. However Godwin was all too happy to give his sons a head-start in the political game. For instance, carved from his own land was the Earldom of Herefordshire, which in 1043 was created and granted to Sweyn. Here was an earldom that lay right on the fray of the chaotic expanse of kingdoms called Wales. The rulers of Mercia and Wessex had used this battleground for winning prestige and forging alliances for centuries, and Sweyn was no exception. He had an opportunity to win himself honour through war, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t willing to take it.
Let us address Sweyn as a person. Obviously we have no character descriptions of who he was intimately; we only have his actions recorded. His feelings are merely influences historians have gleamed as motives for what he did and how he did it. This being said, I feel confident in assessing him as an individual, and consider him quite an easy person to read.
Sweyn was given a Danish name. This was due to his mother being Danish, but also his father having gained his entire reputation off the back of his Danish allies and patrons. The main man responsible for Godwin’s political career was King Cnut the Great, who Godwin devoutly admired. Cnut’s father was the legendary viking Sweyn Forkbeard, and it is he who I consider to be Sweyn Godwinson’s namesake. This linked Sweyn with Denmark, and in particular King Cnut. Born in 1020, Sweyn would have had till he was fifteen to get to know King Cnut before the great king met his death.
Overall, by his accession to Earl of Hereford, Sweyn had very much found himself in touch with his Danish side, and less so with his Saxon heritage. To show the absolute extent of this rejection of his father’s side, he even went so far as to claim that he was King Cnut’s illegitimate son. His mother obviously disputed this, but true or not it shows who Sweyn considered to be his true heritage – the Viking Warriors.
And so, it comes as no surprise that Sweyn took the Viking path. He joined forces with Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, King of Gwynedd and one of the two major kings in Wales. The other king was Gruffydd ap Rhydderch, of Deheubarth. The rivalry of the two Gruffydds had left the pair at each other’s throats, and so Gruffydd ap Llewelyn turned his eyes eastward, looking for an ally. Sweyn leapt at the opportunity, and the pair set out to systematically destroy ap Rhydderch.
Involvement in Welsh affairs was not an exclusively Viking thing to do – Mercian rulers had done so for centuries – but it was one hobby vikings were known for. Sweyn’s conquest of Deheubarth was not like those of the Mercian rulers, however. He was not playing a political game of chess, attempting to gain influence and a political base, wiping out potential rivals – he was there to raid. This climaxed with the event that would define his life.
Sweyn returned successful from Wales, ap Rhydderch suitably put in his place (ie, dethroned and usurped by ap Llewelyn). He returned, I imagine, proud of his achievements, expecting to be greeted by all with cheers and applause. Perhaps he would have been, had he not returned with the Abbess of Leominster, taken as a concubine, her church-owned estates now in Sweyn’s control.
To all, this was unacceptable behaviour. The king at this point was the pious Edward the Confessor, but even under Cnut the concept of taking an abbess as a sex slave would have been out of order. For Godwin, this was stone cold proof that his son would never be the dynast and magnate he wanted him to become. He didn’t even protest when Edward, over whom Godwin had a lot of influence, demanded Sweyn release the abbess and go into exile. Sweyn, with his tail between his legs, complied, and fled England, suitably rebuked.
At first, he fled to Flanders, an exile hotspot due to its count’s personal interest in harbouring England’s enemies. From there, he traveled to what he would have considered his homeland, Denmark. He appears to have been expelled from there too, although the reasons are unknown, and he returned to England seeking peace. In his absence, his land had been divided, between his brother Harold and his cousin Beorn (a viking and the son of Cnut’s sister, very much Sweyn’s natural ally). Initially, Godwin, Harold and Beorn all agreed not to even meet Sweyn, but the Exile persisted, and convinced Beorn to meet him.
Beorn was a powerful man, remember. His father had been a powerful magnate in Denmark, and his aunt was Sweyn’s mother. Godwin had most likely vouched for him to get Sweyn’s lands as a family gesture. Overall, Beorn was more like a brother than a cousin to Sweyn. And this makes it all the more disgraceful when Beorn, accompanied by only three men, was attacked by Sweyn, and brutally killed. His body was left on the riverside, although Harold would later seek it out and give it a proper burial. The scandal was immense, and Sweyn was bestowed with the title niðing, meaning “man of no honour”. Once more, he was exiled.
However, he was not done yet. While returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, an English archbishop bumped into Sweyn in France, and was so convinced by the change of character he saw that he was prepared to vouch for Sweyn to the king. Sweyn, against all odds, was returned to England an acquitted man. Godwin must have been livid.
In 1051, tragedy struck for the Godwins. For years now, Edward had been slowly introducing Norman councillors as his personal advisers, and for Godwin, the Kingmaker of England, this was a proper blow to the chest. It was made even worse when Edward appointed Robert of Jumieges, a Norman abbot, to become Archbishop of Canterbury. This tension had gone unmentioned for months, when some Normans were attacked in Wessex by a group of Anglo-Saxons. Edward demanded Godwin punish the entire town for the actions of this mob, but Godwin stood firm. Aristocrat he may have been- he came from humble beginnings, and Godwin never forgot it. He stood by his men, blaming the actions of the Normans. Godwin and Harold raised their loyalists, and Edward demanded the soldiers all support him over their Earls. The Godwins conceded, and told their men to side with their king. The family went into exile.
For all the other Godwins, this exile was their first. They would come back, as I shall discuss in my next blog on the Godwins, but for Sweyn this was Exile Number Three. His exile was given the added suffix “for life”. There may have been second chances, but there weren’t fourths. His life in England was over.
I doubt this meant much to Sweyn initially, although once his family had all had their exiles revoked the year after, I imagine he realised the true extent of his mistakes. Driven, I believe, by pure remorse, he embarked on a barefoot pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Such a pennance was surely a saving grace. Surely after completing that he would have been allowed to return. However, the opportunity did not arise.
On his return voyage, Sweyn was attacked. He had made many an enemy over the years, and so whether this was random attackers or his own men in mutiny or hired mercenaries sent by Beorn’s brother is both unknown and irrelevant. Whoever did it, did it well, and Sweyn was left dead. No longer would his family have to shoulder the shame of his infamous name. For Godwin, cause to rejoice. He could focus entirely on his two masterful and legendary sons, Harold and Tostig. For Harold, this was the opportunity to take on all the responsibilities Sweyn had taken for granted. For Sweyn, this was a legacy he would be ashamed of. He had dreamt of being the viking warrior that Cnut had been. He had died the family’s disgrace. At least he had made it to Jerusalem.
The History Book 