The troubles of Edward's reign began in 1050, starting from a chance affray at Dover. Eustace of Boulogne was landing to pay a visit to the king, when some of his followers fell into a quarrel with some of the citizens. Men were slain on both sides, and the count was chased out of the town with hue and cry. The king took this ill, and bade Godwine--in whose earldom Dover lay--to punish the men who had insulted his noble kinsman. But Godwine refused, saying--what was true enough--that the count's followers were to blame, and the burghers in the right. Edward was angry at the earl's disobedience, and called to him in arms those of the English nobles who were jealous of Godwine, especially Leofric, the Earl of Mercia, and Siward, the Earl of Northumbria. Godwine also gathered a host of the men of Wessex, and it seemed that civil war would begin. But the earl was unwilling to fight the king, and when the Witan outlawed him, he fled over seas to Flanders with his sons, Harold, Swegen, and Tostig. Edward then fell entirely into the hands of his Norman favourites. He sent his wife, Godwine's daughter, to a nunnery, and disgraced all who had any kinship with the exiled earl. But the governance of the Norman courtiers was hateful to the English, and when Godwine and his sons came back a year later, and sailed up the Thames with a great fleet, the whole land was well pleased. No one would fight against him, and the Norman bishops and knights about the king's person had to fly in haste to save their lives. Then the Witan inlawed Godwine again, and Edward was obliged to give him back his ancient place (1052). So the great earl once more ruled England, holding Wessex himself, while his second son Harold ruled as earl in East Anglia, and his third son Tostig became the king's favourite companion, though he was a reckless, cruel man, very unlike the mild and pious Edward. [Sidenote: =Death of Godwine.--His son Harold takes his place.=] The house of Godwine kept a firm control over the realm during the last fourteen years of Edward's reign. When Godwine died suddenly at a great feast at Winchester,[7] his son Harold succeeded both to his earldom of Wessex and to his preponderant power in England. The years of Harold's governance were on the whole a time of prosperity, for he was a busy, capable man, much liked by all the English of the south, though the Mercians and Northumbrians did not love him so well.