Earl Godwin became the King’s chief minister, and the King married his daughter Edith. The King lived an ascetical, monkish life, and they had no children. Edward had been born in England, but on the deposition of his father Ethelred, his mother Emma took him to the court of her brother Robert, Duke of Normandy; and he had lived there through the reigns of Canute and Harold, coming back to England with Hardicanute. He was thus thoroughly Norman-French in his speech and his manners,—very fond of his young cousin, Duke William, and he now gathered French people about him, and promoted them to office and estate. The French language and fashions prevailed at Edward’s court; and in this language lawyers began to write deeds, and the clergy to preach sermons. These foreign modes, so different from the English, gave great displeasure to the old nobles; and Earl Godwin—although three of his sons had been advanced to earldoms—rebelled against the King’s authority. After some fighting, the Earl’s army deserted him at Dover, and he had to seek refuge in Flanders. His daughter, the queen, was deprived of her lands, and sent to a nunnery of which the King’s sister was abbess. At the outbreak of the revolt, Edward asked aid from William; the aid was not required, but William, then twenty-three years of age, came, with a retinue of knights to his cousin’s court. They were hospitably entertained, and it is said that the King promised to bequeath his crown to William. Things did not go on well during Godwin’s absence, so when, in 1052, he and his sons appeared with a fleet in the Channel, there was an under- current of mutiny in the King’s ships under their French commanders. “Should Englishmen fight with and slay Englishmen, that outlandish folks might profit thereby?” So the King had to take Godwin back into his honours and estates: but he died next year, leaving to Harold his titles, and his place as foremost man in England. And now the dangers of a disputed succession loomed over England. The Witan advised Edward to send for Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, then an exile in Hungary. Edward came with his family—a son Edgar, and three daughters: but he died shortly after his arrival. About this time Harold was shipwrecked on the Norman coast; William kept him prisoner for some time, and under circumstances of fraud and chicanery, an oath was extorted from him to favour William’s pretensions to the English throne. Edward died on 5th January, 1046, at the age of 65. He was buried next day in Westminster Abbey, which he had built. There, in the centre of the magnificent pile, is his shrine, for, about a century after his death, he was canonised, and awarded the title of _Confessor_.