This candidate, whose appearance in the field with the king’s sanction was likely to prove fatal to any aspirations to the throne in which either William or Harold might have begun to indulge, was Edward the Etheling, son of the famous Edward Ironside, and therefore nephew by the half-blood to the Confessor. He had been sent by Cnut into remote exile, and the summons which brought him back to England as its destined heir was the work of King Edward himself. By a strange chance, immediately on his arrival in 1057, and before he had even seen the king, the etheling fell ill and died,[93] and, although there was something about his end which was rather mysterious, there is nothing to suggest that it was accelerated in the interest of any other pretender to the crown. With his death there really passed away the one promising chance of perpetuating the old English dynasty, for Edgar, the son of the dead etheling, who was to live until 1126 at least, can only have been the merest child in 1057. [Illustration: SEAL OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR] It would seem then that 1057 is the earliest possible year from which the rivalry of William of Normandy and Harold Godwinson for the throne of England can be dated. The recall of Edward the Etheling suggests that it cannot be placed earlier, while the state of preparedness in which both parties are found at the beginning of 1066 shows that their plans must have been formed for some years at least before the Confessor’s death. And there is one mysterious episode which may very possibly have some connection with the change in the succession question caused by the death of Edward the Etheling. In or about 1058 Earl Harold made a tour on the continent, reaching as far as Rome, but also including Normandy and North France generally, and we are told that he made arrangements for receiving help from certain French powers if he should need it at any time.[94] The passage in which we are told of these negotiations is very obscure, but it is by no means improbable that Harold, when the death of the etheling had opened for him a possibility of succeeding to the crown, may have tried to find allies who would hamper the movements of his most formidable rival when the critical time came. Also it is not without significance that 1058 is the year of Varaville, a date at which French jealousy of Norman power would be at its height. At any rate we may at this point stop to consider the relative position occupied by the earl and the duke respectively with respect to their chances of succeeding to the splendid inheritance of the oldest dynasty in Western Europe.