"Powerful in speech, powerful in bringing over people to what he desired, some yielded to his words, some to bribes." [104] Verily, Godwin was a man to have risen as high, had he lived later! So Edward reigned, and agreeably, it is said, with previous stipulations, married the daughter of his king-maker.

Beautiful as Edith the Queen was in mind and in person, Edward apparently loved her not.

She dwelt in his palace, his wife only in name.
Tostig (as we have seen) had married the daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, sister to Matilda, wife to the Norman Duke: and thus the House of Godwin was triply allied to princely lineage--the Danish, the Saxon, the Flemish.

And Tostig might have said, as in his heart William the Norman said, "My children shall descend from Charlemagne and Alfred." Godwin's life, though thus outwardly brilliant, was too incessantly passed in public affairs and politic schemes to allow the worldly man much leisure to watch over the nurture and rearing of the bold spirits of his sons.

Githa his wife, the Dane, a woman with a haughty but noble spirit, imperfect education, and some of the wild and lawless blood derived from her race of heathen sea-kings, was more fitted to stir their ambition and inflame their fancies, than curb their tempers and mould their hearts.
We have seen the career of Sweyn; but Sweyn was an angel of light compared to his brother Tostig.