Godwin only stipulated that Edward, as a pledge of his sincere reconciliation, should promise to marry his daughter Editha; and having fortified himself by this alliance, he summoned a general council at Gillingham, and prepared every measure for securing the succession to Edward.

The English were unanimous and zealous in their resolutions; the Danes were divided and dispirited: any small opposition, which appeared in this assembly, was browbeaten and suppressed; and Edward was crowned king, with every Demonstration of duty and affection.
The triumph of the English upon this signal and decisive advantage, was at first attended with some insult and violence against the Danes, but the king, by the mildness of his character, soon reconciled the latter to his administration, and the distinction between the two nations gradually disappeared.

The Danes were interspersed with the English in most of the provinces; they spoke nearly the same language; they differed little in their manners and laws; domestic dissensions in Denmark prevented, for some years, any powerful invasion from thence which might awaken past animosities; and as the Norman conquest, which ensued soon after, reduced both nations to equal subjection, there is no further mention in history of any difference between them.

The joy, however, of their present deliverance made such impression on the minds of the English, that they instituted an annual festival for celebrating that great event; and it was observed in some counties, even to the time of Spelman.[*] [* Spelm.

Glossary in verbo Hocday.] The popularity which Edward enjoyed on his accession was not destroyed by the first act of his administration, his resuming all the grants of his immediate predecessors; an attempt which is commonly attended with the most dangerous consequences.