were not willing to fight the king. When Stigand, who was acting as an intermediary, conveyed the king's jest that Godwin could have his peace if he could restore Alfred and his companions alive and well, Godwin and his sons fled, going to Flanders and Ireland. Edward repudiated Edith and sent her to a nunnery, perhaps because she was childless, and Archbishop Robert urged her divorce. Sweyn went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem (dying on his way back), but Godwin and his other sons returned, with an army following a year later, and received considerable support, while Leofric and Siward failed to support the king. Both sides were concerned that a civil war would leave the country open to foreign invasion. The king was furious, but he was forced to give way and restore Godwin and Harold to their earldoms, while Robert of Jumièges and other Frenchmen fled, fearing Godwin's vengeance. Edith was restored as queen, and Stigand, who had again acted as an intermediary between the two sides in the crisis, was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in Robert's place. Stigand retained his existing bishopric of Winchester, and his pluralism was a continuing source of dispute with the pope. Later reign Until the mid-1050s Edward was able to structure his earldoms so as to prevent the Godwins from becoming dominant. Godwin died in 1053, and although Harold succeeded to his earldom of Wessex, none of his other brothers were earls at this date. His house was then weaker than it had been since Edward's succession, but a succession of deaths from 1055 to 1057 completely changed the control of earldoms. In 1055, Siward died, but his son was considered too young to command Northumbria, and Harold's brother, Tostig, was appointed. In 1057, Leofric and Ralph died, and Leofric's son Ælfgar succeeded as Earl of Mercia, while Harold's brother Gyrth succeeded Ælfgar as Earl of East Anglia. The fourth surviving Godwin brother, Leofwine, was given an earldom in the south-east carved out of Harold's territory, and Harold received Ralph's territory in compensation. Thus by 1057, the Godwin brothers controlled all of England subordinately apart from Mercia. It is not known whether Edward approved of this transformation or whether he had to accept it, but from this time he seems to have begun to withdraw from active politics, devoting himself to hunting, which he pursued each day after attending church. In the 1050s,