of treason and deposed Stigand, Bishop of Elmham, from his position "because he was closest to his mother's counsel". The Norman propagandist and historian, William of Poitiers, claimed that Siward was among those who had sworn an oath to uphold Edward the Confessor's alleged declaration that William, Duke of Normandy (later King William I), was to be his heir. Others said to have made that oath were Earls Godwine of Wessex and Leofric of Mercia, along with Stigand, who had been pardoned in 1044, and raised to Bishop of Winchester in 1047. If this did happen, it was probably during or a little before spring 1051, when Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, was journeying to Rome for his pallium. In 1051 Siward, along with Earls Leofric and Ralph the Timid, mobilised forces in defence of the king against a rebellion by Earl Godwine and his sons. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that although Siward had to call up reinforcements, King Edward was successful and Earl Godwine was temporarily exiled. Earl Godwine remained a threat in exile, and the continued "belligerent support" of Siward and Leofric was thus vital to King Edward's safety. It was apparently, however, the reluctance of these two earls to fight Earl Godwine that contributed to Godwine's re-establishment in England in 1052. There is evidence to suggest that Siward extended his power southward, bringing the shire of Northampton into his control in the 1040s and the shire of Huntingdon in the 1050s. The evidence comes from royal writs addressed to Siward as earl in these shires. Siward's predecessors as earl in these areas were other Scandinavians, Thuri and Bjorn son of Earl Ulf; the former was styled "earl of the Midlanders" (comes mediterraneorum), showing that this earldom represented the earlier polity of the Middle Angles of Mercia. It was this area, rather than Northumbria, to which Siward's descendants were most attached. Likewise, it has been argued that Siward brought Cumberland, thought by some historians to have been lost to Strathclyde, back under Northumbrian lordship. The evidence comes from a document known to historians as "Gospatric's Writ". This is a written instruction, issued either by the future Gospatric, Earl of Northumbria, or Gospatric, son of Earl Uhtred, that was addressed to all Gospatric's kindred and to the notables dwelling in the "all the lands that were Cumbrian" (on eallun þam landann þeo Cōmbres); it ordered that one Thorfinn mac Thore