The crises of 1051–2 brought out into the open the question of succession to the throne and rendered more acute the fear of foreign influence in the Anglo-Saxon state. Events, in their turn, aggravated existing dissensions over the distribution of office, lands and power – areas that Ann Williams has done so much to illuminate. Yet, in the maelstrom of these two years, Eustace of Boulogne's intentions on his 1051 visit to England remain mysterious.

Certainly there was cause for rivalry between the Godwine dynasty and that of Eustace, since both had married into the English royal house. Besides this, however, I suggest that there was also a commercial dimension. In particular, when Count Eustace told King Edward ‘what he wanted’ on his visit to England in 1051, it might have been that he was seeking a weight-standard in England that was compatible with his own coinage, so as to facilitate the Boulogne trade-route to Lotharingia. This aim was in direct conflict with the Godwine family's Danish associations, their Flemish alliances and the encouragement of trade via the more northerly route towards the developing Bruges and more northerly ports. To ease the paths of commerce, they, in their turn, may have advocated a weight-standard related to the coinage of Flanders.

Shipping and trade between England and the continent in the eleventh century was normally conducted between ports facing each other across the Channel, giving the county of Boulogne a special relationship with Dover. The Godwinesons’ strength, too, lay not only in land but in shipping.