Godwin (or Godwine) was, after the monarch, the most powerful man in England during the reigns of Cnut, Harold I Harefoot and Harthacnut, and Edward the Confessor, and was the father of another English king: Harold II Godwinson.
He rose from the lowest reaches of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, becoming a favourite of Cnut, who made him an earl in 1018, and marrying Gytha, one of Cnut's cousins. Following the king's death in 1035, Alfred, son of Ethelred the Unready and brother of Edward, mounted an unsuccessful invasion of England from Normandy. Godwin ingratiated himself with Cnut's successor Harold I Harefoot by capturing and killing Alfred at Ely, perhaps accidentally, when he ordered the prince's eyes to be gouged out.
Following the deaths of both Harold I Harefoot and his brother Harthacnut, who had succeeded him in 1040, Godwin threw his support behind Edward, and in 1043, the throne returned to the Anglo-Saxons. The new king was so grateful for the earl's help that he married Godwin's daughter Edith in 1045. In that year, Godwin also obtained earldoms for his sons Harold and Swein.
However, for complex reasons – Godwin's struggle against the king's Norman favourites, Swein's psychopathic behaviour (among other things, he murdered his cousin) and, perhaps, Alfred's death – Edward banished Godwin and his family from England in November 1051. Nine months later, the earl and his sons, with a large fleet, sailed up the Thames to London and forced Edward to reinstate them.
In April 1053, while spending Easter with the king at Winchester, Godwin died, possibly from a stroke. However, it is said that, while having dinner with the king, Godwin swore, 'May this morsel of bread choke me if even in thought I have ever been false to you,' and then choked to death on a bit of bread.
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 The Rise of Godwine, Earl of Wessex
www.medievalhistory.net/page0008.htm
Rather informally written article on Godwin(e)'s origins and how he achieved power and played the 'kingmaker'.
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The Godwins: The rise and fall of a noble dynasty by Frank Barlow (Longman, 2003)
The family of Earl Godwin of Wessex stands among the most famous in English history, whose most renowned son was King Harold. Set against a backdrop of Viking raids and, ultimately, the Norman Conquest of 1066, this book unravels the history of a feuding family that nevertheless determined the course and fortunes of all the English.
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The House of Godwine: The history of a dynasty by Emma Mason (Hambledon & London, 2004)
Emma Mason tells the turbulent story of a remarkable family that, until King Harold's unexpected defeat, looked far more likely than the dukes of Normandy to provide the long-term rulers of England. But for the Norman Conquest, an Anglo-Saxon England ruled by the Godwine dynasty would have developed very differently from that dominated by the Normans.
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