Castles, Customs, and Kings: True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors (8 page)

After Eadwig’s death, Edgar ruled from 959 to 975 as king of a united England. He was the first to be crowned with a crown rather than a military style helmet. Though not a peaceful man himself, his rule was free of war and he came to be called Edgar the Peaceful. His rule unified England to the extent that it never again broke up into sovereign kingdoms. He founded forty religious houses and helped instigate a monastic revival.

Edgar was succeeded by his twelve-year-old son, Edward II, though Edgar’s third wife claimed that her son Æthelred should have the throne. In 978, young Edward went to visit his ten-year-old half-brother and was killed by Æthelred’s agents. He has since been called Edward the Martyr.

Æthelred II “The Unready” ruled from 979 to 1013 and 1014 to 1016. He was the pawn of those who brought him to the throne. He paid the Danes to leave him alone, but it failed. He fled from them to Normandy where he was protected by Duke Robert the Good while the Danish King Sweyn ruled. In just a few months, however, the Danish king fell off his horse and died, and Æthelred returned to rule for two years more. His wife was Emma of Normandy, the sister of Robert the Good who was eventually the grandfather of William the Conqueror.

Edmund II “Ironside”, Æthelred’s son, was king from April to November of 1016. He thwarted the son of Danish King Sweyn, Cnut, who tried to take London. Edmund foolishly agreed to a deal where Cnut would get Mercia and Northumbria while he ruled Wessex, and after one of them died, the other would get the rest of the country. Edmund somehow died shortly thereafter.

Cnut “The Great” reigned from 1016 to 1035. He had Edmund’s younger brother Eadwig murdered and Edward’s sons exiled to Hungary. Cnut had sons by his English mistress Ælfgifu of Northampton, who was acknowledged as Queen of Denmark. He also had a son, Harthacnut, by his new wife, (whoa!) Emma of Normandy, widow of Æthelred II. Emma’s son by Cnut was regarded as the heir in England.

Cnut was the first Dane to rule England in the sense of being able to collect taxes and mint coin. He poured out his English wealth on Danish supporters while still a teenager. In time, though, he was said to become more English than the English—he loved Emma. She married him because it would help to neutralize British claims on the throne and the claims of her own older sons once she had a child by Cnut.

Cnut endorsed the code of laws by Æthelred I and was deemed Cnut under Heaven. He severed his Nordish roots and was remade as a Christian king. He was seen as a good and just ruler and was buried in Winchester Cathedral when he died.

Harold Harefoot, son of Cnut and Ælfgifu, contended for Harthacnut’s throne as did Alfred, son of Emma and Æthelred II. (What a mess.) Alfred was killed by Earl Godwin of Wessex. Harold Harefoot, the name referring to his swiftness, became Regent from 1035 to 1040 while rightful heir Harthacnut was busy as King of Denmark. They were to be joint monarchs, but in 1037, Harold was elected king by the English. Harthacnut had made preparations to invade and claim his throne, when Harold died, childless.

Harthacnut, 1035 to 1042, should have been happy. The throne was his. However, he had spent a great deal of money preparing to fight for it, and he was displeased. He blamed it on the English, who had voted for his half-breed brother as king, and so he imposed a “fleet tax” on them. His popularity suffered. They shed no tears when he died with no wife or children of convulsions at a drinking party in 1042.

Edward “The Confessor” ruled from 1042 to 1066. The eldest son of Æthelred II and Emma, he had stayed in Normandy through the reign of Cnut. He attempted the throne in 1035, and helped by Harthacnut and Earl Godwin of Wessex (who wanted political favor), he succeeded in 1042. He married Godwin’s daughter Edith.

Godwin later decided that he wanted his own son on the throne instead of Edward. Since he had been involved in the murder of Edward’s brother Alfred, Godwin was sent into exile, and Edith was banished to a monastery.

In 1051, Godwin returned with the people’s support and the king was forced to restore him to favor. Edward also had to expel his Norman friends and have Godwin’s son, Harold Godwinson, as his chief advisor. However, he announced that upon his death he would have his cousin William, Duke of Normandy, as his successor, unless he had children. William came to him and pledged his loyalty.

Edward built the original Westminster Abbey. Most monarchs have been crowned there (or in the newer model) since. Too sick to attend its consecration, he died the next January. On his deathbed, he named Harold Godwinson to be the next king. However, the right actually belonged to Edgar, the grandson of his half-brother Edmund Ironside.

Harold II Godwinson ruled from January to October, 1066, as the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. Harold was the first of only three English kings to die in warfare. He was killed at the Battle of Hastings by Norman invaders during the conquest by William, Duke of Normandy.

After the battle, Edgar the Ætheling was declared King of England, but never crowned. He was born in Hungary where his father, Edward the Exile, had lived since being sent there when Cnut became king. Edward the Confessor had learned of his (Edward’s) existence and sent for him to take his place in court as heir to the throne. (That makes three people to whom he promised it—I wonder what history would have been if he had not put the idea into William’s heart!) Edward the Exile died in strange circumstances shortly after arriving.

Edgar was six years old at the time. Edward the Confessor made no attempt to make him the heir, but after the death of Harold II, the Witanagemot assembled and elected Edgar king. However, as William of Normandy began his invasion, they brought the child to William at Berkhamsted Castle where the Crown of England is said to have been handed over to William by nobles including Edgar the Ætheling. Later in his life he struggled for the throne but never succeeded. He was still known to be alive in 1126.

Athelstan: The Secrets of
a Dark Ages King

by Nancy Bilyeau

“H
oly King Athelstan, renowned through the whole world, whose esteem flourishes and whose honour endures everywhere,”
said a 10th century Latin poem.

In his own lifetime, Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred of Great, was praised as “the English Charlemagne.” By defeating the combined armies of Danes, Scots, and Welsh in the Battle of Brunanburh in 937 A.D., Athelstan could rightly claim the title of “King of all Britain.” In his 15-year reign, he also established laws, financed Catholic monasteries, and made key alliances with European royalty.

Yet today, Athelstan is mostly forgotten.

While researching this Anglo-Saxon king who plays a crucial role in my historical thriller
The Crown
, I puzzled over why Athelstan dissolved into obscurity. It’s not all attributable to the time in which he lived—those ill-documented, striving, brutish, yet sporadically dazzling centuries between the Roman Occupation and the Norman Conquest. Everyone has heard of Alfred the Great. Why not Athelstan, who arguably accomplished just as much?

I concluded that it was the mysteries surrounding Athelstan—ones that the most determined historians have not been able to solve—that made him too blurry for easy familiarity. His secrets make him tantalizing. But they also prevent his life from hardening into the simple outlines that propel a legend through time.

1) Was Athelstan’s mother a concubine?

This is hotly disputed, with biographer Sarah Foot convinced that Athelstan’s mother was an obscure but highly born young woman who had a child or two and died. Sort of a Dark Ages version of a starter wife.

Yet the story persists that Athelstan’s father, Prince Edward, fell in love with a beautiful young shepherdess while visiting his former wet nurse and conceived Athelstan that very night. It’s quite the erotic tale, putting to rest that stereotype of 10th century men only caring for their swords.

More practically, if there were any truth to Athelstan being illegitimate, it would explain why he did not have strong support when he succeeded his father to the throne at age 30—and it would also explain a serious problem he had with one of his half-brothers….

2) Did Athelstan have a half-brother killed?

The story goes that Athelstan suspected young Edwin, the son of his father’s undoubted queen, of conspiring against him with disaffected nobles. As punishment, Edwin was put in an oarless boat without food or water and set out to sea. He threw himself overboard rather than continue to suffer. Later, Athelstan is said to have expressed remorse and performed penance. This whole story is far from confirmed, but it’s persistent—and historians believe that it flung a shadow across the character of Athelstan.

3) Why did Athelstan never marry or have any children?

Thanks to chronicler William of Malmesbury, we know what Athelstan looked like: handsome, slim, and blond. He was well educated. He was personally brave—Athelstan
“won by the sword’s edge undying glory in battle.”
In short, the man is King Arthur material. So why wasn’t there a Guinevere?

Historians struggle to explain it:
“Athelstan’s decision to remain unmarried seems more readily explicable as a religiously motivated determination on chastity as a way of life.”
Still, the concept of celibate warrior monks—such as the Knights Templar—did not come along for another two centuries. A king was expected to marry and beget heirs, in Athelstan’s time and throughout the succeeding dynasties (see Henry the Eighth). Lacking a Dark Ages Dr. Phil—which is perhaps for the best—we’ll never get to the truth of this one.

4) Where did the Battle of Brunanburh take place?

Athelstan’s enemies, determined to put an end to Wessex domination, drew him north for a cataclysmic encounter. Winston Churchill, as only he could, summed up the odds against Athelstan in
The Birth of Britain
:
“The whole of North Britain—Celtic, Danish and Norwegian, pagan and Christian—together presented a hostile front under Constantine, king of the Scots, and Olaf of Dublin, with Viking reinforcements from Norway.”
And yet…Athelstan won. Where this battle was fought, no one knows, though Yorkshire is a solid guess. Most of our information about Brunanburh comes from a rapturous Anglo-Saxon poem. There is a great deal of
“they hewed the battle shafts with hammered weapons,”
but no identifiable landmarks.

5) Why did Athelstan request burial at Malmesbury Abbey?

Almost every king of the House of Wessex was laid to rest in Winchester, the family’s seat of power. But Athelstan arranged to be buried at Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire. The king had
“such a veneration for the place that he thought nowhere more desirable or more sacred.”
Whatever his reasons, Malmesbury rose to the occasion and dedicated itself to the memory of the great king. Today you can visit Athelstan’s tomb and glimpse his effigy, though his corpse is long gone. Some say it disappeared a few decades after his death, others that it was removed shortly before the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

6) Did Athelstan possess the most sacred religious relics of his time?

This was the age of relic collecting, and no one pursued them with greater passion than Athelstan. He was so famous for his love of relics than when Hugh Capet, descendant of Charlemagne, was interested in marrying Athelstan’s most beautiful sister, he is said to have delivered an amazing amount of treasure to England—as well as relics that dated back to Golgotha. The most famous one was the Spear of Destiny, also known as the Lance of Longinus, that pierced Jesus’s side. But Athelstan is said to have possessed other objects of mystical value, too, and that is what I delve into in my novel,
The Crown
….

Lat
e Medieval Period (1001-1485)

William Before He Was the Conqueror

by Rosanne E. Lortz

H
e was born William the Bastard, illegitimate son of Duke Robert of Normandy, but history knows him as William the Conqueror, first Norman king of England and compiler of the Domesday Book. Many historians focus on the year 1066 and the legitimacy of William’s claim to the English crown. But how did an illegitimate boy across the Channel become powerful enough to make that claim in the first place? What did he accomplish before he invaded England? What did he win before the Battle of Hastings?

France during the eleventh century was not a unified country as it was in the earlier Carolingian period or in the later Middle Ages. It was split up into lots of little areas, which I will call counties—not because they were anything like modern day counties, but because they were typically ruled by a count.

Some of Normandy’s most important neighbors were Brittany, Maine, Flanders, Anjou, Blois, and Burgundy. And let us not forget the most important neighbor of all: the Isle of France, where the Capetian king Henry I had his court.

The first duke of Normandy, Rollo the Viking, had sworn a reluctant fealty to the king of France (a very droll story that would take too long to tell here), but there is some question as to whether the duchy of Normandy, during William’s time, was still considered a vassal of the French king.

When William’s father, Robert, died in 1035, on the return trip from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, his only son and heir was seven years old. Robert had never taken the trouble to marry Herleva, William’s mother, but he had also never taken the trouble to marry anyone else, so there were no legitimate sons to dispute William’s claim to the dukedom of Normandy.

In the age of robber barons, a seven-year-old duke was hardly able to rule his demesne with the requisite strength of arm. William’s childhood was marked at times by fighting between his various guardians and, at other times, by outright anarchy. But through it all, the boy was learning, and when he came of age he took steps to teach not only Normandy but also the lands around him to fear and honor his iron sword and iron will.

William of Poitiers (yes, we’re talking about a different William now) was a Norman chronicler who provides one of the most thorough pictures of Duke William’s early exploits. This chronicler was one of the duke’s biggest fans and also proposed his own version of the just war theory: whatever Duke William did was
just
fine.

In 1043, when the duke was about fifteen years of age, his neighbor Geoffrey Martel, the Count of Anjou, was having a spat with another neighbor, the Count of Blois. In the process, the Count of Anjou
accidentally
captured Alençon, one of the Norman castles. William didn’t think it was an accident. He took back Alençon and chased off the Count of Anjou, making a bitter enemy in the process.