The King Is Dead (28 page)

I can find no evidence for a castle in Norton although it was second in importance only to Durham and I assume that there must have been a defensive structure of some kind there.  I suspect it was a wooden structure built to the north of the present church. The church in Norton is Norman but it is not my church.  Stockton Castle was pulled down in the Civil War of the 17th Century. It was put up in the early fourteenth century.  My castle is obviously earlier. As Stockton became a manor in the 12th century and the river crossing was important I am guessing that there would have been a castle there. There may have been an earlier castle on the site of Stockton Castle but until they pull down the hotel and shopping centre built on the site it is difficult to know for sure. The simple tower with a curtain wall was typical of late Norman castles. The river crossing was so important that I have to believe that there would have been some defensive structure there before the 1300s. The manor of Stockton was created in 1138. To avoid confusion in the later civil war I have moved it forward by a few years.

Vikings continued to raid the rivers and isolated villages of England for centuries. There are recorded raids as late as the sixteenth century along the coast south of the Fylde. These were not the huge raids of the ninth and tenth centuries but were pirates keen for slaves and treasure.  The Barbary Pirates also raided the southern coast.  Alfred’s navy had been a temporary measure to deal with the Danish threat.  A Royal Navy would have to wait until Henry VIII.

The Welsh did take advantage of the death of the master of Chester and rampaged through Cheshire.  King Henry and his knights defeated them although King Henry was wounded by an arrow.  The king’s punishment was the surrender of 10,000 cattle.  The Welsh did not attack England again until King Henry was dead!

Matilda was married to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry, in 1116 when she was 14. They had no children and the marriage was not a happy one. When William Adelin died in the White Ship disaster then Henry had no choice but to name his daughter as his heir however, by that time she had been married to Geoffrey Count of Anjou, Fulk's son and King Henry was suspicious of his former enemy's heir.  His vacillation caused the civil war which was known as the Anarchy.  However those events are several books away. Stephen and Matilda are just cousins: soon they will become enemies.

An early Great Helm.  Basically it was a conical helmet with metal instead of an aventail and a fixed mask.  Later on they became more elaborate.

In the high middle ages there was a hierarchy of hawks.  At this time there was not.  A baron was supposed to have a bustard which is not even a hawk.  Some think it was a corruption of buzzard or was a generic name for a hawk of indeterminate type. Aiden finds hawks' eggs and raises them.  The 'cadge' was the square frame on which the hawks were carried and it was normally carried by a man called a codger.  Hence the English slang for old codger; a retainer who was too old for anything else. It might also be the derivation of cadge (ask for) a lift- more English slang.

Gospatric was a real character.  His father had been Earl of Northumberland but was replaced by William the Conqueror.  He was granted lands in Scotland, around Dunbar. Once the Conqueror was dead he managed to gain lands in England around the borders.  He was killed at the Battle of the Standard fighting for the Scots. I have used this as the basis for his treachery. He was succeeded by his son, Gospatric, but the family confirmed their Scottish loyalties. His other sons are, as far as I know my own invention although I daresay if he was anything like the other lords and knights he would have been spreading his largess around to all and sundry!

Hartburn is a small village just outside Stockton.  My American readers may be interested to know that the Washington family of your first President lived there and were lords of the manor from the thirteenth century onwards.  It was called Herrteburne in those days. In the sixteenth century the family had it taken from them and it was replaced by the manor of Wessington, which became Washington.  Had they not moved then your president might live in Hartburn DC!

The King of Gwynedd, Gruffudd ap Cynan, recaptured Anglesey from the Normans and his son, Owain who later became known as Owain the Great began to encroach upon the Norman lands around Cheshire.  Robert of Gloucester might have subdued South Wales but North Wales was a different matter. Eventually the men of Gwynedd would defeat the Normans and it was not until the time of Henry II that they began to suffer heavy defeats.  The Welsh were aided by Vikings from Dublin as well as Irish mercenaries.  Owain had been brought up in Ireland and his mother had family there.  It gave the Welsh an advantage for the Vikings brought heavy armoured infantry to aid them. The Vikings continued to raid England until the fifteenth century but at this time they were no longer the fearsome warriors who conquered so much of the world in what we now term, the dark ages.

Ranulf de Gernan was Earl of Chester and was married to another Matilda/Maud- the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester. They seemed to have used a limited number of names at this time! I have tried to use real names where ever possible.  I apologise for any confusion.

The plague and pestilence were two terms used for contagious diseases which usually killed.  The Black Death was a specific plague which could be attributed to one cause. Influenza, smallpox, chicken pox even measles could wipe out vast numbers.  The survivors normally had anti-bodies within their blood stream.  Medicine was of little use.

The Lords of Coucy were robber barons who plagued Louis the Fat and the lands of Blois.  They were as cruel as I suggest and I have made nothing up.  Henry’s daughter and her husband, Eustace, did rebel and Henry took away their Norman lands. King Henry had to spend a great deal of his time in Normandy and the lands in England were left to Robert of Gloucester and his small coterie of friends like Sir Richard Redvers, Roger of Mandeville, Richard d’Avranches and Robert Fitzharmon. My fictional hero also fits into this category.

The ram and the stone thrower were siege engines used at this time.  Later weapons such as the trebuchet would render the stone thrower redundant. This was the time before skilled engineers such as those used by the Romans but the Crusades and warriors who had fought in the east brought back knowledge and skills in this area.

Alfraed could not have slept with the Empress Matilda- he is fictional. The Empress did become pregnant in1132 and gave birth to Henry II in March 1133. I use real events whenever I can but I write about the grey areas. Geoffrey was much younger than his wife and they did not get on.  It seemed to me possible that she would take a lover.  Ironically her son Henry II also married a much older woman- Eleanor of Aquitaine who, like Matilda, had formerly been married to a ruler.  In her case it was the King of France. My fiction is no stranger than the truth. Her difficult time giving birth to Geoffrey is true and she was near to death.

The Bishop of Durham, the Archbishop of Canterbury and William Cumin were all real people. I have filled in the back stories of all of them for the purposes of plot but the events could have happened as I describe them.

Anjou was known as Angieus in 1127 and later in the century became Angiers this became Angers. I have used the modern spelling as the twelfth century was a time of great change.

The language we now call English evolved over a long period.  For those interested in it then the book The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg is a superb read. The Ancient Celtic language was changed through the addition of not only Latin words but many from the languages of the auxiliaries who served on the frontier. The Jutes invaded, bringing their words with them and then the Angles and the Saxons. Although I call the language the natives of England speak as Saxon its name is now accepted as Old English.  Most of the functional words in English are still Old English.  When Sir Winston Churchill wrote his 'fight them on the beaches' speech the majority of the words he uses are Old English in origin. The Normans added many words to the English language and Old English became Middle English. If we had the ability to travel back in time then the Middle English of Chaucer would have appeared as a foreign language to us.  It took until Shakespeare's time for it to become closer to the language we use today.

Books used in the research:

The Varangian Guard- 988-1453 Raffael D’Amato

Saxon Viking and Norman- Terence Wise

The Walls of Constantinople AD 324-1453-Stephen Turnbull

Byzantine Armies- 886-1118- Ian Heath

The Age of Charlemagne-David Nicolle

The Normans- David Nicolle

Norman Knight AD 950-1204- Christopher Gravett

The Norman Conquest of the North- William A Kappelle

The Knight in History- Francis Gies

The Norman Achievement- Richard F Cassady

Knights- Constance Brittain Bouchard

Griff Hosker

December 2015

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The King is Dead

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