On 'location'...

I often quote my daughter who once said, when asked what I do, that I “Stand around in fields getting emotional.”

Well, if your interest is pre-Conquest England, there’s nothing left to see of that period but empty fields, right? Wrong. Yes, it’s true, I do spend a lot of time in fields, but it is possible to visit sites connected with Anglo-Saxon England, and I thought for this post, my last of 2025, I'd take you on a whistle-stop tour of some of the places I’ve been where I’ve felt a real connection to the people whose stories I write, with some links for further reading if you'd like.

I’ll start with some buildings - yes, actual buildings. The main reason there’s so little of Saxon England left to see is that they mainly built with wood, which hasn’t survived. But religious buildings, especially in the later part of the period, were built in stone. And there are some beautiful examples still standing.

Escomb

Sitting these days rather incongruously surrounded by modern housing in a little village in County Durham is this extraordinary Church. It probably dates from the late seventh century, and it recycled some Roman stone. It has a wonderful sundial on the wall outside and, apart from the porch - a new addition - has survived intact and unmodernised, probably because the rich bishops of Durham lost interest in it and it was never extended. (See a post all about Escomb HERE)

St Oswald’s, Gloucester

Not far away from Gloucester Cathedral are the remains of St Oswald’s priory. It was originally dedicated to St Peter, but if you know your early medieval history or have read my novels Cometh the Hour and To Be A Queen, you’ll know what happened to Oswald of Northumbria and that his remains were fetched to Mercia by Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians. It wasn’t the first time he’d been posthumously re-homed though, as you’ll discover in my latest novel, The Sins of the Father. Æthelflæd herself was laid to rest here, next to her husband. This isn’t a field, and there's not much left of the building, but I did get incredibly emotional standing on this site and feeling so close to the people about whom I’ve researched and written so much.

Deerhurst St Mary’s and Odda’s Chapel

Visit Deerhurst, also in Gloucestershire, and you get a real two-for-one. Parts of St Mary’s church are the original Saxon building and, again, if you’ve read To Be A Queen I can tell you that this is the chapel where Ethelred goes to pray, where he takes Æthelflæd, and where they sit together in his twilight years. When I visited, I had the place to myself and the sense of calm was overwhelming. It’s still a working church and the connection with the past is almost palpable. In the book I mentioned the carving of the Madonna above the door, and the ‘angel’ on the outside wall, and here are my photos of them.

Less than a stone’s throw from the church is Odda’s Chapel. Odda was a later earl of Mercia who, despite the assertions of some guide books and websites, was not related to Earl Ælfhere, or Alvar as I called him in my novel, Alvar the Kingmaker. He built the chapel in remembrance of his brother and the dedication stone reads: 

"Earl Odda ordered this royal hall to be built and dedicated in honour of the holy Trinity & for the soul of his brother Ælfric who died in this place. Bishop Ealdred dedicated it on 12 April. The fourteenth year of Edward, king of the English (1056)." 

The chapel would not have been discovered had a tree not fallen down in 1675 and revealed this stone embedded in its roots. Even so, the chapel was not discovered until the nineteenth century during renovations to the manor house attached to it.  

Hexham

Just a quick word about this: if you visit Hexham Abbey be sure to go down to the crypt which dates from the days of St Wilfrid (c. 633 – 709 or 710) who features in both my Tales of the Iclingas novels, Cometh the Hour and The Sins of the Father. And try, as I did, to spend a few moments alone down there. Incredible. (Read more about this and another of Wilfrid's crypts HERE)

But perhaps I should take you to some of those fields now?

Yeavering

It’s bleak. Even centuries after the settlement was built, the site sits in open countryside, surrounded by huge hills, and a fierce wind blows. Not the obvious spot for a ‘des res’ (desirable residence) but nevertheless it was here that Edwin of Northumbria decided to build (or rebuild; there’s evidence that this site had been in use during an earlier period) a great hall, and excavation has shown that there was also some kind of outdoor ‘amphitheatre’, probably where meetings were held. Bede tells us that Bishop Paulinus baptised Northumbrians in the nearby River Glen. All I can say is that they must have been freezing. Still, standing on this enormous site, hemmed in by the hills of the Cheviots, I felt a connection with the man who plays a major part in Cometh the Hour. (Read more about Yeavering HERE)

Heavenfield

Still in Northumbria, my next ‘field’ is Heavenfield. It’s where Oswald, he whose remains have travelled up and down the country, was said to have erected a wooden cross on the eve of battle. He was Edwin of Northumbria’s successor, though these men, despite being uncle and nephew, had never met. There’s a church on the site now, a site which may also have been the battlesite, for excavation has revealed fragments of human bone and weaponry. It’s an atmospheric place, but for me even more poignant was the place we managed to track down nearby, Rowley Burn, which is probably the Denisburn which Bede spoke of as the place Cadwallon of Gwynedd made his last stand. Cadwallon was a good friend and ally of Penda of Mercia and while writing Cometh the Hour I developed a deep affection for him. To be so close to the place where he fought for his very life was moving indeed. (Read more about Heavenfield HERE)

Sutton Hoo

Back down south now, and one of the most famous fields of all (aside from the one just off the A5, where the Staffordshire Hoard was discovered, the subject of my last blog post).  In 1939, when Great Britain was on the brink of war with Germany, a lady named Edith Pretty asked a local amateur archaeologist to investigate some mounds on her property which she was convinced were burial mounds. Well, I think we all know what happened next, and the unearthed ship burial with its incredible wealth of treasure is world famous. I visited this Suffolk site early one morning, just as it was opening. Coachloads of people had also just arrived, but I noted that they were all heading initially to the visitors’ centre. I made my way swiftly to the site itself, and thus was alone with the burial mounds. Never mind that one - the big one - is now a reconstruction; I stood for a moment in the early morning light on that summer’s day and felt a chill.

Yes, I seem to do a lot of ‘standing around getting emotional’ but when you’re so close to the past, it’s hard not to.

[All photos by and copyright of Annie Whitehead]

The Staffordshire Hoard

There are many mysteries wallowing unsolved in the murky depths of the period known - erroneously as it happens - as the Dark Ages, from the identity of the man associated with the Sutton Hoo burial chamber to the final resting place of Harold Godwineson’s body after the battle of Hastings.

But today I want to talk about a field just off the A5 near Lichfield, or, more specifically, what was found there in July 2009: The Staffordshire Hoard.

Image Credit

The largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver to be found, it comprised almost 4600 pieces but these items are just that: pieces. Torn from the weaponry they would originally have adorned, they are decorative fittings from, for example, swords, though the sword blades are missing. Where are the blades? No one knows. Blades were perhaps considered more valuable, passed down from father to son. They were forged by skilled metalworkers and were definitely not a one lifetime-only product. Only one item survived complete, and that was a gold pectoral cross. There was another gold cross, larger, which had been bent as if folded. I’ll come back to that. Around one third of the pieces came from a helmet, which has been reconstructed. It is rare to find a helmet from this period - only around 5 have been unearthed.

Image Credit

Other fittings came from such things as saddles, reliquaries, and bibles. 

There are more gold items than silver, although some of the silver was originally gilded. The decoration techniques include filigree and cloisonné. There is also niello which produces a silver inlay.

Anyone familiar with the gold and garnet pieces from Sutton Hoo will spot a similarity. Sword pyramids with their multi-faceted garnets set in gold have also been found in the Sutton Hoo burial treasure. In keeping with the mystery theme, no one is sure how they were actually attached to the weapons.

There’s a piece which looks like a seahorse, but isn’t. It probably decorated the hilt of a sword. It has tiny fixing holes. 

Image Credit

The hoard was found in Mercia, but the pieces weren’t made there and they weren’t collected there, if we consider the fact that the hoard probably dates to a period when Mercia was still pagan, and yet it includes crosses. The gold must have come from somewhere other than England, most likely from Byzantium, possibly in the form of gold coins which had been melted down. There are different shades within the gold suggesting impurities (each time the gold was melted down, further impurities would have been introduced).

Speaking of melting down, was it on its way to be melted down and repurposed? The location, near two places called Hammerwich, has sparked interest, because Hammerwich means a hammer working or trading place. But nothing else has been found in the area to suggest that there is a link to the hoard or that there was any kind of production or worksite nearby and besides, this wouldn’t explain why there are only ‘elite’ pieces, nor why they show little sign of wear and tear, almost as if they are part of a ‘dress uniform’. 

There are no items associated with women, nor are there any everyday objects. The hoard is a curated collection of items found only in an aristocratic, male, martial environment. Perhaps even the pectoral cross was owned by a priest who carried it whilst going into battle?

It may be that it was heriot – war gear given by the lord to his retainers and paid back upon death, but this doesn’t explain why it was buried.

So where did it come from, and why and how did it come to be buried? There is a significance about where it was found, and I’ll come back to that, too. It might, indeed, have been put there by a non-Mercian. As Archaeologist Helen Geake has pointed out, anyone could have been travelling along that road.

But let’s assume that it has something to do with Mercia. What was going on at around that time? Quite a few historians have pointed to a ninth-century Welsh poem which details a battle at Lichfield, very close to where the hoard was found. 

In the Marwnad Cynddylan (A Lament for Cynddylan), Morfael is depicted as taking loot and killing the bishop and many monks at Caer Lwytgoed. But the dates don’t really fit if Caer Lwytgoed is supposed to be Lichfield. There was no reason for there to be monks in pagan Mercia and the first bishop of Lichfield wasn’t appointed until 669. It has been suggested that this religious community were in fact not at Lichfield but at Wall, and serving the religious needs of a Northumbrian army.

Hmm, Northumbria. Well, for a long time during this period it dominated Mercia and parts of Wales. Was this treasure collected as some sort of owed tribute? What we do know is that the hoard wasn’t buried in the equivalent of someone’s back garden. Excavation of the site revealed that there were no buildings, or burials so this was not a settlement or cemetery, so if this is tribute, again, why was it buried?

The epic poem Beowulf – thought to have been composed in Mercia – describes how objects of gold were placed ritually in a grave and given back to the earth as they had been taken from a barrow guarded by a dragon. Was the Staffordshire Hoard similarly given back to the earth? No barrow was found at the site and there is no pagan shrine associated with this spot, despite the nearby Wednesbury and Wednesfield suggesting a Woden cult in the area. If it wasn’t put there as part of a ritual, was it accidentally lost? It seems unlikely. 

A page from Beowulf

So what if… Well, here’s the thing. The burial of the hoard seems to coincide with the reign of King Penda, the last pagan ruler of Mercia. Clearly the stuff wasn’t his, not if it included Christian items. But remember that larger gold cross, that had been bent as if folded? And remember that I said the location of the find was significant? In my novel Cometh the Hour I played with the idea that this hoard was treasure which Penda collected after his battle victories, and I show him ordering the cross to be bent so that it fits into a sack. I also show one of his daughters taking a shine to the ‘seahorse’ and him making a gift of it to her. 

The bent gold cross

The significance of the burial spot? Well, yes, it’s not far from Lichfield and you’d go past it if you’re heading from Tamworth. You see, the road, the A5 as it's now known, is an old road. It existed in the seventh century and it was known as Watling Street. 

I can’t explain why the hoard only contains elite weapon fittings that had barely been used, but I did come up with a scenario in which it was buried, deliberately, by someone intending to come back for it…

My two-book series, The Tale of the Iclingas, begins with the story of Penda, the last pagan king of Mercia, and in a sweeping saga of bloodfeud, love, and loss, includes the collection of the Staffordshire Hoard, the Sutton Hoo ship burial, and the founding of the Lindisfarne holy community. It continues with the story of Penda's sons, their continuing fight against the murderous Northumbrians, and focuses on Ethelred, the youngest of Penda's children, on whose shoulders the fate of the kingdom and his kin ultimately rests.

The books can be read as standalones.

Cometh the Hour

The Sins of the Father

Poor Little Kenelm

Come with me if  you will, to the pretty Cotswold town of Winchcombe. But this is not an ordinary journey, far from it. Today we are going back to the abbey that thrived there in the ninth century and was, if legend can be believed, the scene of a hideous murder and the most spectacular divine punishment.

Kenelm's Well, where his funeral cortege is
said to have rested

The abbess was the daughter of a king, and as well as being in charge of Winchcombe Abbey, where the royal family archive was housed, she also presided over two further abbeys in Kent. She could not possibly have overseen all of these abbeys in person, for these were vast, lucrative estates and whilst she must have had an astute head for business, she must also have had deputies. On that basis, we must also assume she was literate, at least able to read, for she would not wish to conduct business nor her affairs generally if she had to trust someone else to read documents for her.

Statue of Cwoenthryth's father,
King Cenwulf, at Winchcombe

But according to some chroniclers, this privileged life was not enough for our Cwoenthryth (for that was her name). She was envious that when her father died, in 821, the crown of the midlands kingdom of Mercia had passed not to her, but to her little brother, who goes by various names, but we shall call him Kenelm.

Perhaps we should call him Poor Little Kenelm, because this child was no match for his scheming elder sister. She paid a henchman (in some  versions of the story, it is her lover) to take him out to the woods, kill him, and bury the body.

Well, if that were the end of the story, we probably never would have heard about it. And of course, it wasn’t, and we have. Because a dove (said by some to be carrying the soul of the dead boy) flew to Rome and dropped a message upon the altar of St Peter’s, saying where the body could be found.

The boy’s body was brought back to Winchcombe for burial. Cwoenthryth, reading from a psalter, heard the commotion and saw the funeral procession. Fearing discovery, she began to recite a psalm backwards as a spell, whereupon her eyeballs fell out. Again, according to some versions of the tale, she and her lover died soon afterwards. The 12th-century chronicler, William of Malmesbury, said that in his day the blood spatters on the psalter were still visible. 

Stones from the Anglo-Saxon Winchcombe Abbey,
now at nearby Sudeley Castle

Another horrendous murder from the ‘Dark Ages’ that barely warrants a mention?

Actually, no. When I set out to write my new book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England, I was aware of this, and many other similar stories. Throughout the writing process, I had to constantly fact-check, because in so many cases, including this one, the earlier, sometimes even contemporary sources, differ widely from the later, largely Anglo-Norman sources. It also seemed to be the case that the later sources, all clerics, were overly keen to blame women for murder wherever they could.

So, in true crime-detective style, now that we’ve listened to what can only be described as hearsay, and not from reliable witnesses, let’s examine the facts.

Firstly, Anglo-Saxon women enjoyed more freedoms than many of their later medieval counterparts, but our Cwoenthryth would never have expected to inherit and rule Mercia. One woman did, in the tenth century (Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians) but she was an exception.

Secondly, there is no evidence that Kenelm, if he even existed, was a small boy when he died. Rather we have charter evidence – contemporary evidence – that a man by that name, if indeed he was definitely the son of the king, was still alive and witnessing charters in 821. We have a letter, allegedly from the pope, naming Kenelm and giving his age in 798 as 12. Therefore if this man was indeed the king’s son, he was still alive in 821 and perhaps thereafter, and would have been 35 at the youngest when he died.

Not one even vaguely contemporary source claims that Kenelm was murdered, much less that it was on the orders of his sister.

Why then, might she have been accused? 

As I mentioned, not only was she abbess and essentially owner of Winchcombe, but she was also in charge of two abbeys in Kent, Minster-in-Thanet and Reculver. She found herself in dispute with the archdiocese of Canterbury over these latter two, and was forced to give up all rights.

Minster-in-Thanet, showing the original Anglo-Saxon
brickwork. Photo kind permission of the sisters.

Could this be why the legend grew up; monks writing about a powerful abbess who had locked horns with the Church at Canterbury? As historian Matt Lewis has pointed out, Church attitudes to women changed markedly in the 12th century and on a more general note, the Anglo-Norman Chroniclers had very little reason to say anything positive about pre-1066 England.

Researching this and many other murder stories for the book, I found time and again that the descriptions of the reported murders were much more pedestrian in the more contemporary sources than in the later versions of the tales.

Historical research always involves a fair of amount of metaphorical digging. But it’s the first time I’ve really thought about it as detective work. But when it comes to murder, you really do have to look not just only at the circumstances, but the reliability of the witnesses. I don’t believe much of the later versions of Cwoenthryth’s tale, but they do make for fascinating reading!

Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge is published by Amberley Books. Available online and in book shops.

Universal Link: https://mybook.to/MIASE

Amberley Books: https://www.amberley-books.com/murder-in-anglosaxon-england.html

[photos by and copyright of the author unless otherwise stated]

Blood Eagle - Myth, or Fact?

It’s probably one of the more famous incidents in Anglo-Saxon history: An invading Viking king is killed by being thrown into a pit of snakes, and in revenge, his son kills his murderer by employing the method of torture and execution known as the Blood Eagle.

We are told by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that in 867 Northumbria was ruled by Ælle, but we don’t know his origins, and that he was killed when Vikings attacked York. This seems very straightforward and would appear not to warrant inclusion in a book about murder stories.

But legend takes over the story, with the appearance of Ragnar Lothbrok (Hairy Breeches). We only hear about him from the Icelandic sagas, but it does appear that his named sons, at least, were real historical figures.

According to the legend, Ragnar fell foul of Ælle while he was ravaging Northumbria and was flung into a pit full of snakes where he was bitten and died. He swore his sons would wreak vengeance and so, it was said, they did.

Ivar the Boneless, Ragnar’s son, is alleged to have ordered the killing of his father’s murderer by employing the Blood Eagle. In later descriptions this savage method of execution involved cutting the shape of an eagle with outstretched wings into the victim’s back before cutting the ribs open from the spine. The bones and skin were pulled out until they resembled the shape of wings. The victim, still alive at this point, would have salt rubbed into his wounds. Then, his lungs were pulled out and spread over the ‘wings’ to create an image of a ‘fluttering’ as the victim finally died. Most of these details come to us from the nineteenth century.

As with so many stories in my new book, there is a huge discrepancy between the earlier or contemporary sources and the later ones, even those from the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. From a much nearer source, we have an eleventh-century poem which, depending on how it’s translated, suggests that Ivar ‘only’ had Ælle’s back cut with a sword, or that the cut represented an eagle.

We should also consider the death of Ragnar which supposedly ignited the incident and must assume that the pit was full of adders, the only snake native to England. Even so, an adder’s bite is rarely fatal. We also cannot verify the existence of Ragnar, though the sagas make much of his life – and death – perhaps as a way of introducing the deeds of such men as Ivar the Boneless. Certainly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes it clear that there was a straightforward battle, and does not mention the snake pit or the blood eagle.

This grisly legend is in many ways typical of the stories in the book:

In later versions of a tale, an abbess is accused of having her infant brother savagely murdered and punished divinely when her eyeballs fell out, while contemporary sources suggest that even if he existed at all, her brother was almost certainly an adult when he died, and no murder is recorded.

 The wife of King Offa of Mercia is said by later chroniclers to have arranged the killing of a visiting king, whereas the earlier source merely states that Offa had the king beheaded. Most tellingly and convincingly, we also have surviving letters from a contemporary of that queen, who wrote to her son urging him to learn compassion from her, and also wrung his hands at the murderous goings on in his own land (Northumbria) where regicides were frequent. He does not mention that the queen has been involved in murder. There are however, many murder stories in the book which can be corroborated, and among the most chilling of all are the ones which appear to have been either sanctioned by kings, or at the very least condoned by them. And yet there were written laws in place from as early as the seventh century, so this was not literally a lawless society, but one where the rich and powerful felt they were above such laws. Being in the wrong political faction could prove fatal.

There was much to untangle, and much detective work required, to see if the bones of truth could be found underneath the flesh of legend and rumour. And along the way, I noticed that some deaths, not recorded as murder, were decidedly suspicious and timely. How about a king benefiting from the early deaths of two half-brothers and a brother-in-law? Or the timely deaths of two kings in the tenth century, each of whom had agreed to a power-sharing arrangement, only to conveniently die a short time later?

Many of the stories have elements of hearsay, and unreliable witnesses. Where I’ve made accusations of my own, of course I can’t call up any witnesses and because the deaths are not recorded as murder, I can’t prove anything. But, just as we all love a good murder story, we all have our opinions about whodunnit…

Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge is available in book shops and online: HERE

[Images: 

Blood Eagle: detail from Stora Hammars I, Sweden, showing a man lying on his belly with another man using a weapon on his back.

King Æthelberht of East Anglia, killed by King Offa, Canterbury Cathedral. (SAForrest, Creative Commons 2.0) ]

(This article originally appeared on the publisher's website)

Monthly Blog Post - August

August in Old English was Weod-mōnaþ (Plant month). Bede, writing in the eighth century, said it was so called because this is the month when weeds grow the most. Did he mean weeds as we understand them though, or plants generally? 1st August is also Lammas Day (Old English hlaf-mas, "loaf-mass").

The plant for the month of August is generally said to be either the gladiolus or the poppy. I prefer poppy, not only because it my favourite flower, but because of the simplicity of the Old English word, an example of a direct connection between our language today and that of the Anglo-Saxons: poppig. That g at the end is pronounced more like a y, so in essence it's the exact same word. 

A poppy from my garden

It seems a bit incongruous, but I've not just got flowers and plants on my mind at the moment, but murder too! In February of this year, my new book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England, was published, and there are three notable dates from the month of August.

The first I want to mention is August 5, when Gruffudd of Wales was killed in 1063. Gruffudd was ruler at one time of all of Wales, but made many enemies in the process. His great ally was Ælfgar of Mercia, whom he'd helped out when he was forced into exile by Harold Godwineson and his brothers. Gruffudd married Ælfgar's daughter, Ealdgyth (read about her in my short story HERE) but when Ælfgar died his teenage son Edwin took over Mercia, and Gruffudd was suddenly isolated and vulnerable. His royal palace at Rhuddlan was attacked by forces loyal to Harold Godwineson and, though he managed to escape, he was eventually killed and his head sent to Harold. This was probably at the connivance of his Welsh enemies, but it seems the old saying that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' probably sealed Gruffudd's fate. Harold went on to marry Ealdgyth, though how she felt about this was not recorded.

Last month I wrote a little bit about Æthelwold Moll, king of Northumbria, who appears to have gained his kingdom after being involved in a spot of unlawful killing in 759. The history of Northumbria in the eighth century is one of brutal coups, bloody killings and constant threats to the king. In 761 Æthelwold Moll reportedly fought a rival, the atheling Oswine, and killed him on August 6 in the Eildon Hills near the modern-day Scottish border. Moll was himself later deposed and I imagine that even as king he must have felt the need always to sleep with one eye open.

August 20 marks the feast day of another Oswine, also a Northumbrian, who was killed on the orders of King Oswiu. King Oswiu was a duplicitous character but in this instance, although he did manage to secure the permanent removal of his rival, he didn't quite get off scot free (almost literally - for 'scot free' comes from the Old English, scot, a form of tax). Read about how he was punished in my blog post HERE

There's no lingering doubt that Oswine was murdered, but the last on the list of August deaths is a bit more conjectural.

On August 2 924 a young man named Ælfweard was buried. None of the sources suggests foul play, but I have my suspicions, because this young man was the son of Edward the Elder, who himself was the son of Alfred the Great. Edward had some fourteen children by three wives, although many said that the first marriage wasn't legal, and consequently his eldest son, Athelstan, wasn't considered by everyone to be legitimate. He'd been brought up in Mercia and when his father Edward died, Athelstan was voted king in Mercia, while Wessex went to his half-brother Ælfweard. Sources vary, but either Ælfweard survived a mere sixteen days after Edward's death, or reigned for four weeks, but either way, his rule was cut short. All we know is that he died at Oxford, very close to the Wessex/Mercian border. Had he been on his way to visit his half-brother Athelstan, and was he intercepted and removed from the political scene? Athelstan became king of Wessex, but it was also suggested that he played a part in the death of another half-brother, Edwin. Hmm...

You can of course read more about these deaths and my analysis of the stories in my new book Murder in Anglo-Saxon England. 

I've done a whole year of monthly blog posts now - I started them in September 2024 - and I hope you've enjoyed them. Perhaps I'll come up with a new theme for future posts, or maybe they'll be unconnected except for the fact that they will, of course, all concern some aspect or other of Anglo-Saxon history...

Monthly Blog Post - July (and a bit more murder...)

 It's July already and in the northern hemisphere that means that Summer is usually well into its stride, we've passed the Summer Solstice and the nights are drawing in.

July in old English was Æftera Līþa, "After Midsummer", "Second Summer", so yes, it always feels to me like Summer is more than halfway through.

This year (2025), July begins on a Tuesday, which the Anglo-Saxons called Tiwes daeg, named for the pagan god Tiw, a war god. 

The birth month flower for July is delphinium, commonly known as larkspur. Despite the simplicity of this name it is not, in fact, derived from Old English, but probably dates from the 1500s. This plant was in fact known in Anglo-Saxon England as fugeles wýse, or fugeles wíse.

If you're lucky, you can still find poppies (my favourite flower) blooming in July, and they do have an Old English name: poppig. And given that the 'g' is more of a 'y' sound, if you were to travel back to Anglo-Saxon England and point to these flowers and name them, you'd be understood.

July is often a busy time for me, and this year is no exception. On Tuesday 22nd, I'll be back at Tamworth in Staffordshire to present another talk, this time about Murder in Mercia. The setting is the stunning St Editha's Church, the talk begins at 7.30pm, and tickets are £10 on the door.

St Editha's (my photo, taken from Tamworth Castle)

July seems to have been a quiet month for murder, generally, in Anglo-Saxon England, but we do have one notable occurrence...

For this we need to travel up to the troubled kingdom of Northumbria where, in the eighth century, the regnal list is more a litany of regicides, murder victims, or both, with the 'crown' sitting on so many heads that had it been a real item the metal would never have had chance to cool. 

A King Ceolwulf, who'd been briefly deposed and forcibly tonsured*, had abdicated in favour of his cousin, Eadberht.

Almost immediately Eadberht needed to set about neutralising threats from the remnants of the previous reigning families. In 740 the son of a previous king was killed. It seems likely that he had been fomenting rebellion against Eadberht.

In 750, Eadberht faced an unsuccessful challenge from another son of a previous king, who sought sanctuary at the monastery on Lindisfarne and was dragged out by Eadberht’s soldiers. Eadberht also imprisoned the bishop of Lindisfarne. Other than these episodes his reign seems to have been internally peaceful and he was actively engaged in hostilities with other kingdoms.  

In 758 Eadberht abdicated in favour of his son, Oswulf. 

But this rare peaceful passing of the crown from father to son did not bring stability. Northumbrian politics became complicated and murky now, and Oswulf was killed by his own household. According to one source, in the course of one year Oswulf held, lost and forfeited the kingdom and he was ‘wickedly killed’ by his household near Methel Wongton on 24 July 759. 

We have no further details about this killing but it is easy to build a case against one person: the man who then became king and who appears to have been the first of a new dynasty. His name was Æthelwold Moll, and it is probable that he was the same nobleman, Moll, to whom Eadberht had given three monasteries and thus, we can assume, was a member of the king’s inner circle. So it's really not a huge leap to conclude that Æthelwold Moll was a member of the household who murdered Oswulf. 

Silver Sceat of Æthelwold Moll, struck 759-765
Image Accreditation

Æthelwold Moll was himself driven into exile after ruling for only six years. His reign had witnessed the hard winter of 763–4, when ‘deep snow hardened into ice... trees and shrubs for the most part perished’.

And with that reminder of how harsh winter can be, let's enjoy the second half of summer!

If you want to read more about this bloody period of Northumbrian history, all the details are in my new book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England.

*A common practice, it denoted that the 'victim' was now a religious man and therefore could no longer claim the throne.

Monthly Blog Post: June (and a bit of murder...)

 June already! In Old English this month was called Ærra Līþa "Before Midsummer", or sometimes Brāh-mānod "First Summer".

June is quite the month - it's a time for haymaking, harvesting early crops such as barley and, especially in Anglo-Saxon times, enjoying fresh dairy produce. Of course the summer solstice happens in June too.

Historically June is a month when big events happened: the sealing of the Magna Carta (15th June, 1215) and of course, more recently, the D-Day landings (4th June, 1944). 

But this month, there are two standout stories from the Anglo-Saxon era. They both tie in nicely with my new book, and the first apparently occurred on 1st of this month. So let's talk murder... child murder at that!

The Anglo-Saxon Crypt at Repton - my photo

We start with a royal power struggle in Mercia in the ninth century, and on the face of it, it's the story of a spoiled brat of a 'prince' *, Wigstan, who objected to his mother's remarriage. It seems as though Wigstan's mother had been married to a former king of Mercia, and her suitor was the son of his successor. On the face of it, it looks as though Wigstan, being of that age, was resentful that his mother was choosing to marry again. Things took a nasty turn though when he was murdered. Quite an extreme reaction, you'd have thought.

However, there's more to this than meets the eye (isn't there always?) because whilst it's not entirely clear whether Wigstan's father was ever king - though it does seem likely - there is no doubt that his paternal grandfather was. And here's where it gets complicated, because his maternal grandfather had also been a king of Mercia, which means that Wigstan had very blue blood indeed.

Mercian politics at this time was dominated by the power struggles between various branches of the royal family. It's a list of confusingly similar names and easiest described as a rivalry between kings whose names began with B, C, or W. For simplicity - it's explored at much more length in my new book - let's just say here that one of Wigstan's grandfathers was a C king, the other a W king, and the king who was trying to marry his son off to Wigstan's mother was from the rival B branch.

With this borne in mind, it starts to look as though the B king, having seen off his rival and was now sitting pretty on the throne, wanted to marry his son to the widow of a previous king, to bolster his credentials and strengthen any resulting dynasty. It looks as if Wigstan was just a bit too much of a threat to those plans, and it may be that he never objected at all to the wedding, but was sidelined - permanently - anyway.

This story is representative of so many of the murders in the book. It has a young victim, bloody coups, and many legends attached to it. There's also something less common about it, for it is possible to visit the crypt where Wigstan's bones were laid to rest, near his grandfather's. Underneath St Wystan's church in Repton, Derbyshire, the Angl0-Saxon crypt still exists. It's thought that this is where another Mercian king, Æthelbald, also murdered, was laid to rest. The Repton Stone, thought to represent this king, can be viewed in Derby Museum.

The Repton Stone - my photo

Do visit if you get the opportunity. You can get a 'three-for-one', because next door to the church in the grounds of the vicarage is where archaeological teams have been excavating a Viking burial ground. At the museum in Derby you'll also see the sarcophagus of St Alkmund, another alleged murder victim!

The next story from June is the death of King Harthacnut on 8th June 1042. It was not recorded as murder, but the description of his death does suggest that it might have been poison. 

Harthacnut came to the throne after the death of his half-brother, Harold Harefoot. They were both sons of King Cnut and after their father died an unedifying struggle for control ensued, largely spearheaded by their mothers, Queen Emma and Ælfgifu of Northampton respectively. Harthacnut’s inability to get back to England after his father’s death was a major deciding factor in Harold's election as king.

Harold only reigned in total for around five years, and Harthacnut only two. The family had a disposition for dying young, it would seem. Or did they?

We have a description of Harthacnut’s death: 

He was attending a wedding and, ‘He was standing at his drink and he suddenly fell to the ground with fearful convulsions, and those who were near caught him, and he spoke no words afterwards.’ It does look suspiciously like death by poison. Who would have wanted him dead?

One chronicle said that Harthacnut did nothing worthy of a king, and had Harold’s body dug up and thrown into a fen. 

In the year before his death he’d sent tax collectors to ravage Worcestershire and gather eye-wateringly high amounts of tribute, and two of these collectors were killed by the people of Worcester. Harthacnut was clearly making enemies. And matters weren’t helped when he then sent a large force to burn the city and ‘lay waste the whole province.’

None of the chronicles records foul play, and it’s probably unlikely that any citizens of Worcester made their way into the wedding, but could any erstwhile supporters of Harold Harefoot have got close enough to put poison in the king’s drink? 

Both these stories, and many more, are explored in my new book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge.

*this term was not used at the time