Monthly Blog Post - April

 And just like that, we're into April already. 2025 has gone really quickly. Let's dive in with some facts about this month:

April was known in Old English as Easter-mōnaþ which is perhaps not surprising. Bede, the Northumbrian monk, said  that Easter Month was so named because it was the month of the goddess Ēostre. There's a lot of debate about this last point, and whether Bede invented this pagan goddess. Arguments rage, too, about the rabbits, hares and eggs and what they symbolise.

Ostara (1884) by Johannes Gehrts

There was also, back in the seventh century, a great deal of debate about when to celebrate Easter, something which I illustrated in my novels about the lives of King Penda of Mercia and his family, Cometh the Hour and The Sins of the Father.

In the first, a young Kentish bride travels north to her husband's kingdom of Northumbria, there to find that while she, having been brought up in the 'Roman' faith, was still observing Lent, her husband, brought up in the 'Celtic' tradition of Christianity, had already observed Easter and was feasting.

In the second book, the king and queen are at odds, for many reasons, one being her patronage of the troublesome Bishop, later Saint, Wilfrid. King and queen (or at least, her representative) were on opposing sides at the Synod of Whitby in 664 where, amongst other things, an agreement was finally reached on the dating of Easter.

I had cause to mention this event in my new (nonfiction) book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England, too, since that king, Oswiu, was also at odds with one of his sons, another friend of Wilfrid's. That son disappeared from the records after the synod. Was Oswiu to blame? He certainly had form, having earlier in his reign ordered the murder of a rival king, who just happened to be a second cousin of his wife's. Read more about that HERE. I'm amazed they remained married as long as they did!

Wilfrid himself, definitely a 'turbulent' priest, died in April, on 24th in 709. He'd presented himself to the queen, Eanflæd, when he was just fourteen, asking for her sponsorship. Bede brings us this story in his Ecclesiastical History, and it's an example of proof that queens ran their own separate households at this time. Wilfrid had a habit of annoying people and could be considered haughty - he famously decided that there was none fit in England to consecrate him when he became a bishop, and went off to Gaul to find someone suitably qualified.

He also caused uproar when King Oswiu's son, who succeeded him, married Æthelthryth of East Anglia. She'd been married before, and apparently was still a virgin and wished to remain so, and in this endeavour she was encouraged by Wilfrid who thus made himself unpopular with yet another king. There are various versions of her escape from her husband, and you can read about her HERE. (Image is my photo of a painting at Hexham, taken and published with kind permission of the rector of Hexham Abbey.)

She became abbess of Ely, and the modern version of her name is Audrey. It is from her that we get the word 'Tawdry', or rather from the inferior quality of the souvenirs that were sold to pilgrims.

Wilfrid's death on that April day was, according to the Old English Martyology, quite the spectacle. The house in which he was born was seen burning by the neighbours who rushed to put out the flames, but when they got nearer, there were no flames at all. When Wilfrid gave up the ghost a noise was heard like the sound of large birds and a host of angels took him to heaven. I rather suspect that Wilfrid would have had no qualms in arguing with God when he got there!

The 7th-century crypt at Ripon, built on the orders
Of Wilfrid. Author's own photo

Another Anglo-Saxon character who's not noted for his sense of humour (with good reason, given his stomach ailment and the waves of Danes wanting to take over his kingdom) was Alfred the Great. And yet it seems that we have him to thank for the notion of Easter being an official holiday. 

Search on the internet and you'll find that "Taking a break for Easter actually dates back to 877 when Alfred the Great decreed that the fortnight on either side of Easter Sunday should be a national holiday. This lasted until the thirteenth century when the first week was dropped. Instead, a further two days, known as ‘hocktide’ were tagged to the end of the holiday."

Now, hocktide is certainly a 'thing', referring to the Monday and Tuesday in the second week after Easter. And in Alfred's laws we find this: "To all free people let these following days be granted as holidays but not to slaves and servile workers, twelve days at Christmas (Gehol)... and seven days before Easter and seven after." *

Alfred's statue - Pixabay chrisjmit

And there is an episode in Alfred's life connected to Easter. We are told by Asser, a monk commissioned to write Alfred's biography, and by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that after his hall at Chippenham was attacked by Vikings on or just after 12th Night, Alfred led his followers to Athelney, arriving there at Easter 878. It has been noted** that this might be symbolism, with Alfred rising victorious just as Christ had done that first Easter Day and the sources do not specify that it was Easter Sunday, with one saying 'after' Easter and one 'around' Easter.

Still, as we know, and despite the ruling at Whitby, Easter is still very much a movable feast! However (and if) you celebrate, Happy Easter!

* Griffiths: An Introduction to Early English Law. See also English Historical Documents Vol I, ed. Dorothy Whitelock 

**https://thepostgradchronicles.org/

King Oswiu and a Touch of Murder

Today, 15th February 2025, is the publication date of my new book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge, and it's rather apt that 15th February (AD 670) is also the date of the death of King Oswiu of Northumbria, who features early on in the book.

The book opens with the assassination attempt on the life of King Edwin of Northumbria. He had been forced into exile by a rival king, Æthelfrith of Bernicia (the kingdom which eventually formed the northern part of Northumbria). Æthelfrith had killed the king of Deira (the southern part) and driven his family, including Edwin, into exile.

Well, not all of the family. He married Edwin's sister (I doubt she was a willing bride) and had a number of sons by her, of whom Oswiu was thought to be one. I say 'thought' because while it is almost always said that Oswiu was the product of that marriage, and therefore half Bernician, half Deiran, he had tremendous difficulty establishing his rule over the southern kingdom.

Edwin had defeated Æthelfrith in battle in 616 with the help of King Rædwald of East Anglia (he of alleged Sutton Hoo burial fame), causing his sister's sons to retreat into exile, and ruled both of the Northumbrian kingdoms until he was killed in battle by King Penda of the Mercians. First, his nephew Oswald came out of exile to rule both of the kingdoms, until he, too, was killed in battle by Penda.

Oswiu then stepped forward, but was unable to secure his grip on Deira. It took him some time to travel south to retrieve his brother's body from the battlefield, which suggests that he did not feel secure enough to leave his power base. He may well not have been Oswald's full brother, something which is hinted at in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples, and this might be one of the reasons why he chose as his bride a princess from Kent, whose name was Eanflæd. In fact, she was only half Kentish, because her father was Edwin of Deira. This marriage must have been designed to help him get a surer footing in Deira.

The trouble for Oswiu was that there was another claimant to that kingdom. Oswine was the son of Edwin's cousin, who had been exiled at the same time as Edwin. He now ruled Deira and Oswiu was not happy.

According to Bede, the two rival kings raised armies, but Oswine decided that the odds of victory in battle were too heavily stacked against him, and withdrew. He went with one retainer to the house of a man named Hunwold, whom he assumed to be loyal. He was not; he betrayed Oswine and the Deiran king was killed. Oswiu had removed his rival and now ruled both kingdoms.

But this was not quite the happy ending he might have wished for, because Oswine was related to Eanflæd, and she was not best pleased that her husband had had her second cousin killed.

The subtitle of my new book mentions wergild, a man price. Every life was measured in terms of worth, with the wergild payable to the kin of anyone unlawfully killed. Thus Eanflæd demanded the payment due, but not in the form of coin. Rather Oswiu, in expiation of his crime, had an abbey built at a place called Gilling, where prayers were to be said for the murdered king and for Oswiu. The first abbot was another kinsman of Eanflæd's.

This is one of two notable examples of wergild being demanded by royal women after their kinsmen had been killed and that payment being made in the form of the establishment of religious houses. The other case will be detailed in a future blog post.

This is not the only reason Oswiu features so prominently in the book. He had a complicated love life, and it's thought that he had children by three different women. One of his sons, Alhfrith, appears to have ruled Deira as a subkingdom for his father, but their relationship was strained.

In 664 the famous Synod of Whitby took place, remembered chiefly for establishing once and for all the method by which the date of Easter is calculated. Father and son were on different sides of the debate, and Alhfrith disappears from the record after this. Perhaps he died of a fever, or in battle. But he was not the first Deiran subking to disappear from the records - along with Oswine, we also might wonder what happened to Oswiu's nephew who also held that precarious title for a short while before again, vanishing from the chronicles - and there is a tantalising hint as to what might have happened to Alhfrith.

In Bewcastle in Cumbria, in the region where Alhfrith's mother called home, there is a huge stone cross, which appears to have been erected in memory of Alhfrith. Did he challenge his father, lose the battle, and end his days in exile? Or was his death more sinister?

More detail and insights into these incidents can be found in the book: 

Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge

'We all love a good murder story. Historian and author Annie Whitehead has collated around 100 cases in Anglo-Saxon England, from regicides to robberies gone wrong, and from personal feuds to state-sanctioned slaughter, examining their veracity and asking what, if anything, they can tell us about the motives of those who recorded them and about Anglo-Saxon governance and society. The records contain many stories of murder, some of which include details of witchcraft and poisoning, or of betrayal of the worst kind, leaving us with the impression that this period was one of lawlessness and rebellion. But how many of these tales are true, and how do they square with a period known to have had lengthy, detailed law codes and harsh punishment for unlawful killing? Was the ‘Viking’ practice of killing by blood eagle – with reference to King Aelle of Northumbria, an alleged victim – a myth or real? Annie Whitehead also makes a few accusations herself – invoking the old adage that there is no smoke without fire…' 

 Available now from Amazon, Amberley Publishing, and all good book stores.

February Monthly Post & A New Book

Last month I mentioned that the Anglo-Saxons had very descriptive names for the months of the year and February is no exception. It was known as Sol-mōnaþ (mud month). Bede said it was "the month of cakes, which they offered in it to their gods." Perhaps the cakes looked like they were made of mud due to their colour and texture, or maybe it was literally the month of mud due to wet English weather, although presumably this month name came over from the Continent with them.  And this image, from the fifteenth-century Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, certainly shows a snowy, cold scene, rather than mud!

This year, 2025, February begins on a Saturday, which in Old English was Saeterdaeg, perhaps not so strange to the modern eye.

The Old English Martyrology says that when the Sol-mōnaþ is over, 'the night is fourteen hours long, and the day ten hours.'

But almost right in the middle of the month something is happening and I'm quite excited about it, for on February 15th, my third full-length nonfiction book will be published.

Murder in anglo-Saxon England 626-1076: Justice, Wergild, Revenge is published by Amberley Books and draws together around a hundred recorded cases of murder during the anglo-Saxon period. I've looked at the sources, contemporary and later, to see if we can't get to the truth behind some of the more sensational murders, and I've also made a few accusations of my own, where I'm convinced that the story is a bit too coincidental...

If you want tales of poison, bloodfeud, the legendary 'Blood Eagle', eyes being put out, infanticide and general treachery, this might be the book for you! But I've tried to put everything into its political context, and I've also examined the law codes and the role of kingship as well as taking a look at execution cemeteries and burial practices.

It would be lovely if I could tell you that one of these murders was committed in the month of February, but alas no, at least not to the best of my knowledge. 

However, it is my intention to publish some blog posts throughout the year highlighting some of the stories in the book, so keep popping by.

Finding Stories in Legends: The Anglo-Saxon World

A royal son, in defiance of his frail and useless father, released the king’s prisoner from jail and married her, before leading the kingdom in an heroic fight against the invaders. A king went to war because his sister had been mistreated. A princess was accused of killing her little brother and her punishment was that her eyeballs fell out. A teenaged king was found in bed on his wedding night with his wife and her mother…

These are all tales worthy of books. Even Films maybe. But they’re tales of Anglo-Saxons, so you might not have heard of them. 

It’s less true now, thanks to The Vikings TV series and The Last Kingdom – TV series and books - but the Anglo-Saxon period has at times suffered from a lack of interest. 

But why? A bit of shameless name-dropping here: over lunch one day, Fay Weldon told me that she thought it had a fair bit to do with the costumes. The Tudors, for example, had exquisite clothing and accurate paintings which can be used to reproduce the garments for telly shows. The Anglo-Saxons left only drawings which lacked perspective and detail and yes, it’s fair to say that in comparison, their clothes were a shade less flamboyant.

There’s a big line, too, drawn across history and making a cultural and documentary barrier: 1066. For a long time, the Anglo-Saxons were separated from us by that line, seen as a people from a far-off, almost mythical world. The ‘Dark Ages’ is now termed the ‘Early Medieval’ period but that tends to mean that the Anglo-Saxons are presumed to have had the same medieval ideas as the Normans, when in fact their laws, particularly relating to women, were a lot more enlightened.

I’m a historian, so I like to sift and sieve, trying to tease the facts from a jumble of chronicles written by people who had a political agenda and told the stories from their own point of view. But I’m an author, too – so I like to get behind the facts and envisage the real people.

Athelstan, from St Bede's Life of 
St Cuthbert

Scenarios described in the opening paragraph have already formed the basis of two of my novels. 

Penda was a pagan warlord who fought against the Northumbrian kings. Bede, a Northumbrian, naturally enough didn’t have much in the way of pleasant things to say about him. But tucked away in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People are a couple of nuggets about Penda: he was tolerant of Christians and he went to war because a neighbouring king repudiated his wife, who happened to be Penda’s sister. Two short sentences allowed me to build up a picture of a man whose motives for war were much less clear-cut and not necessarily driven by bigotry. A man loyal, above all else, to his family. This man intrigued me.

The Venerable Bede

To miss out on Anglo-Saxon history is to miss out on a treat. Such a wealth of stories, such an array of characters…

That three-in-a-bed romp? Well, it may or may not be completely true, but as an opening chapter it served me well. The alleged incident caused widespread fall-out and shaped the politics of tenth-century England. And the novel it inspired also includes the next king’s wife who just happened to be accused of murdering an abbot, colluding with the king in the killing of her first husband, oh, and that of her stepson too. Those women made rather sumptuous ‘bookends’! Behind the fruity gossip though, were a young woman whose reputation was besmirched, and a queen who had to give up two of her children when she married the king, and then lost another when he was still an infant.

King Edgar, from the New Minster
Charter, 966

Another woman whose life story packs a metaphorical punch is Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, daughter of Alfred the Great. She ruled a country in all but name and was instrumental in holding back the Viking onslaught. She probably never wielded a sword yet her story is fascinating none the less. How did she, who was only half-Mercian and a woman, manage to command the loyalty of the Mercian troops? I’ve pondered the paradox of her status many times, in fiction, nonfiction, and even on the ‘stage’.

I still have questions. Why was this remarkable woman so little remarked upon? Her leadership of a kingdom, whether as a politician or a sword-swinging warrior-woman, was unprecedented. Yet the chroniclers either took this completely in their stride, or, with a couple of exceptions, ignored it all together. I couldn’t not write her story.

Æthelflæd, from a 14thC
Genealogical Chronicle

All of my fiction happens to be set in Mercia, the ancient kingdom of the Midlands. So, having written three novels, I realised that I had enough material, along with my original undergrad notes and research books, to undertake the telling of the story of Mercia itself. Here I was able to search for the truth behind such legends as:

Offa – not just a dyke-builder but a major player on the international stage, getting himself involved in a trade war with the emperor, Charlemagne. (Okay, there was a little bit of murder, too…)

Also from Mercia were Lady Godiva - did she really ride naked through the streets of Coventry? – and Eadric Streona, whose name means ‘The Grasper’ and who turned round and changed sides so often during the wars with Cnut that he must have got positively dizzy. In the end, Cnut ordered that Eadric should be paid what was owed him, and one can imagine how he then drew his finger across his throat as he gave the command.

My photo of the Godiva Statue in Coventry

Exciting as these tales are, the Anglo-Saxons were so much more than this. Their world was not one of ‘sword and sorcery.’ They weren’t illiterate heathens (well, Penda was, but this didn’t make him bad); they were real people, whose laws were sophisticated and whose metal-working skills were exquisite. (Think Staffordshire Hoard or the Sutton Hoo treasures.) Their love of tales and drama means that there is a wealth of material from which to draw. Some of those tales are indeed lurid, but it doesn’t take much scratching to reveal the human stories underneath. 

So many of the stories seemed to concern women that I soon had enough to write another nonfiction book, this time concentrating on those women and trying to separate the facts from the fiction of the later chroniclers.

Sometimes it is merely a footnote: the main character of one of my novels had no recorded wife. But a woman is mentioned as having been deprived of property by his successor. Was she his widow? If they weren’t married, did they have a relationship? Writing historical fiction means being guided by the facts, but sometimes it requires reading between the lines, too. Look closely and there you’ll find the stories.

You can find all my books and stories HERE

[A version of this article first appeared on the blog of Mary Anne Yarde  in 2019]

Murder in Saxon England

There were laws against killing people in times of peace, of course there were, and the punishments were severe, although I'll save the details for another blog post. Suffice to say that one did not murder with impunity. But there are some notable, high-profile cases which either went unpunished, or weren't murders at all. 

Firstly, and sadly, there seem to be a lot of documented cases of child killings and female killers. But as I’ll try to show, they should perhaps be taken with a large pinch of salt. 

Children

In the seventh century, a Mercian king, Wulfhere, allegedly had two sons who had been baptised by St Cedd. This so offended their father that he ‘killed them both with his own hands.’ The problem with this story is that the boys, if they even existed, had a sister who was allowed to live, and became a holy woman, living as a nun on her father’s estates. It hardly seems compatible with an anti-Christian child killer.

Then we have the strange case of Abbess Cwoenthryth, who arranged to have her little brother killed and was discovered when a dove dropped a message on the altar of St Peter’s in Rome, alerting the pope to the crime. To avoid being discovered, she chanted a psalm backwards and her eyes fell out. Now, there is slightly more evidence for the existence of this brother, Cynehelm or Kenelm, but he wasn’t a child; he simply pre-deceased their father the king and, tellingly, this abbess had a long-running argument with the Church about her abbey lands, so this might be why she received such a bad press.

There’s another recorded murder of a young man, but there may be some truth in the story. He was supposedly killed for objecting to the marriage of his mother to a contender for the Mercian throne, and he may very well have been caught up in a dynastic dispute. This young man was Wigstan, and it's possible to visit the site where in all likelihood, his bones were laid to rest, in the crypt at the church in Repton which is named after him.

My photo of the crypt at St Wystan's
Church, Repton

Murderesses

A murder which certainly happened was that of Edward the Martyr, who was allegedly killed by, or on the orders of, his stepmother, Ælfthryth. I’m not convinced, because she too was given a rather bad press, but there’s no disputing the fact that Edward died and her son, Æthelred (the 'Unready') then became king.

Depiction of Edward's visit to his stepmother
where he was allegedly killed on her orders

Another woman accused of murder was a Northumbrian princess, Alhflæd, who was married to the son of her father’s rival and, according to the Venerable Bede, arranged her husband’s killing. We are not told why, or whether she was punished, only that around Easter time, she killed her husband Peada, who was the son of Penda of Mercia. 

We do know of a later murderess who, jealous of her husband the king’s advisers, poisoned one of those counsellors and accidentally killed her husband along with him. She was punished, banished abroad (ending up briefly at the court of the Emperor Charlemagne) and was supposedly the reason why kings’ wives in Wessex from that point on were never called ‘queen’. But this story of Eadburh, daughter of Offa of Mercia, is one which I've explored in depth in my books and there's a little bit more to this story than meets the eye...

Assassination attempts 

In seventh-century Northumbria, King Edwin was establishing his supremacy when an assassin was sent from the south to his court, hiding a poisoned blade under his cloak. Lunging forward, he made a rush for the king and was only prevented from killing Edwin by the bravery of Edwin’s thegn, who put himself between the assailant and the king, although Edwin nevertheless sustained an injury. The thegn was somewhat less fortunate.

And this leads me nicely onto the second batch of recorded deaths, which I think warranted more investigation...

Convenient Deaths

In 946 King Edmund was murdered, supposedly either in a brawl, or by a robber who’d been previously banished but returned, evidently with a score to settle. Investigation by historians though suggests that this was more than likely a political murder arranged by members of a rival court faction. *

His sons, Eadwig and Edgar, eventually became kings, one after the other. Trouble was, there were still rival factions at court, so much so that for a while the country was split, with one half supporting one son, the other supporting the other. And then, around two years after the partition, the elder son, still only a teenager, died. There’s absolutely nothing anywhere in the records to say how, or where, but it was very timely for his enemies.

This wasn’t the first time the country had been split. Those boys’ father had become king after the death of King Athelstan. When his father died, he left Mercia to Athelstan, and Wessex to Athelstan’s half-brother who, conveniently, was dead within the month. Again, no record of foul play.

We’re starting to get a pattern though. In the latter part of the period, England endured a renewal of the Viking incursions only this time they weren’t raiding, they were conquering. Cnut had come to stay, and after a series of bloody but ultimately indecisive battles, it was agreed that the country would be jointly ruled by him, and his English adversary, Edmund Ironside. Guess what? Edmund was dead within the month. This time, slight record of foul play, with some later sources suggesting he was murdered whilst on the privy.

Depiction of Edmund Ironside

Of course, it is possible that Ironside died from wounds sustained in the last battle, but this wasn’t recorded either, even though I’m fairly certain that cause and effect would have been understood: you get wounded in battle, you die a short time later, the wounds are probably what killed you.

What I love about studying this period, and writing about it, is that we have two avenues of exploration: The later, Anglo-Norman chroniclers, who tend to over dramatize and exaggerate, giving us sordid stories about child killers and evil women, and the more contemporary sources who give us minimal information and seem sometimes to ignore the obvious.

Diving down these paths on the search for the truth is good fun, but often inconclusive. Still, it's all perfect fodder for the novelist and always interesting to wonder about motive, for both the killings and the reporting of them.

[A version of this article appeared on Pam Lecky's Blog in October 2020]

You can read more about all these characters in my books Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom and Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England.

The family of King Penda feature in my novel Cometh the Hour and its sequel which is currently in draft form, and the young kings Eadwig and Edgar, and the alleged murderous stepmother Ælfthryth, all appear in my novel Alvar the Kingmaker 

*For more on the murder of King Edmund, check out my story in Betrayal which is FREE to download!

Two Abbesses, Two Synods: Hild and Ælfflæd of Whitby

The oft-quoted ‘Get thee to a nunnery’ seems to suggest that in such an establishment there will be piety, chastity, and quiet contemplation. All these are true, but perhaps our idea of a nunnery is of a slightly austere building or buildings, where holy sisters spend their days in prayer and hard work. This is also true, but in the seventh century there was much more going on at the nunneries than one might imagine.

In fact, at first glance, it seems to have been very different indeed. An Irish abbot of Iona visited Coldingham Abbey where, according to Bede, he found the members of the community, men and women alike, sunk in slothful slumbers or else ‘they remained awake for the purposes of sin. The cells which were built for praying and for reading were haunts of feasting, drinking, gossip, and other delights; even the virgins who were dedicated to God put aside all respect for their profession and, whenever they had leisure, spent their time weaving elaborate garments with which to adorn themselves as if they were brides.’ Gosh!

Coldingham Priory with the possible original
site of the A/S abbey in the foreground
my photo

Perhaps it should first be explained that there was nothing unusual about there being men and women at Coldingham as it was one of a number of ‘Double Houses’. Contact between the two sexes in the double monasteries probably varied widely. We know, for example, that the two houses at Wimborne in Dorset were separated by high walls, while at Coldingham, it seems, conditions were relaxed to the point where it created scandal. Evidence suggests that at Whitby, there was a ‘bigger minster’ with other buildings and outlying areas which might equate to the later granges. It is probable that in fact the earlier princess-abbesses all ruled double houses, rather than all-female communities.

And princess-abbesses is almost exclusively what they were. Abbesses were royal, they were powerful, and they were influential. Two in particular attended major synods and influenced policy. They were related, too, and were members of the ruling house of Northumbria.

One of the most famous, and indeed one of the earliest, of those abbesses was Hild. Whitby was her monastery, and it was into her care that the infant Ælfflæd, daughter of King Oswiu and his wife, Eanflæd, was given when she was promised to the Church after a major battle in which her father was victorious. 

St Hild of Whitby - public domain

Hild’s mother was said to have had a dream in which she was searching for her missing husband, but could find no trace of him. In the middle of her search, however, she found a necklace under her garment and, as she looked at it, the necklace spread a blaze of light and the dream, Bede concluded, ‘was truly fulfilled in her daughter Hild; for her life was an example of the works of light, blessed not only to herself but to many who desired to live uprightly.’ 

Hild’s path to the religious life was originally to have taken her abroad, where her sister had gone to be a nun, but she was persuaded by Bishop Aidan to found the monastery at Hartlepool. In this she broke the tradition of English noblewomen going abroad to fulfil their religious vocations. It was at Hartlepool that she took custody of the infant Ælfflæd, but two years later Hild founded the monastery of Streaneshealh on land which King Oswiu had gifted to the Church. It has usually been identified as Whitby. 

Bede - public domain image

We learn much about Hild from Bede, including the fact that she was so beloved by all that they called her ‘mother’, but not whether she was ever married before taking the veil. He says that she was thirty-three when she became a nun. He does not call her a virgin, but then neither does he tell us of any husband. What we are told, however, is that she was highly educated and influential. No fewer than five future bishops are said to have been educated by her and the likelihood is that she assembled a vast library at Whitby. Styli and book-clasps found during excavations show that a great deal of writing was undertaken there. Excavation at Whitby also revealed that far from being a small site, consisting of a few cells, it was in fact a major settlement and it was the venue for the synod in 664 which decided once and for all which of the Christian traditions would take precedence and settled the calculation method for the date of Easter. 

Whitby Abbey - photo by and courtesy of 
David Satterthwaite

The synod was convened and presided over by King Oswiu. Also in the Roman camp were Wilfrid, the bishop who had been sponsored by Queen Eanflæd and educated by Hild, and Queen Eanflæd, who sent her chaplain, Romanus, as her representative. Oddly, Hild was in the other camp, along with Colman, the bishop of Lindisfarne, despite her having been brought up in the Roman tradition, and she was particularly hostile towards Bishop Wilfrid, apparently attacking him with ‘venomous hatred’. There might, of course, have been some personal animosity which went unrecorded. Wilfrid certainly had the ability to rub people up the wrong way.

Hild survived for many years after the synod but was struck down ten years later by the illness which eventually killed her. Bede tells us that she died at the age of sixty-six – having been in pain for several years – so she spent exactly half her life as a nun. 

She was also known for her encouragement of Cædmon the poet. Despite having received no formal training he was able to compose religious songs and poems. One night while he was tending the cattle he dreamed that someone was standing by him, telling him to sing, which he did, in praise of God. The next day he told his master the reeve of the gift he had received, and together they went to Abbess Hild who received him into the holy community. In the earliest days of the conversion process it is perhaps astonishing that it was Hild, a woman, who was responsible for the education of bishops. Her sympathetic encouragement of Cædmon and her reputation as ‘mother’ to all who knew her reveal a learned yet gentle woman. Her attendance at the synod of Whitby, however, shows a woman also of determination.

Ælfflæd, like her predecessor and relative Hild – they were second cousins – was also a powerful abbess and politically influential too.

Ælfflæd had been entrusted to Hild’s care when she was still a tiny infant, moving with her from Hartlepool to Whitby. By the time she succeeded as abbess, her brother Ecgfrith was king of Northumbria. 

We know that she was an educated woman. A letter survives in which she wrote to the abbess of the monastery at Pfalzel near Trier in Germany commending a nun who was on pilgrimage with the words, ‘We commend to your highest holiness and customary piety, strenuously with all diligence, N, the devoted handmaid of God and religious abbess’, evidence that she was competent in Latin and that she had contacts on the Continent. 

Ælfflæd also had close associations with St Cuthbert. Bede relates how she was seriously ill and at the point of death. ‘How I wish I had something belonging to my dear Cuthbert’ she said, believing that she would then be healed. Not long afterwards, someone arrived with a linen cincture (girdle) sent by Cuthbert. She wore it and, two days later, she was completely well. 

Title page of Bede's Life of St Cuthbert -
public domain image

In 684 she summoned Cuthbert to discuss the possibility of his becoming a bishop. At the meeting she asked him how long her childless brother, Ecgfrith, would remain on the throne, and who should rule after him. Cuthbert replied that she knew the identity of his successor who lived over the sea on an island. She realised that he was referring to Aldfrith, her illegitimate half-brother. The following year, in 685, Ecgfrith died and was indeed succeeded by Aldfrith. 

At first glance it seems hard to argue that Ælfflæd was in any way flexing her political muscles here, because it was she who asked Cuthbert about the succession, and it was Cuthbert who hinted at Aldfrith’s name. However, it has been argued that in asking the question, the abbess was testing Cuthbert’s loyalty to her family. She certainly had political ‘clout’: after the battle at Nechtanesmere in which Ecgfrith was defeated by the Picts, the former bishop of the Picts, Trumwine, was expelled and lived under Ælfflæd’s command at Whitby. Cuthbert remained a friend and, sensing that his end was near, he made a tour of his diocese and visited ‘that most noble and holy virgin Ælfflæd’. 

Like Hild before her, she had been hostile to Bishop Wilfrid and her influence was such that when Aldfrith also fell out with Wilfrid, the archbishop of Canterbury, a champion of Wilfrid’s, urged peace to be made between the two men, and wrote not only to the king, but to the abbess, too. 

Her influence was felt at the end of Aldfrith’s reign, too. Aldfrith’s son and eventual successor, Osred, was only about eight years old when his father died. Aldfrith was initially succeeded by a man named Eadwulf who, according to one chronicler, ‘plotted to obtain the kingship.’ 

In 705 at the synod of the River Nidd, Ælfflæd’s testimony was of paramount importance. At the synod Ælfflæd, having clearly had a change of heart about Wilfrid, testified in his favour, saying that on his deathbed, Aldfrith had urged that his successor should come to terms with Wilfrid. An agreement was reached, with the archbishop giving his advice while ‘Abbess Ælfflæd gave them hers.’ 

Whilst the main focus of the synod was the settling of the affairs of Wilfrid, the author of the Life of Wilfrid said that Osred was able to rule because of the support of, inter alia, Abbess Ælfflæd. It is clear that she was in a position of huge influence and her presence at Aldfrith’s deathbed indicates a strong relationship between the two members of the royal family. She is mentioned in both the Lives of Cuthbert and Wilfrid, but obviously had secular as well as religious power.

St Wilfrid - Wiki commons image
Credit link here

Generally, the abbesses began to lose something of their power and status with the decline of the double houses. The last specific reference to such an establishment was in a letter of 796 and monasteries gradually began to be ruled by priests. Possibly it was the priests attached to the monasteries who had greater direct roles in pastoral care. Later abbesses came into direct conflict with the Church which sought to lessen their wealth and influence. But it should not be forgotten that in the early days, it was women who were entrusted with managing these huge estates and who were responsible for the spiritual welfare of their human flocks.

You can read more about Hild, Ælfflæd, and indeed the supposedly scandalous abbess of Coldingham, Æbbe, in Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England, available from Pen & Sword Books and Amazon and in book shops.

[A version of this article appeared on History Lair in September 2020]

The women also play small but significant roles in my latest novel, The Sins of the Father

The 'Evil' Women of Mercia

Adultery, poison, witchcraft, murder, incitement to murder, and being murdered. Exciting times for the noblewomen of Mercia...

King Edward receives a drink before his stepmother kills him

In my second novel, Alvar the Kingmaker, I wrote about two such women: one stood accused of romping three-in-a-bed with her husband (the king) and her own mother, and being too closely related to her husband. The other stood accused variously of being complicit in the murder of her first husband, of torturing and then murdering an abbot, of being in an adulterous relationship with her second husband, (king, and brother of the previously mentioned king) and finally of colluding in the murder of her stepson, who succeeded her husband as king.

King Edgar meets, and is enchanted by, Ælfthryth

One of these women had no connection with Mercia, but her husband did. One might almost say that he wouldn't have become king without Mercian help. The other lady may well have been related not only to Alfred the Great, but also to a great Mercian family too. I've examined the primary sources and come to my own conclusions about these stories. But they are by no means the only women to be afforded such notoriety.

These women featured in my book Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom published in hardback by Amberley in 2018 and due out in paperback later this year, and recently I've been reacquainting myself with them and a few other 'evil' women, for my new book, Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England, due out on May 30 from Pen and Sword Books. On the face of it, the following women are deserving of the epithet 'evil'. 

Allow me to introduce them:

Alhflæd was the daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, nemesis of Penda of Mercia. The kings met on the battlefield in 655, and Oswiu was the victor. And yet, for all that these two kingdoms were bitter enemies during the seventh century, there was a lot of inter-marriage between the two royal houses. Penda's son married Oswiu's daughter, and Oswiu's daughter married Penda's son. This son was named Peada, and Bede remembered him for converting the peoples over whom he was made king, the Middle Angles, to Christianity. According to Bede:

He asked for the hand of [Oswiu's] daughter Alhflæd ... and gladly declared himself ready to become a Christian. He was earnestly persuaded to accept the faith by Alhfrith, son of King Oswiu, who was his brother-in-law and friend. (HE iii 21)

It might be nice to think of these young royals all getting on famously well, but only around three years later, Peada was dead, 'slain', according to one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and specifically by his wife according to Bede, who said that he was murdered:

by the treachery, or so it is said, of his wife during the very time of the Easter festival (HE iii 24)

Yet another marriage took place between the two families, this time between the last of Penda's sons to become a king in Mercia, Æthelred, and the daughter of Oswiu and his second wife. This daughter was called Osthryth. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, it was in 697 that 'the Southumbrians slew Osthryth, Ethelred's queen and Ecgfrith's [King of Northumbria] sister.'

No explanation is given for the murder. It is known that Osthryth oversaw the removal of the bones of St Oswald, her uncle, to the abbey at Bardney, in an area where he might not have been that fondly remembered. Oswald had been an enemy of Mercia, so perhaps they didn't like her highlighting his memory, but this seems a poor excuse for killing her. Was it retribution for her half-sister's murderous act? Again, it seems a bit of an over-reaction, especially given the amount of time which had elapsed.

Image of St Oswald in Durham Cathedral

It must, however, have been a tense situation, given that her husband had waged war on her brother, and in the ensuing battle, another brother of hers had been killed. Bede noted that this young man was about eighteen years of age, and beloved in both kingdoms.  

It's clear that even while these marriages were occurring, the two royal houses were still bitterly opposed to one another and that there were conflicting loyalties. It is perhaps in this context that the murder should be viewed, but whatever she had done, or been accused of, we shall never know.

Eadburh's crimes, on the other hand, were written down in great detail, and publicised. She was the daughter of King Offa, and she was married to Beorhtric, king of Kent, whom she accidentally poisoned. Asser, writing the Life of King Alfred, was scathing indeed of this woman, who had behaved 'like a tyrant after the manner of her father'. She loathed all of her husband's friends, and decided to kill them with poison:

This is known to have happened with a certain young man very dear to the king, whom she poisoned when she could not denounce him before the king. King Beorhtric himself is said to have taken some of that poison unawares: she had intended to give it not to him, but to the young man; but the king took it first and both of them died as a result. (Asser Ch 14)

The murderess then went to the court of Charlemagne, who established her as abbess of a large convent. But this irredeemable woman apparently lived even more recklessly than before, and was caught 'in debauchery' with a man of her own race, and having been ejected from the nunnery, died in poverty. Asser claimed to have heard this story from witnesses who saw her begging in the streets.

Eadburh's crimes though seem rather run-of-the-mill compared with the next 'evil' woman on this list.

After Offa's death, the Mercian throne passed briefly to his son, Ecgfrith, who reigned for only a few months. He was succeeded by Coenwulf, who reigned until 821.

After this, things get a little hazy. What we do know is that Coenwulf had a son, Cynehelm, and a daughter, Cwoenthryth. William of Malmesbury recorded that:

At Winchcombe rests Cenwulf [Coenwulf] with his son Kenelm [Cynehelm]. At the age of 7 the boy had been left by his father to be brought up by his sister. In her greed, she entertained the illusory hope of the throne, and assigned the job of eliminating her little brother to the retainer who looked after him. He took the innocent child off on the pretence of a hunt, killed him, and hid him in some bushes. (Gesta Pontificum iv 156 3) 

So far, so traditional. But this concealment was for naught, because a piece of parchment, carried by a dove, floated down onto the altar of St Peter in Rome, revealing the whereabouts of the body. Thus the body was carried to Winchcombe and when the murderess saw what was happening, she began chanting a psalm backwards as some kind of evil spell, but by God's power her eyes were torn from their sockets, with blood splattering to an extent that William of Malmesbury, writing in the twelfth century, proclaimed, 'the bloodstains are there to this day.'

Detail from a page of the Winchcombe Psalter

There is very little recorded evidence about Cynehelm, and all we really know is that he existed, and predeceased his father. His sister had been in dispute with the Church over monastic property. Unlikely, then, that she was to be remembered fondly in William's Gesta Pontificum (Deeds of the Bishops of England). 

For those beginning to think that there was either huge prejudice among the chroniclers against Mercian women, or indeed that these women were all deserving of opprobrium, let's not forget one woman who surely must have broken that mould, if it existed. Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians features in both my nonfiction books and in my novel, To Be A Queen. No accusations of murder of evil deeds there. Not by her, anyway...


[all above images are in the Public Domain]

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Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England is available for pre-order now

Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom is available as an e-book and the paperback is available for pre-order now.

To read more about Oswiu, Oswald, Penda et al, try my latest novel Cometh the Hour 

To read the fictionalised account of the two infamous queens who scandalised tenth-century England, read Alvar the Kingmaker

And to read the fictionalised story of Æthelflæd, try To Be A Queen