Winchcombe & Its Anglo-Saxon History

Winchcombe is a pretty Cotswold town, not far from Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. Walking or driving along its main street, one can immediately see that it has history.

Quaint cottages nestle side by side, the yellow stone seeming to soak up and yet reflect the sunlight. But the history of Winchcombe goes much further than these old buildings would suggest. In fact, at one time, there was a separate 'county' of Winchcombeshire.

The town lies in what was once the ancient tribeland of the Hwicce, an area which was absorbed into the greater area of Mercia, but which originally had its own kings. These kings gradually had their status reduced, eventually issuing and witnessing royal charters as sub-kings of Mercia.

Osric, Sub-king of the Hwicce, founder of Gloucester Cathedral

Winchcombe first made the 'headlines' in the eighth century, when Cenwulf became king of Mercia. Cenwulf succeeded after the death of Ecgfrith, son of Offa. Ecgfrith's reign was short - a matter of some five months - and Cenwulf had no direct links with the previous kings. It is possible that he was descended from a sister of Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, but equally he may have been connected to the Hwicce, for he made claims to 'hereditary lands' in the heart of the Hwiccian territory.

Cenwulf was no less a warlord than previous kings, and in 801 he was attacked by the king of Northumbria. He also, notoriously, captured the king of Kent, who went by the name of Eadberht Præn. Cenwulf put his own brother on the Kentish throne, thus bringing the kingdom of Kent under direct Mercian control.

But Cenwulf's hold on Kent was weakened by his long-running dispute with the archbishop of Canterbury, and it is perhaps this for which he is most remembered. His argument centred around Kentish minsters and the question of whether there should be lay control of ecclesiastical lands. Cenwulf went so far as to threaten to exile the archbishop unless the matter was resolved, and the dispute involved not only Cenwulf, but his daughter, too.

Carving of Cenwulf at Winchombe

Cwoenthryth was not only the daughter of the king, but she was an abbess too. She was the first abbess of Winchcombe Abbey, and her father had also appointed her abbess of the royal minsters of Reculver and Minster-in-Thanet in Kent. The arguments about whether Church or State should control these lucrative sites rumbled on. Some believed that the archbishop even forged documents to support his case.

When Cenwulf died (he was buried at Winchcombe), Cwoenthryth was named as his heir. This doesn't mean that she succeeded to the throne, but that she inherited his property, which included the minsters. The Councils of Clofesho* debated her right not to be an abbess, but to own the abbeys themselves. The councils found in favour of the archbishop, but Cwoenthryth was allowed to remain as abbess and retained possession of Winchcombe, although she had to surrender the lands in Kent.

There is a legend surrounding her, which may or may not have something to do with her long-running dispute with the Church. According to this legend, she arranged to have her young brother Kenelm murdered because she wanted to be queen. A dove dropped a message on the altar of St Peters in Rome, alerting people to the whereabouts of the body, which was then re-interred with all ceremony at Winchcombe. The story goes that when she saw the funeral procession, she recited a psalm backwards in order to cast a spell, and her eyeballs promptly fell out, splattering the psalter in front of her with blood.

Winchcombe Abbey fell into decline in the latter part of the ninth century, and in the tenth it was reformed as part of the Benedictine Monastic Reformation in Edgar's reign, when the clerks were replaced with Benedictine monks.

In the eleventh century, Winchcombe was once again in the 'news'. One of the most reviled earls of Mercia went by the name of Eadric Streona - whose epithet has been translated as 'the Grasper' - and it is possible that part of his notoriety stemmed from his treatment of Winchcombeshire. By this time, Mercia was no longer a kingdom, but its earls were still powerful men, ruling vast areas of land.

Eadric made his career in politics and warfare, and famously vacillated at crucial moments. He was accused more than once of murder, and he was a notorious turncoat. Supposedly on the side of Æthelred the Unready - he was married to the king's daughter - he went over to Cnut's side, changed his mind to fight with Edmund Ironside - son of Æthelred - before once again changing sides and leading his men from the battlefield at a pivotal moment in 1016, ensuring that Cnut had the victory over Edmund. After this it was agreed that the country be divided between the two, but Edmund died shortly afterwards, and Eadric's family were, according to some sources, involved in that death, too.

A page from Hemming's Cartulary

But it seems that Eadric's nickname, which might more accurately be translated as 'Acquisitive' came from his administrative dealings. Hemming, a monk of Worcester, compiled what has come to be known as Hemming's Cartulary, and in it, Hemming reports that ‘He [Eadric] joined townships to townships and shires to shires at will; it was he who amalgamated the hitherto independent county of Winchcombe with the county of Gloucester.’

There has been huge and long-standing debate about when and how the shires of Mercia came into being. The old territories such as that of the Hwicce disappeared, with new boundary lines cut through traditional areas. Whether or not Eadric can be blamed for this, it is clear that Hemming thought him to be a grasping man, acquiring lands at the Church's expense to line his own pockets, and local men would have no cause to remember Eadric fondly.

So Mercia's status had been reduced from that of kingdom to that of ealdordom and then earldom, and the independent county of Winchcombeshire was no more. There is no trace left of the original abbey building, although it is said that stones from the abbey have been incorporated into other buildings in the town, and some of the stones are housed in a collection at nearby Sudeley Castle.

If you are immune to nettle stings and don't mind climbing steep hills, you can visit St Kenelm's Well, a site where the funeral procession rested before the little murdered king, Kenelm, was buried at Winchcombe. But your intrepid researcher has done all that for you:-

So, instead, take a walk through the pretty town of Winchcombe and wonder where the stones of the once famous abbey now hide within the walls of the newer buildings.

[all photographs by and copyright of the author. Illustration of Hemming's Cartulary is a Public Domain image via Wikipedia] * Clofesho has never been conclusively identified.

Cwoenthryth's story features in both of my nonfiction books. Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England is available from Pen & Sword Books and Amazon

Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom is available from Amazon and Amberley Publishing

To read about the mother of Æthelred the Unready, a woman who was also accused of murder, check out Alvar the Kingmaker

And for details of my other books,

find me HERE

The Decline of Mercia - Kings No More

It's the time of year for anniversaries - William the Conqueror crowned on Christmas Day, 1066, Edward the Confessor's death on Jan 5 1066. For our collaborative project, 1066 Turned Upside Down, I re-imagined the events leading up to the battle of Fulford, in 1066, I pondered the fate of the northern earls who fought there.  My interest in this episode? Apart from an opportunity to join some wonderful authors on an intriguing project, it was that these earls were led by two brothers from Mercia. My next post will look at their careers in more detail, so first, a little potted history:

A once-powerful realm, Mercia produced such kings as Penda, who was overlord of the English kingdoms until defeated in 655, Offa, who built his famous dyke, as well as providing such memorable characters as Lady Godiva, and Eadric Streona, recently voted the most evil man in English history.

Between around 600 and 900 AD, Mercia enjoyed what historians have called a ‘Golden Age’. This began with the emergence of Penda, a pagan vilified by history, but who, Bede conceded, was tolerant of Christian preachers in Mercia. Penda, in alliance with the Welsh, slew Kings Edwin and Oswald of Northumbria, and held the ascendancy over the main English kingdoms until he was killed by Oswii at the Battle of Winwaed in 655. The Golden Age was perhaps typified by the reign of Æthelbald (716-57) who in a charter of 736 was styled 'King of Mercia and of the Southern English.' His coinage was circulated in Mercia and Kent and was even found in Wessex. Even Bede, who rarely mentioned southern kings as overlords (Bretwaldas) acknowledged his power.

Power, of course, brings enemies, and Æthelbald was killed by his own war band. Civil war followed his murder, but in the ensuing power struggle, Offa (757-96) emerged victorious. Not only did he build his ‘dyke’, but he negotiated trade deals with the Continent,  and corresponded with the emperor Charlemagne. (There was also a teeny tiny bit of murder...)

A dynastic dispute that had begun with the death, childless, of Offa’s son Ecgfrith in 796, ended with the routing of King Burgred by the Vikings in 874/5 and the short-lived reign of his rival Ceolwulf II. History has not remembered Ceolwulf with fondness; he was described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a ‘foolish king’s thegn’. But Burgred was Alfred the Great’s brother-in-law. It is possible that Ceolwulf was the leader of a Mercian movement for independence against a king regarded as a puppet of Wessex. (Mercian independence, and separatist sentiment, was certainly to have significant impact on events in the next century.) Ceolwulf died, possibly at the hands of the Welsh, (he disappears from the records after the Battle of Conwy in 878) and it was left to Burgred’s kinswoman to fight off the Viking invaders.

Yes - a woman was now in charge. In the late 9th century, Wessex was not the ‘last kingdom’, fighting off the Viking hordes. Mercia was fighting back too, under the leadership of one Æthelred, and his redoubtable wife, Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, daughter of Alfred the Great.

But Æthelred wasn’t a member of a royal house; Mercia had run out of kings.

Fast forward forty years, and Mercia had been reduced to an - albeit powerful- ealdordom (earldom.)

Powerful because, however much Æthelflæd and her family fought against them, inevitably some of those invading Danes stayed, settling in the north and east. In the 10th century, King Edgar came to the throne of all England with the help of the Mercians, and those newly-settled Danes, and he was careful to preserve the rights and traditions of this, with the ‘Danelaw’, incorporating the rights and boundaries of once independent Mercia.

Although Edgar’s reign was notable for being free of invasion (his epithet was ‘The Peaceable’,) it was a time of great change. As well as this identification and recognition of the Danelaw, there began a shift in the power and influence of the nobility. As ealdormen (earls) died, their lands were given to neighbouring nobles until the earldoms were as big as the old kingdoms - Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia, while the king still essentially oversaw Wessex.

This situation changed again in the 11th century, for when Cnut (Canute) became king, he did not reserve Wessex for his direct rule, but granted it to the ‘upstart’ Godwin.

During the last years of Edward the Confessor’s reign, of the three leading earls, only Leofric came from an old ruling family; but his place in history tends to be overshadowed by the reputation of his wife, Lady Godiva, and the tales told about her. (Did she ride naked? I think not, but that’s a subject for a whole new article!)

Leofric's fortunes, and that of his son, Ælfgar, fluctuated in direct contrast to those of the Godwin family; they gained territory when the Godwins were out of favour/in exile, and lost that land when the Godwins were restored. Little wonder that they resorted to the ‘old’ alliance, looking westward as Penda had once done, and forging a connection by marriage with the Welsh.

Ælfgar married his daughter to the Welsh king, Gruffudd, but Harold Godwinson was responsible not only for the banishment - twice - of Ælfgar, but also for the death of Gruffudd, their brother-in-law. No wonder Ælfgar’s sons, Edwin and Morcar, were slow to acknowledge Harold’s supremacy upon the death of Edward the Confessor.

Early in 1066, Harold felt the need to ride north to persuade the northern earls to support his kingship, even taking Edwin and Morcar’s widowed sister for his bride. He was already at odds with his brother Tostig, who would betray him by standing against him at Stamford Bridge, but what about the Mercians, who blamed the Godwin family for their misfortune?

This, then, was where I began my retelling of this part of the year 1066…

I won’t give away any spoilers regarding my story, but for the purposes of my Mercian ‘round-up’, well, an entry in Wikipedia on the English nobility has this to say about Edwin, Earl of Mercia:
“Succeeded by -
None.
Role abolished.”

The Mercians rebelled against the Conqueror, but the uprising was quashed, brutally, in what came to be known as the Harrying (or Harrowing) of the North. And that was the end of Mercia.

Its name lives on, though, in the West Mercia Police, and the West Mercia Primary Healthcare Trust, and although it is now slowly dying out, the dialect of the ‘Black Country’, which is based on the old Mercian language and is widely regarded to be as close to Old English as it is now possible to get. I sense that Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, would be gently amused by that. She might even think it was bostin’ . *

[all images are in the public domain; photograph of Godiva statue copyright of the author]

*Dialect word for fine, good.

http://mybook.to/comeththehour
http://mybook.to/MerciaRiseandFall
http://mybook.to/AlvartheKingmaker
http://mybook.to/To-Be-A-Queen

How Cnut Established Himself as Full King in England

On November 12 1035, Cnut died. How had he, a foreigner, established himself as king of England, with full authority?

For a contemporary account of the reign of Æthelred II, it is natural to look to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In it, we find the closing years of the reign fraught with difficulties; those of fending off Danish raiders. It would be easy to agree with the Chronicler who, writing with hindsight, concludes that the slide towards Danish rule in England was inevitable. The payment of the Danegeld might at first sight seem like sheer folly, yet the policy appears in the short term to have worked.

Æthelred’s problem was that paying off one Viking force would not necessarily keep another one away from his shores. The Chronicler blames the military failure of the English on the cowardice of the military leaders. But while the squabble between Brihtric and Wulfnoth caused the loss of a hundred ships in 1009, we also know that Brihtnoth’s actions at the Battle of Maldon in 991 were those of courage and loyalty, that the army of 1009 left in 1010 without tribute, and that Æthelred was assured of the loyalty of Ulfcytel in East Anglia.

Æthelred II

If things were not as bad before 1009 as the Chronicler would have us believe, there is little doubt that the armies of Swein Forkbeard (Cnut's father) widened any existing cracks in the morale of the English. Within a year, Swein had established himself as full king. But with his death in 1014, the Witan (king's council) sent to Normandy for Æthelred, and accepted him back as their king “if he would govern them more justly than before.” In the same year, Æthelred’s ravaging of Lindsey drove Cnut’s forces away. With further hindsight than the Chronicler had to offer, and perhaps with less bias, it is probably fair to say that it was far from inevitable that Cnut would succeed Æthelred as king of the English. We must therefore look elsewhere to find the reasons for his ultimate success.

It is hard to find a source which places emphasis on the military prowess of Cnut; most in fact, praise his piety and generosity to the Church. He was driven back to Denmark in 1014, and his reputation as a warrior must have suffered as a result. So his success in England must be attributed to something other than military superiority. While it might be rash to say  that luck was on Cnut’s side, there is no doubt that circumstances helped him a great deal.

Cnut

Before he left Denmark, Cnut was allowed by his brother King Harald to raise an army. He was fortunate to have the support of Eric of Hlathir, who had played a great part in the overthrow of Olaf Tryggvason, and who was to prove invaluable to Cnut in England. Before Cnut set sail, he was joined by Thorkell the Tall*. It is possible that Thorkell was seeking revenge for the death of his brother at the hands of the English, although it is possible, but not universally accepted among historians, that this revenge was sought earlier, and was in fact the reason for Thorkell’s invasion of England in 1009. Whatever his reason, Thorkell’s presence was a bonus for Cnut; he now had with him an accomplished warrior who knew England and the English.

The champion of English resistance was Æthelred’s son, Edmund Ironside. He had procured the support of the Danelaw by marrying the widow of Sigeferth, murdered by Eadric Streona (ealdorman of Mercia) probably at the behest of Æthelred. Cnut could not therefore be certain that the Danes in England would submit to him, and he landed in the south and began ravaging Wessex. Edmund and Eadric were raising forces, but they separated before they met the enemy. Eadric joined Cnut, and within four months Cnut was in firm control of Wessex, and had the resources of the Mercian ealdormanry at his command.

Edmund Ironside

Cnut was aided elsewhere in England by Edmund’s troubles. His army in the Danelaw dispersed after demanding that the London militia should join them. Having lost his opportunity here, Edmund joined forces with Uhtred of Bamburgh. Cnut was quick to seize the chance he had been given, and invaded the Danelaw, whence he proceeded towards Northumbria. Uhtred hurried back from the midlands and submitted to Cnut. Soon afterwards he was murdered, and Northumbria was left in the capable hands of Eric of Hlathir. Cnut was free now to turn his attention to the south east.

Edmund had joined his father in London, and when Æthelred died in 1016 the men of London chose Edmund as his successor. Within a few days of Æthelred’s death, however, a more representative assembly at Southampton swore fealty to Cnut in return for a promise of good government. Cnut was again helped by Eadric Streona’s amazing capacity to vacillate. He went over to Edmund’s side, and then took flight during the definitive Battle of Ashingdon. Cnut, as victor, came to terms with Edmund, and the result was a division of the kingdom. Edmund was given Wessex, and the rest of the country beyond the Thames Cnut took for himself. This was obviously a dangerous situation, in which conflict could easily flare up again. As Stenton pointed out, it imposed a divided allegiance on all those noblemen who held land in both Mercia and Wessex. [1] But circumstances once again favoured Cnut when, less than two months after the Battle of Ashingdon, Edmund Ironside died,** and the West Saxons accepted Cnut as their king.

King of all England now, Cnut was by no means secure in his position. Good fortune and opportunity had helped him thus far; now he had to rely on his judgement and ability. He eliminated any chance that Richard of Normandy might support the claims of Æthelred’s children by Emma, by marrying the lady himself. For military rather than administrative reasons he divided the kingdom into four: Wessex he controlled himself, Eadric Streona was appointed to Mercia, East Anglia went to Thorkell, and Eric of Hlathir remained in Northumbria. In the same year, 1017, the atheling Eadwig was exiled and subsequently murdered. The Anglo-Saxon aristocracy also lost at least four of its prominent members, among them Eadric Streona. ('Streona' means 'The Grasper' or the 'Acquisitive' and the name first appeared in Hemming's Cartulary, an 11th-century manuscript, pictured below.)

Cnut set out to win the respect of the English church, and in this he was successful, being fully prepared to accept the traditional responsibility of being an agent of God with the duty to protect his people. He claimed to be occupying a throne to which he had been chosen at Gainsborough in 1014, and at Southampton in 1016. Though in reality much was changed during his reign, Cnut sought to establish himself by emphasising the importance of continuity. There was not such a large scale change in land ownership as was to occur in 1066, nor was there a great change in the personnel within the leadership of the Church. Archbishop Wulfstan drew up Cnut’s lawcodes drawing on those he’d written for Aethelred. The lawcodes themselves stressed continuity; very little in them was new.

Cnut (Top Centre)

Before the end of 1017, with Eadric Streona dead, and the alliance with Normandy secured, Cnut dismissed his fleet, retaining only forty ships. Its dismissal showed that henceforth he intended to rule as the chosen king of the English. At a council at Oxford it was agreed that the laws of Edgar (Aethelred's father, whose reign of 959 to 975 was already beginning to be looked upon as a golden age) should be observed.

In 1018 the military rule was relaxed. Two earldoms were re-established in Wessex, and in Mercia the earldoms of Herefordshire and Worcestershire were re-established. Stenton says that it was then that Cnut's reign began in earnest. [2] But throughout his reign the presence of the huscarls (housecarls) and the distribution of the heregeld (military tax) to them made it difficult for the English to forget that they were being ruled by a conquering alien king. There is no doubt though that by this point Cnut had established himself, for afterwards he felt sufficiently secure to leave the country in four separate expeditions to the north.

Cnut had invaded a vulnerable country in 1015, a country which was war-torn and weary. There were no clear dividing lines of loyalty; Edmund's army included Danes, Cnut’s included Englishmen. There can be no doubt that Cnut benefited considerably from the untrustworthiness of Eadric Streona, and from the dispersal of Edmund’s army in the Danelaw. For Cnut, the death of Edmund Ironside was nothing short of a blessing. Thereafter, his success rested on the fact that he did not conspicuously behave as a conqueror, stressing the importance of continuity, and keeping to the path that the pious King Edgar had trodden.

King Edgar

This emphasis must have taken attention away from the changes his reign brought about. Keeping his military forces for less than a year Cnut reduced feeling among the English that they were a conquered people. Cnut made good use of his opportunities. By 1018 he had successfully established himself as full king of the English.


[1] Anglo-Saxon England - FM Stenton p387
[2] Op cit p 393

*Some historians, Campbell among them, argue that Thorkell did not join Cnut until 1016/17
** For more on the death of Edmund Ironside, click HERE

The career of Eadric Streona is explored in my latest release, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, published by Amberley

Further reading/Bibliography:

The Anglo-Saxon Age - DJV Fisher

The Laws of Cnut & The History of Anglo-Saxon Royal Promises - P Stafford in Anglo-Saxon England 10

Encomium Emmae Reginae - Ed Campbell

The Chronicle of Thietmar of Merseberg EHD Vol I

The Sermon of the wolf to the English EHD Vol I

King Edgar and the Danelaw - Niels Lund, Med Scand 9

The Diplomas of Aethelred the Unready - Simon Keynes

Wulfstan and the Laws of Cnut - D Whitelock EHR 63

(all the above images are in the public domain)

Died of Wounds? Apparently Not...

When writing my books, especially nonfiction, I have to report quite a few deaths. This was certainly true when I was writing my history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia.

In a book spanning five centuries, and featuring a lot of kings and noblemen fighting over countries, earldoms, and any old patch of grass, generally, it's inevitable that not many died in their beds of old age.

War is a bloody business. Doesn't really matter which century you pick, it's just a bloody business. With the odd exception - Henry V springs to mind - if you were wounded in battle in pre-penicillin, pre-Florence Nightingale days, that wound was going to kill you at some point, even if you managed to survive the battle itself.

So, obviously the chronicles reporting on Anglo-Saxon matters, which let's face it, were pretty much pre-everything, are going to be stuffed with detail about men dying from their wounds, aren't they?

Well, here's the thing. The answer, I've found is, 'not so much.' Just to give a few examples, working our way through the centuries:

• Wulfhere, seventh-century king of Mercia

As with most warlord kings of the period, he wasn't averse to the odd knockabout on the battlefield. Of one of his campaigns, it was reported by William of Malmesbury that, 'On he came, confident that he would make good the loss, or win a kingdom.' On that occasion he was not successful, but he didn't let that discourage him.

However, there is some dispute about his final battle. We are not told the outcome of the fighting at a place called Biedanheafde but we are told that Wulfhere died 'later that year.' It seems fairly logical to assume that he died from wounds sustained during the battle, but the sources are confused. Henry of Huntingdon said that he died of disease, while the author of the Life of St Wilfrid confessed that he did not know the cause of death. William of Malmesbury said that he died a few days after the battle. Well, this sounds more likely, except that William was referring to the previous battle, so had clearly got muddled with his dates.

• Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians

The husband of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, died in 911, and in 910 the 'Vikings' of Northumbria had broken a peace established by her brother, Edward the Elder and ravaged Mercia. According to the Chronicler Æthelweard, they crossed the River Severn at Bridgnorth and battle was joined at Tettenhall. It seems feasible that Æthelred, who died the next year, must have sustained fatal wounds during the battle.  Except, he wasn't there.

A few years earlier, Chester had been overrun by 'Vikings' and the Irish annals known as the Three Fragments record that messengers were sent to 'the king of the Saxons [Æthelred] who was in a disease and on the point of death.'

Roger of Wendover recorded that in 908, Leicester was restored by both the Lord and Lady of the Mercians, but while no other source mentions his illness, there is also no mention of his name in 909 or 910. When Edward the Elder took his forces into Northumbria - which may well have caused them to retaliate by ravaging Mercia - there is no suggestion that Æthelred was with him.

During the campaigns when Alfred the Great was still alive, and he and Edward and Æthelred were working together against the invaders, Æthelred's presence is acknowledged plenty of times. There would be no reason to exclude his name from Tettenhall, had he been there, leading to the conclusion that he was not present at the battle.

•   Ælfhere, tenth-century ealdorman of Mercia 

Ælfhere was an energetic figure, King Edgar's right-hand-man, and the leader of local forces of Mercia. He was involved in a number of campaigns in Wales, in alliance with Hywel ab Ieuaf of Gwynedd. In 983 the two were once again in action, when Hywel asked for assistance against Einion ab Owain, in an attempt to prevent Einion from annexing Brycheiniog and Morgannwg for the kingdom of Deheubarth. He was unsuccessful, and Ælfhere died the same year.

It would be natural to assume that the battle wounds were the cause of death. But Roger of Wendover reported that he died, ‘his whole body being eaten with worms.’ Possibly this was ergot, a common infestation in grain. However, the chroniclers were not especially fond of Ælfhere and perhaps they thought he deserved a more ignominious death. 'Died of wounds' is just not a phrase they liked to use.

• Edmund Ironside

In the eleventh century, sons of kings were fighting for the throne. Edmund Ironside, son of Æthelred the Unready, was locked in a campaign against Cnut, son of Swein. In one year there were five battles, the last of which was at Assandun – most likely Ashingdon - in Essex. 

The Liber Eliensis says that Edmund ‘played the part of an energetic soldier and good commander; he would have crushed all of them together, had it not been for the schemings of the treacherous Ealdorman Eadric [Streona]. And there was a massacre in that place of almost the whole array of the nobility of the English, who never received a more wounding blow in war than there.’ 

However,  Cnut went to Gloucester, having heard that Edmund was there, and they came to terms. Henry of Huntingdon said that Cnut cried out, ‘Bravest of youths, why should either of us risk his life for the sake of a crown? Let us be brothers by adoption, and divide the kingdom.’

Not long afterwards, Edmund conveniently died. This was not the first time that a king had expired shortly after the division of the kingdom, although it has often been stated that Edmund died of wounds. Yet this is not what the chroniclers said. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says only that Edmund died. Roger of Wendover claimed that it was Eadric’s son who murdered Edmund, concealing himself in the sink whilst the king was answering the call of nature, and thrusting ‘a very sharp knife into the king’s bowels, leaving the king mortally wounded.’ Henry of Huntingdon concurred.

Of course, Eadric Streona was roundly vilified by most of the sources as a turncoat and murderer. It's natural that he or his family would get the blame, but the author of the contemporary Encomium Emmæ Reginæ doesn't suggest that Edmund Ironside was killed by treachery, suggesting that the story was a later fabrication. But neither does it say that he died of wounds, only that God saw fit to remove his soul from his body after the kingdom was divided. One has to assume that he was pretty much in one piece when the division was agreed, for why else would Cnut have agreed, rather than just waiting for sepsis to kill his rival?

Divine intervention, murder, death on the battlefield, eaten by worms - all these things would kill you. But seemingly  a lingering death caused by an infected wound was just not 'a thing.'

[all of these stories and more are explored in detail in my book, Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, available for pre-order in its paperback edition now. The Encomium Emmæ Reginæ and the woman it was written for, Queen Emma, feature in my new book Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England, available for pre-order now.]

Wulfric Spott - A Mercian Man of Means

Last month I wrote about Anglo-Saxon names, and mentioned Eadric Streona (the 'Grasping'). He does come into this story, but I wanted to talk about another man with an odd name: Wulfric Spott, a Mercian man of means.

Wulfric Spott was a man of wealth, but he wasn't an ealdorman; he was 'merely' a thegn, but he witnessed 43 charters as a minister and he had lands in Staffordshire and Derbyshire, estates in Shropshire, Leciestershire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire. His will also refers to lands in South Lancashire and Cheshire. He was the founder of Burton Abbey at Burton on Trent.

Confirmation of Wulfric's will, 1004

Straight away his will demonstrates his wealth:

First I grant to my lord 200 mancuses of gold, and two silver-hilted swords and four horses, two saddled and two unsaddled, and the weapons which are due with them.

A mancus of gold would be the equivalent of 4.25g, or a unit of around 30 pieces of silver.

Wulfric makes various other grants of land, but to his daughter he leaves a portion of land which seems to be exempt from the usual terms:

And the land at Tamworth is not to be subject to any service not to any man born, but she is to have the lordship.

As well as bequests of huge parcels of land - "And I grant to Aelfhelm and Wulheah the lands between the Ribble and the Mersey, and in Wirral" - he leaves personal items:

And I grant to my god-daughter,[the daughter] of Morcar and Ealdgyth, the estate at Stretton and the brooch which was her grandmother's.

The family of Wulfric Spott was one of the most influential and powerful of its day, with branches linked to the royal family and a regular involvement in power struggles and political rivalry. 

Wulfric, from an 18th C pencil drawing of the stained glass window at Hall Hill, Abbot's Bromley

Wulfric Spott's brother Aelfhelm, ealdorman of Northumbria, was murdered in 1006, and his sons Wulfheah and Ufegeat were blinded. Wulfheah was one of the prominent ministri during the reign of Aethelred II (the Unready) and it's generally believed that Eadric Streona, ealdorman of Mercia 1007-1017, was Aelfhelm's murderer. His rise to power certainly would not have been hindered by the removal of prominent men who surrounded the king. The rivalry does not seem to have stopped there, for Eadric is named as the murderer of Sigeferth and Morcar, thegns of the Seven boroughs*. These brothers were members of this same family; Morcar was married to Wulfric Spott's niece. There is a possibility that they were related to King Aethelred  through his marriage to the daughter of Thored of Northumbria. 

Vacillating between the causes of Edmund Ironside and Cnut in the war of 1015-16, Eadric was playing a dangerous game. Edmund had defied his father, Aethelred II, and married Sigeferth's widow, thereby gaining the allegiance of the Northern Danelaw. Cnut's English wife, Aelfgifu of Northampton, was the daughter of the murdered Aelfhelm and the cousin of Ealdgyth, Morcar's widow. 

It is also possible that this family was connected to that of Leofwine, who held Eadric's ealdordom after the latter's death. His son Leofric succeeded him, and his son Aelfgar married Aelfgifu , who may have been the daughter of Ealdgyth and Morcar.

The Encomium Emmae Reginae shows us how important this family was. 

The Encomium Emmae Reginae - Emma receives it from the author
(her sons Harthacnut and Edward are in the background)

It was written for Cnut's second wife Emma, as a propaganda exercise for the claims of her son, Harthacnut, and in Book III it denies that Harald is Cnut's son. This in itself is not enough to refute Harald's claims, and the Encomium further denies that he is Aelfgifu of Northampton's son. Clearly his position as her son is important. If Emma denies that he is of this family, then she is not attacking them. The importance of Aelfgifu's kinship is clear, and Emma does not wish to offend this great family.

It's not clear exactly when Wulfric died, but the charter issued by Aethelred confirming his will is dated 1004 (pictured above) so we must assume that he died before this date. His mother, Wulfrun, was a noblewoman, after whom Wolverhampton is named. Hers was the only recorded name among the hostages taken by Olafr Gothfrithson when he took Tamworth in AD940. The fact that Wulfric Spott was also known as Wulfric son of Wulfrun, rather than of his father, suggests that she was a wealthy woman whose status outranked her spouse's.

From his will, it's clear that Wulfric did not squander any of the family fortune.


*The Five Boroughs or The Five Boroughs of the Danelaw were the five main towns of Danish Mercia (what is now the East Midlands). These were Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham and Stamford.  There is a unique 1015 reference to the 'Seven Boroughs', which may have been included Torksey and York.