Lady Godiva - did she, or didn't she?

One of the most famous (or should that be notorious?) Anglo-Saxon women is Lady Godiva or, to give her her Old English name, Godgifu. And the thing she’s famous - or notorious - for is her naked horseback ride through Coventry.

But who was she, and did she really? And what did she have to do with my contribution for the anthology of 'What If' stories,  1066 Turned Upside Down?

First, that horse ride. The story goes that Leofric (her husband) founded the monastery at Coventry on the advice of his wife. He endowed the foundation with so much land, woods and ornaments that ‘there was not found in all England a monastery with such an abundance of gold and silver, gems and costly garments.’ Godgifu was keen to free the town of Coventry from such a financial burden, and yet when she spoke to her husband about it, he challenged her to ‘Mount your horse, and ride naked, before all the people, through the market of the town, from one end to the other, and on your return you shall have your request.’ Whereupon, she ‘loosed her hair and let down her tresses, which covered the whole of her body like a veil, she rode through the market-place, without being seen, except her fair legs, and having completed the journey, returned with gladness to her astonished husband’, who then freed the town from the aforesaid service, and confirmed what he had done by a charter. 

Except…the only source we have for the story is Roger of Wendover, a monk writing in the thirteenth century. Other sources suggest that the founding of Coventry was a joint enterprise (and none mentions the horse ride). A chronicle ascribed to a monk at Worcester, which is only just over forty miles from Coventry, written before 1118, stated that Leofric and Godgifu were jointly responsible: ‘[Leofric] was buried with all pomp at Coventry; which monastery, among the other good deeds of his life, he and his wife … had founded.’ 

It has been suggested that the documents recording Leofric founding Coventry were later forgeries and it might in fact have been Godgifu’s own lands which were used. (We know that she was a wealthy woman; possibly originally from northwest Mercia, she held lands in Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire.)

Edmund Blair Leighton's painting showing Godiva
making her decision to take that ride

Along with the lack of corroboration for the story, the political situation at the time casts further doubt. Leofric of Mercia was a leading political figure. In the eleventh century, the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had become ealdordoms, or earldoms. Godgifu married into the leading Mercian family; her husband inherited his earldom from his father and passed it onto his son. In fact four generations of the family became earls of Mercia, the only family to achieve such a feat in this period. Leofric was described as pious, and being ‘but a moderate drinker’ and prayed in secret when his drunken companions were asleep. He was in power for over twenty years ‘without violence or aggression’. He was heavily involved in the succession crisis created by the death of Cnut, when two contenders vied for the throne. One, Harold Harefoot, was Cnut’s son by Ælfgifu of Northampton, and the other, Harthacnut, was his son by Emma of Normandy. 

At this time there were three leading earls, and Leofric was one of them. This particular game of thrones was very much directed by the two royal mothers, Ælfgifu and Emma, and was heavily reported. Had another high-ranking woman, wife of a leading and rather staid nobleman, done a public striptease, I think it would have been commented upon. One of the more contemporary records for this period, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, is quite detailed by this stage, giving over pages and pages to each year, as opposed to one sentence summaries for earlier centuries, but it doesn’t mention the horse ride. 

11th-century depiction of Queen Emma

Much of Leofric’s political career, and that of his son and grandsons, was tied up with the fortunes of Earl Godwine, and his son, Harold (he of the alleged 1066 arrow in the eye).

Leofric’s politics differed from that of Godwine, but all differences remained relatively civil. Not so when it came to these men’s sons.

In 1051, Godwine’s earldom stretched from Kent to Cornwall. He was father-in-law to the king of England, and his son Harold was earl of Essex, East Anglia, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. And this, strange as it may seem, is the start of the events that led to Godgifu playing a part in my story. Following an incident in that year, Godwine and his family were temporarily banished and Harold’s earldom of East Anglia was given to Ælfgar, son of Leofric and Godiva. But by 1052 the Godwines were back, which meant that Ælfgar was displaced from East Anglia. He regained the area briefly, but in 1055 he himself was outlawed, possibly on trumped-up charges. He launched a fightback, with the help of Gruffudd, king of the Welsh and, long story short, got East Anglia back. When Leofric died, Ælfgar succeeded him in Mercia, but the following year he was banished again, returning once more with the help of Gruffudd and around this time his daughter Ealdgyth was married to Gruffudd. Just a year or so after Ælfgar died, Gruffudd, crucially, was killed when Harold Godwinson and his brother Tostig launched an attack on North Wales. 

Had Ælfgar lived, it is unlikely that he would have supported Harold Godwinson’s election to the throne. He, far more than his father, had reason to resent the Godwines. He had been banished twice, and both times Harold had been involved. His son Edwin took over from him in Mercia, and another son, Morcar, became earl of Northumbria after Harold’s brother Tostig was disgraced. At some point in 1066, Harold married their sister, Ealdgyth. How she felt about being married to the man responsible for killing her first husband, we don’t know.

And this is the set up for my story in 1066: A mighty Mercian family pledged by allegiance and marriage ties to King Harold, but ever-present is the doughty grandmother, who has every reason to hate Harold Godwinson and his family. The brief was also to add a twist to the tale, so I looked at this rivalry between the two families, and I ran with it...

Little more is known of Godgifu. There was a later rumour that Hereward the Wake was her son, but there’s absolutely no evidence to support this. We don’t know when she was married, but as Leofric became an earl in 1023, it’s possible that they were married as early as 1010, and that she might have been born around 990. If she died even shortly after 1066 then she might have been well into her seventies, having lived through the reigns of Æthelred the ‘Unready’, Swein Forkbeard and Cnut, Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut, Edward the Confessor and Harold Godwinson, and lived to see William of Normandy crowned king of England. 

Pious, rich - in her own right as well as through her marriage - and an old lady to be reckoned with. But riding naked through the streets? I don’t think so. (But read the story, because she remembers it differently…)

Buy 1066 Turned Upside Down to read my fictional take, or read more about the real Lady Godiva in my nonfiction books:

Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom

Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England

[A version of this article originally appeared on Helen Hollick's blog]

1066 - The Mercian Angle

In 1066, when Edward the Confessor died, Harold Godwineson was declared king. Yet he felt the need to ride north to secure the pledges of the northern nobles, and thought it prudent to forsake his long-term partner and marry the sister of two powerful northern earls. Why?

Let’s go back a bit...

In my last blog post I explored the history of Mercia. Readers of To Be A Queen will recall that in Æthelflæd’s day, Mercia was still a kingdom in its own right, albeit one which was fast running out of kings. Forty years later, the setting for Alvar the Kingmaker, Mercia had become a powerful ealdordom (later known as earldoms.)

And there was a new problem: the Danelaw.

However much Æthelflæd, her father, husband, and brother fought against them, inevitably some of the Danes who came over in their dragon boats stayed, and settled in the north and east. In the 10th century, King Edgar was careful to preserve the rights and traditions of the Danelaw, as well as the erstwhile independence of Mercia.

Edgar’s dealings with the Danelaw can be found in the law code known as IV Edgar, or the Wihtbordesstan Code. It has often been said that Edgar was creating something new with this code, but technically speaking this is a letter to the Danes, showing Edgar eager to respect an autonomy which was already a fact.

It is probable that Edgar became king of England in 959 with the help of a powerful group of magnates who wanted a king who would not encroach on the customary law. Edgar stresses five times that he has every intention of respecting the Danelaw. It is possible that although IV Edgar is a recognition of established fact, Edgar himself created the Danelaw, as there are no earlier references to it. In all probability these privileges were granted by Edgar in 957, in gratitude for the support given him in the north against his brother Eadwig.

King Edgar 

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 died, their lands were given to neighbouring nobles - Ælfhere (Alvar in the book), already ealdorman of southern Mercia, gained the northern portion when the ealdorman of Chester died - until the earldoms were as big as the old kingdoms. By the time of Edgar IV, there were three principal noblemen, and in the law code he demands that:

'Earl Oslac (Northumbria) and all the host that dwell in his ealdormanry are to give their support that this may be enforced' and that 'Many documents are to be written concerning this, and sent both to ealdorman  Ælfhere (Mercia) and ealdorman  Æthelwine, (East Anglia) and that they are to send them in all directions, that this measure may be known to both the poor and the rich.' [IV Edgar 15. & 15.1]

Royal control was difficult to establish in areas with separatist feeling, and Mercia was another of these areas. Edgar was respectful of these regional differences, as his charters show - a land charter of 969 carefully states the ‘boundary of the Mercians’ - but his successors were not.

Edgar was succeeded by his famously ‘unready' son, Æthelred - who infamously ordered many Danes massacred on St Brice’s day, 1002 - and so there followed a period of Danish rule, most notably by King Cnut. Long-held separatist and nationalist sentiments remained, and now, as Barlow put it,

'The Danish rulers having no attachment to any of the kingdoms, widened the concept of England. Cnut’s plan of reserving no English province for his direct rule and his grant of Wessex to the ‘upstart’ Godwine had weakened the position of any successor who had not his ‘quasi-imperial’ power.'

Æthelred the 'Unready'

How did this situation contribute to the problems faced by Edward the Confessor in his final years?

The three leading earls were Leofric of Mercia, Siward of Northumbria, and Godwine. Of those three, only Leofric came from an old ruling family; he was the son of Leofwine, ealdorman of the Hwicce - whom readers of my novels will know to be one of the core Mercian tribes, originally with their own kings; their centre was Deerhurst and the church there was very important to the Mercians - and he gave, according to Barlow, 'loyal and disinterested service.' (Disinterested here in its original meaning, that of being impartial.)  Siward, meanwhile, with lands bordering Scotland, probably looked more north than south.

The rise of the House of  Godwine was phenomenal. Moving from thegn to king in three generations, it proved the theory of upward social mobility which, in fact, most people found impossible to attain, and which might have been denied in this case also had it not been for the reign of Cnut.

Cnut

I have some university notes in which I quote one of my lecturers: '1066 lasted a whole year.' I followed it with an exclamation mark, but I know what was intended by this seemingly obvious remark. 1066 was not just a battle near Hastings; events took a turn for the dramatic in January when Edward the Confessor died, and culminated with William’s coronation on Christmas Day.  But there were more people involved than just Harold and Edward, and the turmoil had really begun as far back as 1051.

Eustace of Boulogne arrived at Dover to visit his former brother-in-law (Edward) and Godwine was at the wedding feast of his son Tostig and Judith. There was a violent brawl involving the people of Dover and the visitors from Boulogne. Godwine was ordered to punish the people of Dover and he refused. The result of this stand-off was the exile of Godwine and his family, and Leofric of Mercia’s reward for supporting the king was that his son, Ælfgar, was granted Harold Godwineson’s earldom of East Anglia.

However the northern earls thought Edward went too far by subsequently giving preference to foreigners, thereby tightening his links with Normandy. Thus, in 1052, when Godwine came back, Leofric and Siward remained neutral. London declared for Godwine. His terms were not extortionate and so the neutrality of the northern earls seemed justified, and would explain why Ælfgar, according to Barlow,  ‘quietly surrendered’ the East Anglian earldom back to Harold.

But Godwine’s death in 1053 shifted the balance of power and the Mercian house became stronger. Harold succeeded his father in Wessex, but this meant that Ælfgar got East Anglia back. The Mercian family was now spread right across the midlands.

Death of Earl Siward - Smetham

Then in 1055 Siward of Northumbria died, and his son, Waltheof, being too young to govern, was bypassed for Tostig Godwineson. As Richard Fletcher put it, 'There was no love lost between the house of Leofric and the house of Godwine' and Tostig’s was a surprise appointment; it was the first time a southerner had held the post and he was, in Fletcher’s words, 'A complete stranger.' Now, Mercia was in the middle of a Godwineson sandwich, with Harold below and Tostig above. They needed to look in a different direction for allies. Ælfgar looked westward, allied with Gruffudd of Wales, and was briefly banished before being reinstated.

Two years later, In 1057, Leofric died. Ælfgar succeeded him in Mercia and Harold’s brother Gyrth took the now vacant East Anglia. But although the 'trouble-maker' Ælfgar had control of his father's earldom, the Godwine family was in Wessex, East Anglia and Northumbria. Mercia was isolated.

Hardly surprising then that in 1057, Ælfgar’s daughter, Ealdgyth, was married to Gruffudd. In 1058 Ælfgar was outlawed again for ‘obscure reasons’ and came back with the support of Gruffudd. Kari Maund suggested that the alliance must have begun before 1055 and that’s why he was ousted. Perhaps Ælfgar had not so ‘quietly’ surrendered in 1052 after all. 

In around 1062/3 Ælfgar disappears from the record. He was succeeded by his son, Edwin, who was a second son and seemingly still only a young man. It would seem that Harold took advantage of this and engineered the death of Gruffudd.

By October 1065, the Northumbrians had had enough of Tostig and his southern ways and attempts to impose high taxes, - the Chronicle of John of Worcester adds a story of murder and implicates Tostig's sister, Queen Edith - and they rebelled, electing Edwin of Mercia’s brother, Morcar, in his place. After the Northumbrian rebellion Morcar was very quick to get there, as if he’d been ready and waiting. As Fletcher put it: 'Here at last was a chance to hit out at the hated sons of Godwine.'

The joint northern, Mercian and Welsh forces marched south. Whilst Harold attempted to mediate, Edward demanded war. Harold would not fight the rebels to restore Tostig. Edward submitted, Tostig was outlawed, and Edward seems to have gone into a decline, from which he never recovered. Tostig never forgave Harold.

This, then, was the internal situation in 1066: a build-up of resentment between noble houses, and a brother with a grudge. Harold had worries long before William landed...

While the rest of the events of 1066 are well-established, this internal conflict is a scenario with which I played for my story in 1066 Turned Upside Down. 

The Mercians and their role in the eleventh century, and that of the inhabitants of the Danelaw, are explored in depth in my book Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, by Amberley.

Further reading:
King Edgar and the Danelaw - Niels Lund, Med. Scand. 9
Anglo-Saxon England - FM Stenton
The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042-1216 - Frank Barlow
The Welsh Kings - Kari Maund
Bloodfeud - Richard Fletcher
The Fall of Saxon England - Richard Humble
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles - Ed. N Garmonsway

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

Mercia Vs The Godwines

The story of the last earls of Mercia is linked to the powerful Godwine family. At the start of 1051, Godwine’s earldom stretched from Kent to Cornwall. He was father-in-law to the king of England, and his son Harold was earl of Essex, East Anglia, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. 

After an incident in Dover - when the count of Boulogne was attacked and Godwine refused to punish the citizens - before a meeting in London could consider the charges against him, Godwine and his family fled. His son Harold’s earldom of East Anglia was given to Ælfgar, son of Earl Leofric of Mercia.

The banishment was short-lived, however, and by 1052 the Godwines were back, which meant that Ælfgar was displaced from East Anglia. But in 1053 Godwine died and his son Harold became earl of Wessex in his place. So Ælfgar was back in East Anglia and suddenly the Godwinesons were isolated.

But political wheels turn quickly and when in 1055 the earl of Northumbria died and Tostig Godwineson became earl in his place, Ælfgar was outlawed, possibly on trumped-up charges. Ælfgar, with the aid of Irish pirate ships and the assistance of Gruffudd, king of the Welsh, advanced on Hereford where the earl, the ‘timorous’ Ralf, took flight before battle was joined. Ælfgar was re-established in East Anglia.

When in 1057 Earls Leofric and Ralf both died, it raised the question of what to do about the territories and how to deal with the Welsh. Ælfgar was a bit of a troublemaker, and Ralf’s son was still a child. In the end, Edward permitted Ælfgar to succeed his father in Mercia, while the Godwines carved up the remaining territory among themselves. 

In 1058 Ælfgar was banished for a second time. ‘But he soon returned with violence through the help of Gruffudd.’ It was possibly around this time that Ælfgar’s daughter, Ealdgyth, married, or was given in marriage to, Gruffudd. 

Had Ælfgar lived, it is unlikely that he would have supported Harold Godwineson’s election to the throne in 1066. He had reason to resent the Godwines; he had been banished twice, and both times Harold had been involved. 

Ælfgar died around the year 1062. His - presumably - eldest son, Burgheard, had predeceased his father. Ælfgar’s surviving sons were probably only in their teens when their father died. The eldest, Edwin, succeeded as earl of Mercia. In 1063 the Welsh raiding began and Harold Godwineson – who had been in charge of Hereford since 1057 – decided to retaliate. In May he sailed from Bristol while his brother Tostig invaded North Wales. Gruffudd escaped from this two-pronged attack but was killed by his own men. 

In 1064 Harold went to Normandy, where he famously either swore, or did not swear, an oath to support Duke William’s claim to the English throne. Meanwhile in England, his brother Tostig was stirring up resentment.

In 1065 the northerners rose up in rebellion to avenge the deaths of three northern thegns. They were also said to be objecting to a huge tribute which Tostig had unjustly levied on the whole of Northumbria. The rebels called for Morcar, the younger brother of Edwin of Mercia, to replace Tostig as earl. 

Tostig accused Harold of fomenting the rebellion against him and Harold had to swear an oath to clear himself of this charge. King Edward wanted to use force to crush the rebellion, but his counsellors were against the idea, it was late in the year and so they gave in to the demands. Just before Christmas, Tostig and his wife Judith left for Flanders, where her half-brother Count Baldwin gave them welcome.

The Kirkdale Sundial, with Earl Tostig's name in the dedication

At some point, probably after 1063, Harold married Ealdgyth, sister of the earls Edwin and Morcar, and widow of Gruffudd. 

In May 1066, the ousted Tostig came harrying, causing a nuisance as far north as the Humber. Edwin and Morcar drove him into Scotland.

But later in the year Tostig returned, in alliance with Harald Hardrada of Norway. Harald anchored his fleet at Riccall on the Ouse, and before King Harold could get there from the south, Edwin and Morcar had to face the might of the Norwegian forces. At Gate Fulford, outside York, battle was joined. For most of a day, they blocked the road and stopped the Norwegians advancing, but they finally gave way and their men were cut down or drowned. 

Harald landing near York (left), and defeating the Northumbrian army (right),
from the 13th century chronicle The Life of King Edward the Confessor by Matthew Paris

Though Edwin and Morcar survived the battle, they would barely have had time to regroup in order to provide any assistance at Stamford Bridge, and it is not certain whether they were at Hastings (although at least one source says they were there) but it can probably be said in their defence that they would have had few troops to bring with them, having suffered such heavy losses at Fulford.

By March 1067 those who had sworn to William included Edwin, Morcar and Waltheof, son of Siward of Northumbria. But in the summer of 1068 Edwin and Morcar left the court and went north to join an ill-fated rebellion.

In that same year there was a Mercian revolt which spread as far as Cheshire and Stafford. William marched against them and crushed them. Castles were erected at Chester and Stafford, and William returned to Wessex. He had made sure that the devastation would mean that Mercia and Northumbria would never again rise up against his rule.

There is no evidence that the brothers Edwin and Morcar had been involved in the uprising, but Edwin’s death came about when he was on his way to Scotland, presumably in flight, although it seems his demise was brought about by his own followers under circumstances which are lost to us now. Morcar went to Ely where he joined Hereward the Wake. 

The stand-off at Ely was also fated to fail. William surrounded the area, defeated the rebels, Morcar surrendered and was flung into prison.

And that’s pretty much where the Mercian story ends. Little is known about the fate of Ealdgyth, or her son/s by Harold.

In my new book about the history of Mercia I’ve looked in detail about the relations between the two rival families, the Godwines and the Mercians, and the theories about the various alliances and rebellions. I found it fascinating.

But what if either Edwin or Harold had lived, or maybe both? Because there is another family dynamic which interests me: Edwin was brother-in-law to the king, just as Harold had been, but he would also have been uncle to Harold’s infant son. The Mercians had no love for the Godwines. How different the political landscape might have looked …

   Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom
   1066 Turned Upside Down

Noises Off: Folklore & Ghostly Goings-On

What do Oliver Cromwell, Sunken Churches, Wolves, and Witches all have in common? Along with all manner of boggarts and beasties, they are all associated with folklore and ghost stories.

I recently had cause to research the tale about the supposed killing of the last wolf in England and thought that folklore, generally, would be a good topic for a blog post.

Well, yes and no. One book on my shelves is over 800 pages long, with about five or six tales or legends on each page!

I thought I'd narrow it down to my favourites, one related to each part of history, from pre-Roman times to the seventeenth century, all to do with people, rather than beasts. And all very noisy!

The Lost Warriors
Hockwold, in the East Anglian Fens, was a burial place for three separate hoards of pewter items dating from Roman times. They were crushed and dismantled, giving rise to speculation that they were deliberately buried as some kind of offering. 

They were discovered in the 1960s, but long before that time, the Hockwold Fens were said to be haunted by ancient warriors. Their battle cries could be heard, sounding loud across the fenland. Perhaps they were British warriors, Iceni maybe, fighting the Roman invaders?

Some of the Hockwold Pewter

The Shrieking Pits
Between 850 and 110o, iron workings between Aylmerton and West Runton Heath in Norfolk left depressions in the fields. Slag from the furnaces found their way into the walls of nearby Saxon Churches. Shrieks ring out in the dark night, near St John's Church, utterances of a ghostly woman who is searching among the hollows for the body of her baby.

Legend has it that her husband buried the child in one of the pits, as well as murdering his wife. She now wanders, searching, for she does not know which hollow contains her child. As she looks into each of the holes, she shrieks with despair as it reveals itself to be empty.

St John's Church, Aylmerton

Wild Edric
Sometimes it's not the spirits of dead people that inspire these tales. The Vita Haroldi, a glorified celebration of the life of Harold Godwineson, last English king of pre-Conquest England, suggests that Harold did not die at Hastings, and later sources suggest that he lived until he was over 150 years old. 

More fantastical yet, was Edric, a Shropshire man who did survive the Conquest, and fought William as a rebel. He, apparently, was still alive in the nineteenth century, living in the mines under the Shropshire hills. His noise was a knocking sound, which would tell the miners where the best lodes were. He would ride out to foretell war, and was seen riding with his wife, Lady Godda, just before the outbreak of the Crimean war.

Snailbeach, Shropshire - note the mine chimney. Photo Humphrey Bolton

Screams at Castle Rising
I've visited Castle Rising many times. I used to drive past it on my way to work. For a time, it was the 'home' of Isabella, wife of Edward II. Froissart, and fourteenth century chronicler, says that her son, Edward III, imprisoned her there, after the execution of her lover, Mortimer. 

It is said that she went mad from loneliness and that her screams could be heard as she wandered the battlements, lamenting her fate. In fact, she was not a prisoner, although she certainly lived there for periods, as it was one of her own properties, but she actually died in Hertford Castle. Her son allowed her £3,ooo, rising to £4,000 per year, so it's likely that far from wandering the Norman keep as a prisoner, she lived a comfortable life.

Castle Rising 

Footsteps at Husbands Bosworth
The ghost of a Protestant lady prowls the hall at Husbands Bosworth in Leicestershire and her footsteps can be heard loud and clear as she wanders, unable to settle. She suffers remorse for not allowing a Catholic priest to attend a dying servant. Elsewhere in the hall, a stain on the floor remains permanently damp, and it is allegedly there as a result of communion wine, or blood, being spilled when a priest escaped Cromwell's men. 

Whether this is a reference to Thomas Cromwell of the Reformation, or Oliver Cromwell who was responsible for the destruction of churches in the seventeenth century, is not clear. Our poor lady would have been more reluctant, one assumes, to summon a Catholic priest during the reign of the latter. But the former was known as Hammer of the Monks, so we cannot be sure who it was who would have taken punitive measures against her.

Bosworth Hall - photo Richard Williams

This is just a tiny sample of the tales that survive. They appeal to me because of their historical context, and because if I'm going to encounter a ghost, I'd like it to make some kind or warning sound first!

Further reading/bibliography:~
Froissart's Chronicle
Vita Haroldi
The Old Stories - Kevin Crossley-Holland
The Lore of the Land - Westwood & Simpson
Folklore of the Welsh Border - Jaqueline Simpson
Norfolk Ghosts & Legends - Polly Howat
Tales of Old Norfolk - Polly Howat
Norfolk - A Ghosthunter's Guide - Neil Storey
Folk Stories and Heroes of Wales, Vols I&II - John Owen Huws

Changing History - 1066 and Not All That

Earlier this year, I was contacted by author Helen Hollick and asked if I would like to be part of an exciting new project in which I would get the chance to re-write history. Well, I must have thought about it for all of ten seconds before saying Yes!

1066. We all know what happened - Edward the Confessor died, and Harold became king. Look at him up there, sitting on his nice comfy throne ...

But of course, that was January. By October, things weren't going quite so well for him:

Is that Harold, with an arrow in his eye? Well, that's a debate for another time. Fact is, he didn't come out of the battle unscathed. And this fella became king.

End of story. Except that Helen and co-author Joanna Courtney decided that perhaps things could have gone differently, if only...

What if Harold had won that day at Hastings? But, even more intriguingly, what if the other battles that year had gone differently, or perhaps had never happened at all? What about the other contenders for the throne?

1066 Turned Upside Down is a collection of short stories, by nine authors, all taking one of these 'What ifs' and re-imagining history.

I don't write as much about the 11th century as I do about the 10th. But I do write an awful lot about the Mercians. And it just so happens that a Mercian family was very much involved in the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to take up with a new cast of Mercian characters, and, unfettered from historical facts, take them where I chose to lead them.

My story, A Matter of Trust, is not a complete flight of fancy though. It is grounded in fact, and I think it's a very plausible scenario. Over on my website, there is an article outlining the background to the story, and introducing the main characters in it. Pop over to the link HERE

Pre-order 1066 Turned Upside Down