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

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

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

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

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

The Anglo-Saxon Crypt at Repton - my photo

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

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

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

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

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

The Repton Stone - my photo

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

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

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

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

We have a description of Harthacnut’s death: 

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

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

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

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

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

*this term was not used at the time

Crowland Abbey

Back in November 2023, as Storm Ciarán was raging, I drove most of the length of England to visit Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire, a place which looks from some photos to be a ruin, but is actually still a working parish church. I was greeted as a guest of the priest of Deeping St James, a parish nearby (Reverend Mark conducts services as there is currently no priest in charge at Crowland) and the church wardens (Laura was my contact and made me feel super welcome).

I was there because Crowland has a remarkable history. Anyone who has read Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom will know that I've written about St Guthlac, who began his adult life as a Mercian warrior and then went to Crowland to live out his days as a hermit. He was frequently visited there by a young exile who, when fortunes were reversed, became one of the most successful of all the Mercian kings: Æthelbald (716-757)

Guthlac was born around 674 and the author of his Life, Felix, said that he was of royal Mercian stock and that his father was Penwalh of the Middle Angles (an area under Mercian control). Guthlac began his adult life as a warrior and we are told that he spent time fighting in Wales and on the Mercian/Welsh border, and was for a time an exile among the Welsh (Britons) and learned their language. Perhaps he was there as a hostage. At some point he gave deep thought to his lifestyle and when he was twenty he took up the religious life, first as a monk at Repton* and then as a hermit at Crowland. It was here he was visited by the young royal Mercian exile, Æthelbald, who told him how he had been chased 'hither and thither' by the incumbent king of Mercia. Another visitor was Guthlac's sister, Pega, who received a bad press from some sources who claimed she had tempted him from his path. I wrote about her in my book Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England.

The quatrefoil showing images from Guthlac's life

Recently though my thoughts have turned once again to Crowland, because I refer to it several times in the new book I've just written: Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge. Guthlac's visitor and friend Æthelbald was, as I said, a powerful and successful king but his reign ended in the worst way, for he was set upon and killed by his own men. It speaks volumes for the murky world of power politics and the succession that he'd begun his reign having been driven away by the incumbent and then was murdered at the end of it.

His is not the only murder story that contains reference to Crowland, however, and I'll get to those. But first, a little  general history of the place.

Crowland Abbey's website tells us that the abbey was a monastery of the Benedictine Order. It's often said that it was founded in memory of St Guthlac early in the eighth century by his friend, King Æthelbald but the assumption of this is based on fourteenth-century forgers. ** The abbey was completely destroyed and most of the community killed by the Danes in 866. It was refounded during the reign of King Eadred*** but was destroyed by fire in 1091, but rebuilt about twenty years later. Sadly it was burned down again in 1170, but it enjoyed peace and prosperity thereafter until the Dissolution of the Monasteries during Henry VIII's reign. 

The abbey's website also says that, 'At the time of the Dissolution the abbot was John Welles, or Bridges, who with his twenty-seven monks subscribed to the Royal Supremacy in 1534, and five years later surrendered his house to the king... The site and buildings were granted in Edward VI’s reign to Edward Lord Clinton, and afterwards came into the possession of the Hunter family. The remains of the abbey were fortified by the Royalists in 1643, and besieged and taken by Cromwell in May of that year.'

As you can see from my photos, the ruins are picturesque and the abbey church still intact. But the abbey is not the only interesting edifice in Crowland. Just a very short walk into the village itself brings you to a bridge which crosses... nothing.

No, it's not some kind of folly. The bridge is mentioned by King Æthelbald in the foundation charter for the abbey in 716 (S82) though of course the surviving bridge dates from much later. It originally crossed the River Welland but when the water course was re-routed in the seventeenth century which left the bridge literally high and dry. Its shape is interesting as it is a three-way arch bridge, built to cross not only the Welland but one of its tributaries.

Photo by Thorvaldsson: Accreditation Link

Crowland has been in the news recently as archaeologists continue to excavate and examine the historic sites. There is an excellent article published earlier in 2024 which gives a summary of the recent work:

Sacred Landscapes and Deep Time: Mobility, Memory, and Monasticism on Crowland, by Duncan W Wright and Hugh Willmott.

But let's return to the abbey itself, and my primary reason for visiting. Its history was reportedly preserved in the annals known as the Croyland Chronicle, begun by one of its abbots, Ingulf, though the earlier section accredited to him is widely believed to be a forgery. But from Ingulf's history we get details of a Viking attack which left most of the community there dead or dying, and though we have no corroborating evidence, the date does seem to tie in with the known Viking activity in the area at the time. I got to 'meet' one of the possible victims, but I'll save the photos of that for the new book! (I can tell you, it was quite the experience, and very moving.)

After Æthelbald's assassination in 757, another man ruled briefly before being 'dislodged' by perhaps the most famous (or should that be notorious?) Mercian king: Offa. He was accused - in some sources with the connivance or even at the urging of his wife - of murdering the king of East Anglia, who had visited Offa's court in the hope of marrying one of his daughters. When the visiting king was slain, his grieving would-be fiancée took herself to Crowland.

One of the last stories in my forthcoming book concerns a man who survived the Norman Conquest and rebelled against William. He was Earl Waltheof, and according to the chronicles he was buried at Crowland.

It's rare to be able to visit a site with connections to the Anglo-Saxon era, and to have so many people of note associated with one place is extra special (there's rumours of links to Hereward the Wake, too, but that's perhaps for another blog post!)

Murder in Anglo-Saxon England is available for pre-order from the publisher HERE and from Amazon HERE or wherever you buy your books. It will be released in the UK on Feb 15 2025

*See my post about the Viking camp and the Anglo-Saxon crypt at Repton HERE

**See Bertram Colgrave's Translation of Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac, preface

***For an overview of Eadred's reign you can read my chapter on his rule in Kings and Queens: 1200 Years of English and British Monarchs, edited by Iain Dale and published by Hodder & Stoughton

You can hear a folk song about the attack on the abbey HERE

All photos by and copyright of Annie Whitehead unless otherwise stated.

Touching the Past

Recently I was asked about the problems of researching the lives of the women featured in my new book and was able to say that, despite the period once being called the ‘Dark Ages’, we do have a wealth of written evidence: chronicles, the Lives of saints, land charters, and wills. There are also lawcodes, and political tracts such as the Encomium Emmæ Reginæ, commissioned by Queen Emma, wife of Æthelred the Unready and then of King Cnut.

But is there any physical evidence; is it possible to visit the places associated with these women of power and find the original Anglo-Saxon buildings? I’m very pleased to say that, while they are rare, the answer is yes. I thought I’d take the opportunity to showcase some of them here.

St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester

St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester

A place of deep significance for me, as it’s the burial place of Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians and her husband. Æthelflæd is almost unique, being one of only two women to rule an Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and she did it in a time of war, pushing back the invading Vikings. And she was, albeit briefly, succeeded by her daughter. A woman ruler would not succeed another woman ruler until Tudor times. Having written about Æthelflæd in a novel and now two nonfiction books, I was rather overcome with emotion when I visited St Oswald’s.

Minster Abbey, Kent

Minster Abbey, Kent - photo courtesy of the
abbey community 

The abbey, known as Minster-in-Thanet, was founded by a lady usually named Domneva or sometimes Domne Eafe. A princess of Kent, she married Merewalh, king of a Mercian subkingdom and possibly a son of the great warlord, King Penda. Her brothers were killed by her cousin, King Ecgberht of Kent. In penance, he is said to have granted her some land on which to build an abbey; as much land as her pet hind could run around. According to the legend, and possibly by divine intervention, the hind ran further than expected and Domneva gained much more land than the king had expected to have to yield. The Saxon brickwork and crypt still stand, and the abbey is still a thriving community.

Winchcombe Abbey, Gloucestershire

Stones from Winchcombe Abbey, now at Sudeley Castle

Sadly all that remains of this once thriving abbey is a collection of stones, now housed at nearby Sudeley Castle. Winchcombe’s most famous abbess was Cwoenthryth, daughter of King Cenwulf of Mercia, and it’s likely that Winchcombe was used as a royal archive. Legend has it that Cwoenthryth was envious of her little brother and arranged for his murder. Fearful of having her part in the murder discovered, she chanted a psalm backwards as a spell and her eyeballs burst from her head. Dramatic as it all sounds, there is scarcely any evidence for this. There was a man who was possibly her brother, but no evidence that he was murdered, or that he was a child when he died. 

Coldingham Abbey, Berwickshire

Coldingham Abbey, Berickshire, with the recent
dig site in the foreground

There aren’t even any stones to be seen here. The existing abbey building dates from much later but Æbbe, the Anglo-Saxon princess and abbess after whom nearby St Abb’s is named, may well have had an abbey at Coldingham and recent excavations appear to have unearthed evidence. I visited the dig site and had one of my ‘historian standing in field gets emotional’ moments. The accompanying photo of the priory shows the dig site to the fore. This area is well worth a visit. St Abb’s, just a couple of miles away, offers fabulous coastal walks and views and it’s thought that the very first abbey, no more than a collection of beehive-shaped huts, was perched on top of the promontory there. Incidentally, parts of Avengers Endgame were also filmed at St Abb’s, so there’s a sort of Viking connection via Thor!

Repton Crypt, St Wystan’s, Derbyshire

The crypt at Repton

Repton is most famous for having been the site where a huge Viking army over-wintered at the height of the invasions. Excavations in the vicarage garden at St Wystan’s revealed the remains of at least 264 people. Research is ongoing about this part of the ‘Great Heathen Army’. The main purpose of my visit though was to see the original Anglo-Saxon crypt, where the bones of several members of the Mercian royal family were laid to rest. It is a stunningly atmospheric place and, like St Oswald’s Gloucester, leaves you feeling a great connection to the people whose lives are chronicled in those ancient documents. St Wystan, or Wigstan, was another apparent murder victim, who seems to have got embroiled in an argument over the succession, when a rival wished to marry his mother. His mother, Ælfflæd, is barely mentioned in the records but, through her parentage and her marriages, she linked royal families. She was the cousin of the afore-mentioned Cwoenthryth (their fathers were brothers who both ruled as kings of Mercia) and she married into a rival branch of the royal house. Her father was King Ceolwulf I and it is possible that Ceolwulf II, the last king of Mercia, was her son. Wigstan’s remains rested at Repton. His mother, little heard of, was so important in the dynastic dispute that blood was fatally spilled.

Researching her life, and others like her, was fascinating for me, and being able to visit associated sites such as this one is a spine-tingling experience. 

Other than churches, the Anglo-Saxons didn’t build much with stone, preferring wooden buildings which, alas, do not survive. There is something about stone, and its permanence, which gives such a strong feeling of being able to touch the past.

Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England is published by Pen & Sword Books and is available on their website, in book shops and from Amazon

[A version of this article appeared on the Natalie is a History Buff Site in 2020 and you can read her thoughts on the book HERE]

Repton - Royal Mausoleum and Viking Stronghold

Repton: the name has always been familiar to me. The first pages of To Be A Queen describe how the royal Mercian family is forced to flee because the Vikings have occupied Repton. The rival king, Ceolwulf II, has their support, and King Burgred and his wife must go overseas.
But Repton had been an important place long before the invasions of the ninth century.

And here I was, at last, standing outside the Church of St Wystan, about to see for myself the Anglo-Saxon crypt, and much more besides. Local historians, Andy and Margaret Austen, were my guides.

If you know me at all, through my novels or my blog posts, you'll know how exciting and emotional it all was. It's not often that one can stand in a place and know for certain that the Anglo-Saxons once stood in the same spot, even on the same stone floor.

Mercia – an ancient kingdom indeed. By the eighth century the Mercian kings were known as the Iclingas, and their dynastic centres lay at Lichfield, Breedon-on-the-Hill, Tamworth, and Repton.

The most famous early association with Repton is that of Saint Guthlac who was a warrior of noble, perhaps royal, Mercian stock, but who, according to his biographer, the monk Felix, entered the monastery at Repton when he was twenty-four years old. In around the year 669 he began a solitary life at Crowland Abbey, in the Fenlands of Cambridgeshire.

Guthlac had a frequent visitor there, who at the time was in exile: subsequently one of the longest reigning kings of Mercia, Æthelbald, who was killed in 757 at Seckington (North Warwickshire) and buried at Repton. 

The ‘Repton Stone’, which is now housed in nearby Derby Museum, is thought to have been part of a great cross raised – possibly by King Offa – in memory of Æthelbald.

A later story about the Mercian kings is given to us by Roger of Wendover, writing in the thirteenth century. He tells us that at Pentecost, ‘Bertferth, son of Berthwulf, wickedly slew his kinsman St Wulstan [Wigstan], who was the grandson of two kings of the Mercians. The body of the deceased was carried to the monastery of Rependun [Repton], and is said to have been buried in the tomb of his grandsire Wilaf [Wiglaf].’ Roger then describes heavenly miracles, but gives no reason for the murder.

According to the earliest version of his Passio, Wigstan was indeed the grandson of two kings, his father Wigmund being the son of King Wiglaf, and his mother, Ælfflæd being the daughter of King Ceolwulf I. 

The story goes that upon the death of his father, Wigstan was offered the crown but wouldn’t take it, being then a young boy and with intentions to lead a religious life. His killer, Bertferth [Beorhtfrith] asked to marry Wigstan’s widowed mother (presumably with the intention of ruling as king) and Wigstan refused because of the kinship and the fact that Bertferth was his godfather. Thwarted, Bertferth slew Wigstan, whose body was taken to Repton, and buried in the tomb of his grandfather. 

So it seems conclusive that Æthelbald, Wiglaf and Wigstan were all buried at Repton, but these are not the only significant burials there.

As I said, the first few pages of To Be A Queen are concerned with the Viking occupation of Repton. They were working in alliance with a king from a rival family to that of the ousted Burgred, and who may have been related to Wigstan. 

Having arrived in 873 and overwintered at Repton, the Vikings left in 874/5. 

The site was excavated between 1974 and 1993, and archaeologists Martin Biddle and Berthe Kjølbye-Biddle discovered the grave of a Viking warrior on the site. He had died a brutal death, and a copy of his battered skull, complete with the most piercing blue eyes, is on display in Derby Museum, along with his sword. 

The Dig Site

The Biddles then uncovered the remains of at least 249 other people. Work on the site, which is now part of the rectory garden, is ongoing and Cat Jarman and Mark Horton have been digging recently, and I’m told they will return in 2018.

So, what of the building itself? The crypt was built in the first half of the eighth century, during the reign of Æthelbald. It’s thought that it might originally have been a baptistry, and that it was partially underground, built over a spring which was drained by a deep stone-built channel. Andy explained that when Martin Biddle was on site, he thought he might have found evidence of the channel, but as neither myself nor Andy are archaeologists, we found it difficult to see what Mr Biddle had seen!

Later, the crypt was converted into a mausoleum, possibly for Æthelbald and certainly for King Wiglaf, and for Wiglaf’s grandson, Wigstan/Wystan.

It’s thought that rather than the bodies, it was the bones which were housed here, as the recesses are quite small. Wiglaf is believed to have made changes to the crypt, adding the four central columns which support the ceiling. Intriguingly, there are traces of what look like paint on these pillars.

Having recently visited St Mary’s at Houghton on the Hill,  I couldn’t help wondering if, once upon a time, this church was similarly decorated.

Decorated plaster at Houghton on the Hill

Only the westernmost recess is in its original ninth-century condition, and, in later centuries, the crypt was hidden from view with the stairs being covered over and the windows blocked with outbuildings. Ironically, it is this very concealment which helped to preserve it. Exposure to the elements has meant that it has begun to suffer water and frost damage.

Writing as much as I do about the Mercian kings, I was naturally a little emotional to be standing on this spot, but Andy had something else to show me and I followed him and Margaret back up the stairs and into the church. High up in the wall there is an Anglo-Saxon doorway which gives a clue to the nature of the original Anglo-Saxon church building.

Whilst we have historical evidence for a monastery before 700, and that tantalising doorway, there is no other surviving Anglo-Saxon building apart from the crypt. (For more reading on the fabric of the church, see Dr HM Taylors booklet St Wystan’s Church, Repton.)

Standing in the churchyard that quiet autumn afternoon, staring into the vicarage garden, it was eerie to imagine the place as once having been a Danish encampment.

The Vikings did some damage to the church, destroying a stone cross and using its fragments to cover the graves of their warriors, and damaging the upper walls of the building.

Frequently during my research for my forthcoming book I’ve had cause to wonder how much more Mercian historical evidence would be available to us had it not been for the Vikings. But I’ll be following developments with interest as the digs continue, and evidence comes to light about what those Vikings did while they were at Repton, how they lived, and how they died. 

[all photographs by and copyright of the author]

My new book Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, is available for pre-order on 
Amazon and from the publishers, Amberley Books