The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  Harthacnut brushed her hands from fiddling with his clothing. “I will think on it.”

  “What if we send an envoy to Kiev? An alliance with the Rus would be to our advantage. Or Spain or Italy? Alliance with any one of those great Lords who have control over the eastern trade routes would have benefit to us. Think of the riches to be had in the spice trade!”

  “I am not ready for marriage.” Already, Harthacnut was beginning to regret this marriage of his friend Tovi. When someone they knew became wed, he went through this same routine.

  “This is not about whether you are ready or not. You need a son, several sons, and unless you start breeding soon, you will be getting dangerously close to leaving a decision to God!”

  “And is He not trustworthy, then?” Harthacnut quipped, knowing his flippancy would annoy her more but might divert her to a different subject.

  “No, He is not!” Emma declared, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from her handmaid at the blasphemy. “Not where the matter of my crown is concerned. I trusted Him once before, and look where it got me!”

  “Here in England, Mama, with two sons. Why not pester Edward to produce grandsons for you? He is, after all, not as busy as I am. I am sure if he were to tear himself away from his hounds, he could find a spare moment to service a wife.”

  “Do not be absurd,” Emma snapped back.

  Harthacnut chuckled, slid his arm around her waist, and kissed her cheek. “No, you are right. Edward thinks all women were born to be nuns and all men monks! I doubt he even knows what his pizzle is for. A fine King he will make when I am gone!”

  Emma drew her breath in a sharp gasp of alarm. “Do not say that!” She crossed herself; as an afterthought did it again and muttered a liturgy against the sin of her blasphemy. “I meant, do not be absurd about Edward being a King. He has no head for government.”

  “And whose fault was that? It was not I who left him so long in Normandy.”

  Snorting in contempt, Emma began rummaging in a chest for a suitable veil. Harthacnut wandered to a bowl of wild strawberries, selected a handful.

  “What if I cannot have children?” he suddenly said.

  “There you go being absurd again,” she huffed.

  “I have had none yet.”

  “You have not, yet, a wife.”

  He ate a few more of the strawberries. “The one, Mama, does not necessarily need the other.”

  Emma chose to ignore his bland statement. “If we are to go this afternoon, then get you gone from my chamber and dress yourself as befits your status. I do not know what you have done with that tunic, but it is as ragged as a bear pit.”

  31

  7 June 1042—Lambeth, South of the River Thames

  Was all of London invited? There were so many guests in Tovi’s hall, it was as well he was a man of wealth—a smaller building and they would be packed like salted herrings in a barrel. Thankfully, the day had cooled with the onset of evening, and the younger guests were dancing on the grass, the slope down to the river not quite inconveniencing the more daring couples as they whirled and leapt to the beat of the drummers and the trill of flute and lute.

  His arm draped across the shoulders of the bride’s father, a man he trusted implicitly, as had Cnut, Harthacnut wandered within doors. He was drunk, but then who was not? He waved to his mother, indicating he had come in for another tankard of beer. Tovi’s best, brewed with hops and barley, potent stuff. A pile of men were already slumped, snoring, against the far wall, their womenfolk disdainfully ignoring them.

  “I am proud of my son,” Emma said to Godwine, seated beside her. He had come inside to catch his breath. Circling and stamping at a fast pace might suit the younger ones, but he had not the stamina for it.

  “Rightfully so, he has the making of a fine King, provided he remembers to listen and learn from those who know better.” He looked at her with a steady, solemn face, then winked and laughed. “But how many sons care to listen to their mothers these days?”

  Emma accepted the compliment by raising her goblet and saluting him.

  Harthacnut brayed in laughter, spluttering beer from his mouth at the lewdness of a jest recounted by those gathered around the beer barrels. He had made a shaky start here in England—that business of the tax was best forgotten—but had Cnut begun his reign any different? He would learn. As Cnut had learnt. Maybe, in time, would become as great as his father.

  Another shout of laughter. Emma glanced across at the rowdy group, saw Harthacnut dancing some odd jig of his own making, his friends standing about him, clapping at his foolery, laughing.

  And then he was sliding to the floor. A woman screamed. Was it Emma? After, she never could remember the series of events, who said and did what. She recalled running, dropping her goblet and tearing across the rush-strewn floor to her son. He lay at the centre of a circle of suddenly sober men, his limbs twitching and jerking, bloodied froth foaming from his mouth, urine and faeces seeping through his breeches.

  Curiously, the dancing went on outside, the merrymaking, the celebration, for none out there knew what was happening.

  Edward had been dancing with them, the only time he did not mind the close proximity of women, for he loved the chance to prance and preen. His thirst, like so many others beforehand, drove him inside. He stepped into the hall, stood a moment for his eyes to adjust. People were gathered at the far end. Some women were clinging to their husbands’ arms; some, men and women, were kneeling in prayer. Several were weeping.

  A man rushed past: Godwine’s son Harold, running, his face ash-pale. “I must fetch a priest,” he cried to Edward. “Your brother has suffered a seizure. My God, Edward, your brother! I think he is dead!”

  32

  16 June 1042—Winchester

  Emma stood alone beside the tomb within the Old Minster of Winchester where Kings were buried, her veil pulled close around her face. Though there were none to see, she would not have anyone witness her weeping. She had seen three and fifty years of life, and what had she to show for it? A heart heavy from misery, eyes red from tears, and a stone tomb that contained all she had cared to live for.

  Yesterday they had laid Harthacnut beside his father, and one day the tomb would be opened again for her to rest there also. If only she could, she would lie down with them now. What use was life without them?

  What had it all been for? To what purpose? All she had done and tried to do had come so suddenly to nothing.

  Harthacnut had lived the day around after the convulsions had racked through his body, but he did not wake or speak again. He had been King of England for two years wanting ten days.

  Another tear. Emma brushed it aside, angry with herself for being so weak. England would march on to a tune played on a different drum. One played by Edward. Edward was to be King. Edward. She almost laughed, but her tears choked the half sobbed sound from her throat. Edward. He could play tunes, make songs, dance, but could he be a King?

  She was so tired, and she did so dislike Edward, for he conjured nothing that was good or loving from her past. She had her memories, they said, meaning to help her in their kindly way through this heartache of grief. Those you love leave behind their shadows to walk, always, with you in the form of memories, they said. She did not want memories! She wanted her beloved husband. Wanted her son!

  Emma turned away from the tomb, walked through the empty minster, her boots tapping and echoing on the coloured tiles of the floor, the sunlight streaming through the windows, making the dust motes skitter and twirl as she passed by.

  Near the door she paused, placed her hand on a pillar, closed her eyes. Memories? When one had nothing, no one to love or worth enduring for, what comfort was there in memories? How did they make an incompetent into a King? Help a tired, disappointed woman rekindle the strength that had been sapped from her bones?

  She wiped at her wet cheeks and shut the memories away with her abandoned hopes and dreams, straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. With he
ad high and proud, she walked out into the sunshine and public view. She must start afresh. She had done so before, could do so again. Must set aside the past and see to the future.

  No one had, as yet, managed to take away her crown, nor would they! She was God’s anointed, Emma Ælfgifu, Queen of England, and no one—no one—could take that away from her.

  Author’s Note

  As with most Kings or Queens of Anglo-Saxon England, the documented life of Emma is sparse on detail, little more than a framework of basic fact—yet her CV is as intricate, and almost as controversial, as that of the later more famous (and more documented) Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine.

  Of Norman birth, Emma was a link between England and Normandy, which eventually led to the conquest of England in 1066 by her great-nephew, Duke William. She was involved in political intrigue, fled into exile twice, was implicated in the murder of her son Alfred, and was, later in her life, accused of treason by Edward, who, soon after becoming King, confiscated her wealth and property. Conjecture and interpretation surrounds any analogy of Emma’s life. Was her position in England that of a pawn, used as bargaining power for the making of treaties, or was she a Queen in her own right, commanding the political power to rule as regent during Cnut’s absences? We shall never know the truth of it, although I see her as something in between. Undoubtedly she wielded power during the short reign of her son Harthacnut, gaining her skill of managing a kingdom during the long periods when Cnut was abroad. There is some discrepancy as to where Emma was when Cnut summoned her to be his wife, in London or Normandy. Cnut would have sought Duke Richard’s permission to marry her, but there is very little evidence to show she had fled to Normandy. Indeed, it does not make logical sense, for once out of England it would have been almost impossible for her to keep her crown. The cross Cnut and Emma presented to the minster at Winchester is fact, but it was not necessarily given at their marriage.

  Emma was the first English Queen (to our knowledge) to have her biography written. She produced it as an act of political manipulation to accompany her son Harthacnut in his claim to the English throne—early medieval spin-doctoring! The Encomium Emmæ Reginæ is a narrative that deals with her marriage to Cnut and the glory of his reign. She is obliged to mention her two sons Edward and Alfred, but skilfully manages to conceal her fourteen-year marriage to their father, Æthelred, and the fact that Cnut was originally nothing more than a foreign invader.

  Prior to marrying Emma, Æthelred had at least ten children by one or two concubine wives. We know, in comparative detail, what happened to Athelstan, Edmund, and four of their sisters, but others are mere shadows in history. Because there are so many characters involved in The Forever Queen, by necessity I have abandoned those who would, at best, have enjoyed only a brief walk-on part. All we know of one son, Edgar, for instance, is that he was at Ely and exiled or killed by Cnut. He must therefore remain in obscurity as far as my novel is concerned.

  It is certain Athelstan quarreled with his father, for we have him seeking Æthelred’s forgiveness in his will. Edmund Ironside also quarreled with Æthelred, for after the murder of Sigeferth and Morcar, he did indeed rescue Sigeferth’s wife from the nunnery and marry her, thus gaining her dead husband’s estate and the loyalty of the North.

  Personal names have proven difficult, for there seems to have been a limited cache of ideas for parents of Anglo-Saxon children to choose from. Technically, Emma was known as “Ælfgifu,” a more English name than the Norman Imma or Emma, but she appears to have referred to herself privately as Emma, and as there are other characters in this story named Ælfgifu, I have kept “Emma” throughout. As for all the variations of Swein…!

  England was a wealthy and well-organised kingdom, particularly where the collection of taxes was concerned. Despite the almost annual increase in the Viking demand of the payment of heregeld (called “Danegeld” after 1066), the money was usually quickly and efficiently raised. Æthelred’s failure as a King was through widespread corruption and his inability to lead with deliberation. Misdemeanours were punished by the forfeiture of land, and it was all too easy for officials to fabricate or exaggerate crimes, seize land, and sell it for a profit.

  A contemporary source complains that the organisation of the fyrd (the army) was abysmal. The English were never in the same place at the same time as the Danish. Edmund was to prove that with skill and determination it was possible to be an effective leader and to drive the invaders back. Had Eadric Streona not turned tail at Ashingdon, Edmund might well have defeated Cnut—another of those snatches of history when everything of the future could have changed. The location of that battle is not certain—there are other contenders—but I have chosen the site on the River Crouch in Essex, purely for the reason that it is the nearest to where I live.

  Most of my characters existed, although beyond the simple recording as a written name on various charters, wills, and documents, we know only bare facts about them. Pallig was recorded as a traitor who went over to the Vikings and was possibly the husband of Swein Forkbeard’s sister. I needed a dashing, heroic type to be a friend for Emma, and Pallig fitted nicely, so the truth regarding him and Gunnhilda may not be accurate, but after all, this is a novel! Hugh was the name of Emma’s Exeter reeve, although I have invented the addition of “de Varaville”; Leofstan was recorded as Emma’s man in her will, as was a nephew of the woman Leofgifu. Eadric Streona was the scapegoat for Æthelred’s ineptitude. He may not have been as bad as the Chronicle painted him, but every novel must have its villain, so Eadric remains typecast. “Streona” means acquisitor and may not have been used until after Eadric’s death, as also is the case of Æthelred “the Unready.” Unraed is a play on his name, meaning “ill-counselled,” and he was not necessarily called this during his lifetime, but it was certainly used very soon after. Leofric’s wife, Godgiva, later became acclaimed in legend as Lady Godiva; however, there is no authenticity to her riding naked through the streets of Coventry in protest at high taxes, although the taxes themselves certainly were an issue. Godwine’s remark shortly before Cnut had Streona killed is the nearest I will come to that particular tale!

  The dates have sometimes been arbitrary, as the Chronicle records different versions and dates for the same episode and confuses ranks, titles, and names as well as time and place. Where I have used exact dates (for example, 7 June 1042), these were as they were recorded, but for various deaths when only a vague date and place are known, I have made up the reason or the doing. We know Cnut passed away while at Shaftesbury, Harold Harefoot died suddenly, and Harthacnut fell to the floor in a fit after imbibing too much ale at a Lambeth wedding and died on 8 June 1042. For Harthacnut, my use of the symptoms of diabetes seemed a logical assumption for a cause.

  For a few minor things of interest: siege warfare at this time was not very sophisticated; later sagas depict Swein Forkbeard as using mangonels, but these were written in the twelfth century and cannot be regarded as authentic. The various blood feuds of the North continued into William’s time. Unfortunately there was not the space to use this complex side of human nature in more depth here.

  Emma mentions a strange star. There is no surviving record for the year 989, and so there is no mention in any English chronicle of the appearance of Halley’s Comet; however, it was well recorded in France; unless England had three entire months of bad weather (not impossible!), it would have been seen. The comet next appeared in 1066 as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. One comment forwarded to me from a reader of my previous books was that I mention the weather quite often. A very British trait, I’m afraid, possibly because our climate is so changeable. Weather was very relevant to the early years of the first millennium, when several instances of famine and flood were recorded. I have included the desperate plague that affected the beasts and, having witnessed the devastation of foot-and-mouth disease, I have used this as the cause of one of them.

  Edward presented the birthing girdle used by Emma, said to have belonged to the
Virgin Mary, to Westminster Abbey. Supposedly, it was subsequently used by other royal English mothers.

  The nationwide religious Mass lasting several days is authentic, even down to slaves being given time off to participate. It is interesting that human nature does not change; the first millennium brought fear of the wrath of God, the second the wrath of the computer.

  Whether the people of the Lake District actually gathered at Grasmere to climb Helm Crag is conjecture, but while climbing the crag I saw those three astonishingly beautiful rainbows arcing across the Raise below Helvellyn. No bore tide rides up the Thames now, but it did in Anglo-Saxon times.

  I must add a note on a few of the Anglo-Saxon terms: “Ealdorman” was a Saxon title, which became “Jarl,” corrupted into the English “Earl.” “Housecarl,” or personal bodyguard, is also a Danish term. “Trade reeves,” what we would now call customs and excise men, were technically known as “port reeves” in early Saxon, “port” meaning trading place, which was not necessarily a sea harbour, hence my use of “trade reeve” to avoid modern confusion. Æthelred was, on the whole, responsible for the shiring of England, it is from “shire reeve” that we get the title “sheriff.”

  Much of Æthelred’s law-making still survives as a basis of modern law, as does Cnut’s. Æthelred’s agreement to be a better King when he returned from exile in Normandy was the first recorded pact between a government and a King. The very early beginnings of democracy.

  Emma is the only woman to have been an anointed, crowned, and reigning Queen to two different Saxon Kings, yet she is barely known in history. I find it frustrating that the rich, varied, and wonderful culture of England pre-1066 has so casually been swept aside by those who wrote of and recorded the post-1066 Kings. Particularly during the Victorian era, so much of our history was twisted to suit ideas of romantic fantasy. The Victorians altered Cnut’s name to “Canute” to make it sound more English, although the irony is that in his determination to prove his worth and value, Cnut had, by the time of his death, become more English than the English. It may have been the Victorians who distorted the famous “King Canute and the Waves” story. As I have included here, Cnut’s intention was to convince his people he did not have the power to turn the tide. Whether this scene was at Bosham (pronounced “Bozzum”) is unrecorded, but Bosham itself lays claim to the honour, and the tide does come in most superbly there—as anyone who has been unfortunate enough to leave their car parked on the seafront has discovered!