These were, of course, thoughts best kept to himself. So he just said, ‘Of course, I quite understand. I could not imagine life without Matilda.’ (There, that’s reminded him, he thought.)
‘That means, therefore, that King Edward is highly unlikely to have a son of his own to be his heir,’ Champart continued. ‘Might I ask, are you aware of the rather unusual way in which the English choose their kings?’
‘Isn’t it done by the nobles? They all get together and decide which possible heir has the best claim and would make the best king, something like that?’
‘Precisely. Of course, you or I may find this an absurd way to determine kingship, and the truth is that when there is an undisputed male heir presumptive, he can count on the nobility’s support. It is only when there is some dispute over the succession that difficulty arises.’
‘I imagine so,’ said William, ‘but I don’t quite understand what the ins and outs of English custom have to do with me. Excuse me if I sound discourteous, but my time is precious, and—’
Champart held up his hands. ‘Of course, of course, I am detaining you too long. Let me get to the point. His Majesty met recently with his most powerful earls, including Godwin, I might add, along with a number of senior churchmen, one of whom I was privileged to be. He named his chosen successor as King of England, and required every man there present to swear a solemn oath that he would do nothing to oppose this successor’s right to the throne, or to challenge him once he was king.’
‘Huh, that’s certainly a bold move.’ William paused and frowned as he tried to muster the names of all the English and Scandinavian nobles and monarchs who had expressed, often violently, an interest in ruling England. ‘Who was King Edward’s choice?’
Champart smiled. He let a few seconds elapse, just to draw the moment out, and then he looked at William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, this powerful young bullock of a man, with his fiery red hair and his chilly blue eyes, filled to bursting with energy, pride, and ill-concealed resentment for all the indignities he had endured. ‘You, my lord duke,’ he said. ‘You are King Edward’s chosen heir. And thus you, William of Normandy, will be the next King of England.’
Author’s Note
Firstly a spoiler alert: anyone who hasn’t read the book and wishes to maintain as much suspense as possible might be advised to finish it first before reading any more of this note. It may also make more sense and answer more questions that way. So . . .
This is a work of fiction, insofar as I have made up virtually all the conversations held by all the characters on every page in every chapter. Some events, too, are inventions, particularly when they involve the relatively small number of entirely fictional characters.
It is also a work of fiction in the sense that there are surprisingly few reliable facts available, even in documents considered to be primary historical sources. Most roughly contemporary accounts of events are chronicles written by various monks. These tend to be sketchy, contradictory and lacking any concrete data in the sense that we would understand it today. To take one particularly significant example, the Gesta Ducum Normanorum (or Deeds of the Dukes of Normandy), which is the closest thing in existence to an authorised account of Norman political life, contains virtually no dates. It’s written in such a way as to make it very difficult indeed sometimes to work out the precise sequence of events. And it’s often more a matter of gossip and even myth than anything approaching objective historical fact.
Then again, that gossip is often wildly entertaining and perfect for a novelist’s purposes. Any reader wondering where I got the idea for an early medieval hitman called Odo the Fat, or a psychotic, murderous Count of Bellême who has an even more violent son and a beautiful daughter who simply oozes evil should know that they all come straight from the pages of the Gesta.
Likewise the linked stories of an assassination conspiracy foiled by a fool, a minor nobleman who helps save the duchy and a battle that decides the fate of Normandy are all taken, right down to some of the dialogue, from the Roman de Rou, a chronicle written by a twelfth century poet and priest called Wace. The story of Queen Emma’s ordeal by fire is told by another twelfth century chronicler, Richrd of Derizes. Most historians would certainly dismiss it as an apocryphal myth, rather than a factual event, but I felt free to retell it, nonetheless.
It is, after all, a novelist’s privilege to allow him or herself a certain licence. We are not held to the same standards of proof as academics. There is no proof at all that William of Normandy wooed, or some would say assaulted his future wife Matilda of Flanders in the way that I have described. But it is a long established legend, and a great story to boot. Why on earth would I waste it?
All that said, the narrative as a whole conforms pretty closely to historical accounts of events in Normandy, England and Scandinavia over the fourteen years or so covered in the book. True, I have rearranged the sequence or timing of some events for dramatic effect, and because the plot of a novel needs a degree of structure that the randomness of real life does not always provide. On several occasions I have invented scenes where none exist in order to expand on events that are only mentioned in passing in the histories, or to explain occurrences that would otherwise be mysterious. I have also chosen at times to take the more interesting of two possible options when the opportunity arises: thus it was my choice, for example, to follow a source that claimed Ralph de Gacé was born out of wedlock, rather than those that declared him a legitimate son of Archbishop Robert. But I very much hope that I have not distorted the events I describe to the point where they just don’t match what is known to have actually happened. Thus, irrespective of his parentage, de Gacé certainly does seem to have ordered at least one of the assassinations I ascribe to him.
Much of the time, I am using fiction to fill in very glaring gaps in history. For example, every death of every named historical character is based on fact: the person in question really did die in a manner consistent with my description. But early medieval people could frequently not explain why a person had dropped down dead. They simply lacked the scientific knowledge to determine whether they were ill, let alone what the disease might be, or were the victims of homicide.
Norman chroniclers in particular often suspected murder (for some reason Anglo-Saxons were more trusting and tended to think that sudden deaths were acts of God rather than man) but they often had no idea who had murdered a given victim, or why. So in some cases I have provided my own accounts and explanations. But that still leaves plenty of killings – those of Gilbert of Brionne and Osbern Herfastsson, for example – whose descriptions are taken directly from specific accounts written not long after the events in question.
This is fundamentally a story about conflicts between and within great families, whose influence stretched across the whole of northwest Europe and whose fortunes were interlinked by events, marriage and blood. Just to illustrate the point, Harold Godwinson, future adversary of William of Normandy, was the son of Godwin, Earl of Wessex. Godwin’s wife was Gytha, the sister of a Danish noble, Ulf Jarl, whose wife was Estrith, daughter of King Sweyn of Denmark and sister of King Canute of Denmark and England. Canute’s wife was Emma of Normandy who was not only the mother of his son and potential heir Harthacnut, but also the widow of King Ethelred and mother of his son and potential heir Edward, and was also the sister of Duke Richard II of Normandy. His son Duke Robert I was, of course, father of Duke William of Normandy and also the younger brother of Duke Richard III, whose widow Adela was wife of Count Baldwin IV of Flanders and mother of their daughter Matilda, who became the wife of, yes, William of Normandy.
This is a deliciously complicated web of relationships – hence the need for a family tree. But the situation is made harder, from a writer’s point of view, by the problem of names. Early medieval folk had a very limited number of names for their children, and boys in particular. If a Norman baron had five sons – and
plenty of them did – they were almost certain to include a Richard, Robert, William and Ralph, with either an Odo, a Geoffrey, a Fulk or a Hugh to make up the numbers. Scandinavians liked nothing better than a Sven/Sweyn/Swegen or a Harald. Women were marginally more varied in their names, though both Emma of Normandy and Elgiva of Northampton (as I have called them) were known to their Anglo-Saxon contemporaries as Aelfgifu, and the number of Ediths surrounding the English court in the later years of Edward the Confessor and the brief reign of Harold II will, I am sure, prove very troublesome in the next volume of my story.
The problem is made worse by the fact that surnames as we know them were really not a part of early medieval life. In Scandinavia, as in Russia, people were distinguished by patronyms. So Gytha, the Danish-born wife of Earl Godwin of Wessex, was known as Gytha Thorkelsdóttir (Thorkel’s daughter) and their son Harold was Harold Godwinson. The Norman equivalent was the prefix ‘Fitz’, which was a corruption of the French word ‘fils’, meaning son. Thus Osbern the Steward was known as Osbern Herfastsson because his father (brother to Duchess Gunnor, wife of Duke Richard I of Normandy) was a Dane called Herfast. His son William was William Fitzosbern because the family now used a Norman equivalent to their old Viking style.
Another way people got around this problem was by telling, say, one John from another by their profession, as in ‘John Baker’; or origins, such as ‘John of Rouen’; or by a nickname like ‘John the Bold’.
I have tried a number of similar stratagems. So, for example, the only William in this book who is regularly referred to by that name alone is our hero, Duke William, known at this point as William the Bastard, though remembered by posterity as William the Conqueror.
There are, however, many other characters who were christened William. The Duke had an uncle William, the Count of Arques and Talou. I decided to call him ‘Talou’ because that is easier for a non-French speaker to read and pronounce than Arques. Of course it does look a bit like ‘Talvas’, which was the nickname (meaning ‘hammer’) that contemporaries gave to William Count of Bellême and which I used to identify him. But since Talvas and Talou are never in the same scene, I chose to ignore that problem. Finally William Fitzosbern becomes ‘Fitz’, because he is one of William’s closest friends and that sounds like a name one friend might use to address another.
A few years ago, writing a novel about a very different period of history, I received a great deal of help from an academic expert in the field. I sent him a copy of my first draft, to check that I had understood everything correctly and not made too many glaring mistakes. He called me up, having read the manuscript and said, ‘The history’s fine. But this is meant to be a novel. So stop trying to be a historian and go back and write like a novelist.’
That proved to be wonderful advice. And that is the basis on which I have written this novel too.
David Churchill
West Sussex, 2016
Timeline
Many of the dates below are not known to historians, open to debate, or relate to fictional occurrences. Count Alan of Brittany, for example, is frequently said to have died in 1040, rather than 1039 and the entire sequence of events leading to William’s marriage to Matilda, including the date of the wedding itself is a matter of legend and conjecture. So while the dates below relate as closely as possible to known historical facts, where those are available, this timeline is primarily intended as a guide to events that occur in Duke, giving readers a general sense of what is happening when. Anyone revising for an exam in Early Medieval History, however, is advised very strongly not to rely upon it!
1035
–Harold Harefoot becomes King of England
1037
–Death of Archbishop Robert in Normandy
–Alan of Brittany, Osbern Herfastsson and Gilbert of Brionne take on guardianship of William the Bastard, seventh Duke of Normandy
–Mauger becomes Archbishop of Rouen
1039
–Sudden death of Alan of Brittany while besieging the town of Vimoutiers
–Ralph de Gacé becomes one of William’s guardians and a key member of his inner circle
–Harthacnut signs a treaty with King Magnus of Norway by which if either dies without an heir, his kingdom would go to the other
1040
–Death of Harold Harefoot in England
–Gilbert of Brionne is murdered while out riding near the village of Bec Hellouin
–Harthacnut takes the English throne
–Posthumous execution of Harold Harefoot
–Osbern the Steward is murdered at Vaudreuil while protecting the young Duke William
1041
–Harthacnut orders the harrying of Worcester
–Edward returns to England
1042
–Queen Emma of England is arrested by Edward and survives trial by fire (legend)
–Death of Harthacnt in Lambeth, England
1043–1044
–Edward the Confessor succeeds Harthacnut and is crowned King of England
–William goes to the court in Bruges to seek the assistance of Count Baldwin
–William takes the castle at Falaise
1045
–Edward married Edith, daughter of Godwin of Wessex
1046
–Guy of Burgundy mounts a rebellion against William
–William entreats King Henry of France for help in resisting Guy
1047
–King Henry’s army enters Normandy to aid William’s cause
–William’s army defeat the rebel army led by Guy of Burgundy at Val-ès-Dunes
–Guy retreats to his castle at Brionne. William blockades the castle and becomes the undisputed power in Normandy
1048
–William and Matilda of Flanders meet as adults at the court in Bruges
–William proposes marriage to Matilda. Initially she resists him
1050
–Marriage of William of Normandy and Matilda of Flanders
1051
–Duke William is named as Edward the Confessor’s heir to the English throne
The Leopards of Normandy: Duke: Leopards of Normandy 2 Page 42
