Conquest 03 - Knights of the Hawk

by James Aitcheson

  That was who I was, and who I would continue to be.

  I, Tancred.

  Historical Note

  FEW PEOPLE TODAY have heard of Eadgar Ætheling, Wild Eadric and the other leaders who instigated the series of rebellions during the years immediately following the Normans’ arrival in England. One name that continues to resonate, however, is that of the outlaw Hereward, later known by the epithet ‘the Wake’, whose stand in the Fens against the invaders has become the stuff of legend.

  Much mystery surrounds Hereward, who first appears in the historical record in late 1070, when his sack of the monastery at Peterborough is mentioned in the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for that year. Of his life and deeds, there is little that is reliably known. The Chronicle’s only other reference to him is in the following year, when it records his courageous escape from Ely, together with ‘all who could flee away with him’, even as the rebellion around him was crumbling. As David Roffe suggests in his entry on Hereward in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP, 2004), the brevity of this mention might imply that, at the time this passage was composed, the tale of Hereward and his exploits was so well known that no further explanation was needed.

  Due to the lack of information given in contemporary accounts about Hereward and the Ely rising, we are largely reliant on later, twelfth-century sources, including the Liber Eliensis (Book of Ely), the Gesta Herewardi (Deeds of Hereward), and Geoffrey Gaimar’s L’estoire des Engleis (The History of the English People). All three appear to have been influenced to a greater or lesser extent by a now-lost chanson cycle about the life of Hereward. Their versions of events incorporate a significant dose of romance, and draw heavily on contemporary heroic tropes and literary devices, and, furthermore, contradict each other on several crucial aspects, all of which means it is difficult to reconstruct a coherent narrative of Hereward’s life and the siege of Ely. In writing Knights of the Hawk, I have been selective in my use of these sources, borrowing certain elements while at the same time choosing to reject others.

  What seems likely is that Hereward was not in overall command of the rebellion, or at least if he was, only for a short while. While his role in Ely’s defence was obviously significant enough that his name was remembered in legend, he was certainly not the highest-ranking individual present, and it seems more likely that if the rebels looked to anyone for leadership, it would have been Earl Morcar. However, given that we do not know whether the rebels all shared the same cause, or were ever anything more than a loose coalition, it might be that no single person was in charge.

  Regarding the events of the siege and the reasons for the rebellion’s eventual downfall, the sources disagree. It is possibly significant that the historian Orderic Vitalis, also writing in the early twelfth century but whose account of these early years of the Norman Conquest is generally considered reliable, does not mention Hereward at all in his short summation of the siege of Ely. Instead he records only that ‘crafty messengers’ proposed ‘treacherous terms’ to Morcar, in order to deceive him with false promises into surrendering to the king. Around the mention of these anonymous messengers, I have woven the fictional tale of Tancred’s capture of Godric, and his use as a go-between and hostage in the exchanges of information between King William (Guillaume) and Earl Morcar.

  The exact details of how, in the end, the Normans managed to capture the Isle, however, are unclear. The Gesta Herewardi implies, somewhat implausibly, that the Normans’ capture of the Isle occurred without much bloodshed at all, after Abbot Thurstan of Ely submitted to the king and invited him to come in secret to the Isle. But it says nothing of the means by which King William was able to cross the marshes that for so long had stood in his way. Earlier, it mentions a causeway that he’d ordered built, across which the Normans had attacked unsuccessfully, the structure having collapsed under the weight of men and horses, resulting in a great loss of life. This story is corroborated by the Liber Eliensis. However, in contrast to the Gesta’s assertion that William arrived in secret, the Liber has a much more dramatic tale, telling of a final assault across a pontoon bridge, although whether this followed the same route as the first causeway is not clear. Having traversed the marshes, the Liber further relates that the king and his army faced a battle against a large rebel army comprising 3,000 men, who had fortified the Isle’s shore. Since it seems unlikely that the Normans faced no resistance at all in their crossing of the marsh, I have preferred this version of events to that provided by the Gesta. However, the details of this struggle are extremely sketchy, and so I have elaborated in order to harmonise it with Orderic’s story of Morcar’s submission to King William.

  What became of Hereward after his famous flight from Ely, we can only surmise. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has nothing more to say about him after this incident, and our other principal sources are once again in conflict. The Gesta Herewardi suggests that, following several more adventures, he was imprisoned by the king, set free by a band of his followers, before at last reaching a rapprochement with the king and being restored to his familial lands, where he lived out the rest of his life in happiness. In Gaimar’s version, too, Hereward is reconciled to the king, but there is an additional coda, in which the former rebel is set upon and killed – albeit after a valiant last stand – by a band of Norman knights. It’s possible that Hereward’s fate was a mystery even to most contemporaries, which is why we have such varying accounts. Alternatively, after his escape from the Isle, he sought refuge overseas, like many dispossessed Englishmen in the years after 1066. Into this gap in our knowledge I have inserted my own tale of Tancred’s pursuit of Hereward through the marshes, the skirmish, and Hereward’s death by Godric’s hand.

  Regarding the fates of some of the other rebels, we can be more certain. We know, for example, that whatever accommodation the king reached with Morcar, it was swiftly revoked. Hardly had the earl submitted than he was cast in prison, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Another prominent figure among the rebels, Bishop Æthelwine of Durham, whose role in events is unclear and whom I have mentioned only in passing in the novel, was sent to Abingdon Abbey, where he was held in captivity until he died the following winter. Of the rest, some were imprisoned, while others were allowed to go free, although not before having their hands severed and their eyes gouged out.

  One individual who is believed to have met his end during the siege of the Isle is Guillaume Malet. We know from a few short references in Domesday Book (1086) that ‘he went into the marsh’ and that he died during his service to the king, and it seems probable that both statements refer to the Ely campaign. It has been suggested by Cyril Hart in his article ‘William Malet and his Family’ (Anglo-Norman Studies, vol. 19, 1996) that his role would have been administrative rather than military, given his previous failures as a commander in the defence of York, but the truth is that we simply don’t know. The circumstances of his death are likewise a mystery; my contention that he was already dying as a result of illness contracted during his imprisonment by the Danes is pure invention. At any rate, we hear no more of his whereabouts after 1071. The location of his grave is unknown, but given the relative proximity of Ely to Eye in Suffolk, which was the family’s chief estate in East Anglia, it is entirely plausible that his body would have been laid to rest there.

  As well as Hereward, Morcar, Malet and the various kings mentioned in the novel who ruled during this period, many of the other characters are based on real historical persons. These include both Roberts – de Commines and Malet – Beatrice and her husband Guillaume d’Archis (William d’Arques), Elise, Thurcytel and Magnus. Tancred’s young charge Godric is also based on a real figure, albeit one who appears in the sources as little more than a name. The Gesta Herewardi lists him among Hereward’s companions, and describes him as a nepos of Morcar – a term that many medieval writers used to describe various familial relations, but which is often translated as ‘nephew’. Aside from this brief mention, however, we know nothin
g of the historical Godric, and so the character I’ve constructed is essentially fictional.

  Magnus was probably the third son of Harold Godwineson by his first wife, Eadgyth ‘Swan-neck’. Following their father’s death at Hastings, he and his two elder brothers, Godwine and Eadmund, appear to have fled to Dublin, from where they staged two raids on the south-west of England. The first of these took place in 1068, but achieved little. Entering the River Avon, the three brothers proceeded to Bristol, possibly expecting a warm welcome as the heirs of the former king and Earl of Wessex. If so, they were disappointed. They were resisted by the townspeople and met in battle by a prominent local landowner named Eadnoth the Staller, whom they killed before venturing back to Ireland with their plunder. In the summer of 1069, the brothers returned with either sixty-four or sixty-six ships, hinting at a significant force numbering perhaps as many as 3,000 men. Again, however, their efforts came to nothing. They were repelled, this time by a certain Count Brien, who was able to surprise them, inflict heavy casualties in the ensuing skirmish, and drive them off. After their defeat, they withdrew once more to Ireland, and, with that, Harold’s sons disappear into obscurity. About their further activities or their ultimate fates, the sources offer no information, and we can only speculate.

  Orderic tells us that Harold’s sons were given support by King Diarmait and other Irish princes, which has been interpreted as meaning ships and men, although how many is unknown. It seems likely that their raiding-force would also have included other exiles from England, as well as Hiberno-Norse freebooters looking for the opportunity to win plunder. There was no individual by the name of Haakon Thorolfsson in real life, although there would probably have been many warlords like him who plied their trade by selling their swords to the highest bidder. At this precise point in history, it isn’t clear what ruler, if any, held sway over the Hebrides, and it may be that there existed a vacuum of power along this vital sea route from the Continent to Iceland and Orkney: a vacuum that would have allowed pirates and petty kings alike to flourish. Readers familiar with the geography of the region might have been able to spot from the descriptions offered that Jarnborg, Haakon’s fictional ‘iron fortress’, is sited on the island of Lismore in Loch Linnhe, across the water from modern Oban.

  The verse recited by Eudo on the eve of the battle for the Isle is excerpted, of course, from The Song of Roland, the heroic poem concerning the last stand of its eponymous hero in a remote mountain pass in the Pyrenees. The oldest surviving manuscript of this text dates from sometime between 1130 and 1170, but there is good reason to suppose that the Song itself was composed earlier than this, perhaps as early as 1060, although the generally accepted date is around the time of the First Crusade (1095–99). Two twelfth-century authorities, William of Malmesbury and the Norman poet Wace – no relation to my character of the same name – state that a certain Taillefer sang of the deeds of Roland as an exhortation to the Normans immediately before the Battle of Hastings. It might well be the case that certain elements of the Roland legend had already been committed to verse by the time of the Conquest, even if the full Song as we know it today didn’t yet exist in its final form. The text I have quoted is derived from John O’Hagan’s verse translation of 1880, published by C. Kegan Paul & Co., although I have adapted it slightly.

  The poetry spoken by Magnus in Chapter Twenty, meanwhile, is excerpted from an Old English elegy known to modern scholars as ‘The Wanderer’. The poem is narrated from the perspective of an exiled warrior whose lord and companions have been killed. Plagued by sorrow and by memories of former glories, he finds himself wandering the cold seas, bemoaning the situation to which wyrd (‘fate’ or ‘destiny’) has condemned him. I have referred to this text once before, in Sworn Sword, but it seemed especially appropriate that Magnus should quote from it here as well.

  With hindsight, it might be argued that the suppression of the Ely rebellion marked the culmination of King William’s bitter wars of conquest, which had lasted five years and resulted in the deaths of thousands of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, English, Welsh and Danes. But we should not suppose that, even by the end of 1071, he felt entirely secure. No one could know, after all, what plots were afoot beyond the boundaries of his realm: in Wales and Scotland, France and Denmark. Peace rarely lasted long, and as will become apparent, there was no shortage of troubles in the years to come.

  Whether Tancred decides in the end to return to England, or whether he ventures forth to seek his fortune elsewhere, time will tell. One thing is for certain, however, which is that he will ride again soon.

  Acknowledgements

  AS ALWAYS, I’D like to take the opportunity to thank several individuals without whom this novel would not have been possible.

  Knights of the Hawk sees Tancred venturing further from home than ever before: into distant lands filled with people whose languages are unfamiliar to his ear. Once again I’m indebted to Richard Dance of St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, for being my guide through the linguistic patchwork that was eleventh-century Britain, and for taking the time to translate several passages of modern English dialogue into Old Norse and Old English.

  Many thanks also to my editor, Georgina Hawtrey-Woore, to Katherine Murphy, Amelia Harvell and everyone else at Random House for all their hard work in bringing these books from manuscript to bookshelf, as well as to my copy-editor, Richenda Todd, whose close attention to detail has helped to make this the best work it can possibly be.

  For their generous feedback, I am once again grateful to Jonathan Carr, Liz Pile, Beverly Stark, Tricia Wastvedt, Joanne Sefton, Jules Stanbridge and Gordon Egginton, who all took the time to read extracts from the novel at various stages during its development, and whose insights and advice have proven enormously helpful.

  Final thanks, as ever, go to my family and to Laura for all their unfailing support and encouragement through the course of writing the novel.

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  Copyright © James Aitcheson 2013

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