I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  Would peace have settled on Siward’s departing soul had he known King Edward’s choice for his successor?

  With Champart gone Edward, in his boredom and despair, had sought entertainment and distraction and found both within an unexpected blossoming of friendship. Tostig and his wife were often at court, preferring the company of his sister, the queen, to that of his mother or brothers. Tostig was unlike the rest of his family. He frowned on an excess of drink or women, condemned ribaldry and foul language.

  Edward began to like Tostig Godwinesson and his piety, and that liking, as once it had for Robert Champart, soon developed into something more like a dependancy. To Tostig, therefore, at the King’s command, went the highest honour below Wessex. Tostig was given Northumbria.

  3

  Westminster—March 1055

  Edith brushed a speck of fluff from the shoulder of her brother’s cloak, stood back a pace to admire him. Tostig was a handsome man, full-faced, fair-haired and blue-eyed—as were all Godwine’s offspring. His chin was firm and square, his shoulders broad above a strong chest with muscular arms. Of all her brothers, Edith loved Tostig the most.

  “You look splendid!” she declared with pride, flicking her eye critically for a second time over the formality of his attire. “The apparel of an earl suits you well.” She turned to smile at Tostig’s wife. “You are fortunate to have such a fine man as husband, Judith. My one regret is that you will soon be leaving court now that Easter is upon us.” Her happiness faded to a wail of dismay. “I doubt that I will come and visit you in that wilderness that is the North. They say that the wind blows all the time and that the populace is almost as uncivilised as the Welsh.” Edith shuddered, rubbing her arms against the fearful thought of both evils.

  Judith laughed, moving forward to cheerfully embrace her sister-in-law. They were devoted friends, these two childless women.

  “Our winters we shall spend here with you—and for the summer, there is a fine residence at York, a city, I have been told, which boasts a minster and several churches.”

  “Oh, indeed,” Edith agreed, admiring her sister-in-law’s fortitude. “With also a rabble of foreign traders and an abominable stink from the poor quarter and the muck that clogs the waterways.”

  “So we will feel most at home.” Tostig laughed. “’Twill be no different from the midden heap that is London. It is no use, my dear, I cannot put off going into my earldom any longer. Winter is not a time for riding northwards, but now that the catkins are dangling from the trees I must soon be away.”

  His pleasantry was to some degree faked, for he too had heard nothing good of the barbarian North—even the language was apparently unintelligible. But to counter his ill-ease, he was full of pride for his promotion—how long had he waited for such reward? And to get Northumbria for his own…! He would make a good earl, would rule with wisdom and a firmer hand than that old fool Siward. There was much to be done. Siward had turned too much of a blind eye to the blood feuds, murder, theft and highway robbery. That might be their way in the North, but it was not Tostig’s. It would stop. Northumbria would, like it or not, become civilised, would benefit from the enforcement of the King’s law. Siward had been old, set in the lawless ways of the past.

  Settling his cloak more comfortably on his shoulder, Tostig touched his fingers to the diamond and ruby glitter of the cloak pin. Earl! He understood his brother Harold’s pride in the title now—but equally, he puzzled over his brother’s absurd leniency in matters of the law. Harold argued that to punish lesser crimes with harshness left little with which to punish those who deserved more severity. Remove a hand for stealing an apple from a tree—then what could be meted for stealing gold from a king? A whipping for the one, mutilation for the other, that would be Harold’s choice. Tostig preferred to punish minor misdemeanours with a hard hand, so that fear would deter the more serious crime. Hah! Within the turn of the year he would most assuredly prove Harold wrong.

  “So,” he said, running his hand over the delicious feel of the marten fur. “For the first time I am to take my seat at Council as an earl. I confess that there has been occasion when I despaired of receiving such honour.”

  When Godwine had died and Ælfgar was installed as Earl of East Anglia, for instance. Tostig had felt that Harold ought to have remained there and he himself awarded Wessex. Although he was the younger, he was the more dedicated to duty and God, the more insistent on the letter of the law—and the harder-working of the two. Or if Harold must have been given Wessex, why had Anglia gone to Ælfgar, an idle, ineffective wastrel, more often than not drunk?

  “It was only a matter of patience, brother,” Edith said. “I have always wanted you as earl, but in the right place and position. Once Siward was gone…” She crossed herself, murmuring a brief prayer for the old man’s departed soul. They never talked at court of the paganism that had surrounded his dying. To be dressed in his armour indeed! The old Viking way? Was it any wonder the North under Siward had remained so backward?

  Brother and sister walked, arm linked through arm, along the echoing corridors to the Council chamber of Westminster Palace. Long and narrow, the chamber brooded beneath a high, vaulted roof of carved rafters that soared above plastered walls painted with scenes of past glory. The coming of Hengest and Horsa into Kent with their three keels; Saint Augustine at Canterbury; King Alfred defeating the Danes; behind the King’s raised dais, the hand of God stretching down to touch the emblazoned banner of England. The entirety of Westminster was designed to impress, occasionally at the expense of comfort, but Edith was as proud of her royal domain as was Edward. Lavish and ostentatious, it had become a place of absolute monarchy, where, beneath the King, Edith could now strut supreme. How things had changed since that terrible year of 1052!

  Guards stamped to attention as she and Tostig, followed by their retinue of servants, passed by. As always the palace was busy, an administrative town in its own right, the length of maze-worked corridors always a-bustle with men about urgent business. Tostig, being a son of Godwine, had been used to respect, but now he was an earl, the bowed heads and nods of courtesy suffused him with pleasure. Aye, long had he waited for this day!

  Meeting Earl Ælfgar face to face inside the open doorway to the chamber dampened his euphoria, as if iced water had been poured over his head. The man scowled a glower of hatred, looking Tostig up and down as if he were a swineherd. Dipping his head but slightly to the Queen, Ælfgar turned aside, pushed his way with surly rudeness through the crowd of men and disappeared out into the corridor beyond. Several eyebrows were raised, a few muttered comments exchanged. Tostig would not have been their first choice to become the warden of the North, but he was infinitely preferable to that bad-mannered churl Ælfgar.

  Escorting his sister to her throne in the forefront, Tostig took his place on a bench, beside Earl Ralf de Mantes of Hereford, setting his cloak with care so he might not crush its fine making. Ralf noted the apparel and smiled to himself Tostig had a right to revel in this, his first taste of pomp and ceremony. All too soon the shine would tarnish.

  Rapping the stone floor three times with his staff, a herald announced the coming of the King. All who were seated rose, speech rustled to a halt and Edward, escorted by eight of his housecarls, entered in full regalia. If the King’s nephew assumed that Earl Tostig would soon tire of the panoply of ceremony, then Edward most certainly had not.

  “Where are my Earls of Wessex and East Anglia?” the King asked, his voice echoing against the stone of the walls. “Did I not see your sour-tempered son striding away but moments past, Lord Leofric?”

  Leofric was ageing, his joints ached and his sight and hearing were not so sharp as once they had been. Ah, age was a thing that crept up with more stealth than a huntsman pursuing a doe with fawn at foot. And his son was more of a disappointment now than he had ever been. Leofric sighed. “I know not where he has gone, Sire, nor why.” Did not
add that he did not much care.

  Edward shrewdly regarded Tostig, then questioned Edith with his eyes. She told him what she wished to know. “Harold, Earl of Wessex, sends word that he has been delayed—that he will be here by noon on the morrow. As for the Earl of East Anglia, I conclude that he has no wish to be seated with our dear brother Earl Tostig. He is intent on pursuing this quarrel against your choice of promotion.”

  “Is he indeed!” Edward exclaimed. “Then he must think again.” Turning to the captain of his guard, he ordered, “Fetch him here. I would have Lord Ælfgar attend my Council!” Then, seating himself, Edward granted permission for his lords and nobles to follow suit. With some coughing and talk, the men settled their backsides on the wooden benches; only those who had the foresight had brought cushions.

  They waited ten minutes, fifteen.

  Earl Leofric sat with shoulders slumped, anger beginning to override his embarrassment. At least God had spared his dear wife Godgiva this humiliation, for she had been taken to His bosom three months since. How her spirit must be weeping at the foolishness of their only surviving son!

  The captain returned and spoke to Edward, who erupted from his chair in volcanic anger. “How dare he! How dare the cur disobey my order! Where is he now? Gone to his private room, you say? Well remove him! Remove him from my palace and from my kingdom. He is banished, I send him into exile, damn his insolence!”

  The murmur of astonishment swelled to a clatter of approval. Few men present felt sympathy for the idiocy of the man. Ælfgar had precipitated his own sentence of exile by persisting with this hostile warfare against the Godwinessons. Good riddance to him. England would be the better without his stormy tempers, bad manners and foul language.

  4

  Bosham

  The rain fell in a vertical curtain, so heavy that the view across the deserted courtyard was almost obliterated. Edward closed the shutter with an exaggerated sigh of boredom. He had ridden south to Bosham for the purpose of hunting, but until this rain—so unseasonable for May—ceased he would not set foot outside. He sighed again as he turned away from the window and strolled across the chamber, his lips puffing, arms folded. Everyone else was content, but then, everyone else had something of interest to do.

  This new upper chamber that Harold had built here at Bosham, Edward had to concede, was a most pleasant room, A first-floor solar giving views—huh, when there was a view—through four narrow windows of thick but small-paned glass overlooking the sea. It seemed remarkable, he thought, as he glanced about the recently completed chamber, that Godwine had never thought to extend his manor upwards into this more elegant and fashionable residence. But then Godwine always had been one for sticking like mud to the old, outdated ways. It must have cost Harold much in gold to have the manor rebuilt to such a fine standard. Bosham, Edward thought morosely, was more like a palace than a manor.

  “They say,” Edward announced across the room to Harold, “that you are now almost as wealthy as myself.”

  “Then ‘they’ are remarkably—but incorrectly—informed of private knowledge that is not ‘their’ concern.” Harold answered lightly, masking his annoyance. He doubted that Edward intended to be rude quite so often, but the man expressed himself so unfortunately, was so tactless, that he invariably set hackles rising.

  Impervious to the signs of his host’s irritation, Edward plunged on in his familiar querulous whine. “Your taxable assets reach almost two thousand pounds, I believe. My own are scarcely more.”

  “Did you know a slave-woman is expected to feed herself through a harsh winter on only three pennies?” Countess Gytha, seated on the opposite side of the cheerfully glowing hearth fire, glanced up from her embroidery, aiming to turn the conversation to more general discussion.

  “As much as that?” her daughter answered scathingly. “Half would be adequate, surely.” She stood before the table by the wall surrounded by her clerk, two masons and an architect, the proposed plans for her rebuilding of Wilton Nunnery spread before them.

  “Oh, do you think so, dear?” There were occasions when Gytha despaired of her daughter’s lack of compassion for those less fortunate than herself. God knew she had tried to instil it into her throughout childhood, but the girl had always been wilful and selfish. Harold and Edyth kept rein on their only daughter who, at eight, understood her manners. Her son Gyrth’s two young maids were also delightful children. With a grandmother’s pride she smiled at the group of grandchildren playing a boisterous ball and skittle game at the far end of the chamber, and laid her embroidery on to her lap to applaud as Algytha scored full points by toppling all six “men.” The girl’s yell of triumph and the echoing cheer from her brothers filled the room.

  Queen Edith glowered at them. She had a headache and was trying to concentrate on what this fool of an architect was blathering about. It was all very well for Harold’s woman to allow the children in here, but their noise was becoming tedious.

  “Did you see, Papa?” Algytha trotted to her father’s side, raising her arms for him to lift her. “Am I not clever?”

  “You certainly are, my sweeting, but look, your young cousin Alfgiva has knocked one over too!”

  “One!”

  “She is four years old, half your age, one is an achievement.” Harold set his daughter down with a laugh and patted her backside as she went to rejoin her brothers and cousins. Gyrth’s other daughter, Gunnhild, a year senior to her sister, took her turn with the ball, screamed in frustration as she missed the target.

  “For the sake of God!” Edith snapped. “Can we not have some peace in here?”

  Like Gytha, Harold’s wife Edyth was enjoying watching the children. Considering the enforced confinement from the rain, they were all behaving well—but it wouldn’t last. She tucked her needle into the woollen sock she had been darning and set her work into the basket by her feet. “I will take them below,” she said, rising and ushering the youngsters to her side. “We can play better in the aisle of the storeroom.” She held her hands out to the younger girls, asking Goddwin and Edmund to collect up the gaming pieces.

  “Could we set the men as a real army?” Goddwin queried as he tucked the wooden skittle pegs beneath his arm, his brother Edmund, five, solemnly holding the wooden ball between his clasped hands.

  “I should think so—battle formation, perhaps a defensive wedge or a cavalry square? What think you?” Edyth’s voice drifted down the stairwell, the eager chatter of the children following in her wake like white-maned waves behind a full-sailed keel.

  Gytha, too, set aside her sewing to go with her daughter-in-law. Edyth’s presence among the family when Edward and Edith were guests was always fraught with embarrassment, for neither accorded her more than the minimum politeness. There was little their frosty reticence could achieve. Edyth was established as Harold’s consort, and Gytha was never averse to showing, in subtle ways, her approval of the sweet-natured woman who, although she was reluctant to admit it, brought more joy than did her own daughter, for all she had achieved the acclaim of a queen’s crown.

  The chamber settled. A log hissed in the fire-grate, a blue-green flame dancing along the bark. Outside, and on the roof, the rain drummed, the occasional drip finding a way down through the two smoke holes in the apex.

  Edward sat, his toes perched on the hearth, playing a simple finger game, matching each corresponding fingertip to its opposite partner, gaining speed with each round. When would it be time to eat? That would create some diversion, not that he was hungry and his stomach had been upset again these past few days. If only Tostig were here, there would be better conversation, Tostig was well gifted with the telling of amusing tales, was informed on so many subjects that Edward never tired of debating with him. He missed Tostig. A pure young man, fair of face and manner; had it really been a wise decision to send him north? If he had given it to Ælfgar or one of the others of the Godwine brood, th
en Tostig would be more often at court…Edward missed the mark with his fingers, tutted with frustration and refolded his arms, tucking the offending digits beneath his armpits. Ælfgar. Why had he thought of that wretched whelp?

  “And how do we set our real army then, my Earl of Wessex? What of Wales and Ælfgar? May the devil take his hide and balls!”

  Wales, a country of uncivilised, godless warmongers. Wales, a wretched land of mountains and fog; of rain and mud and lakes, goblins and hags and fire-breathing dragons. Few Englishmen held an unbiased picture of the Welsh, the King being no exception.

  “The situation raises as many concerns now as when we discussed it at the Easter Council, my Lord,” Harold remarked, carefully choosing his words. Strange that he too had been pondering the difficult question of Wales.

  In the early spring, Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, Prince of Gwynedd and Powys, had swept southwards into Deheubarth and, with apparent ease, killed his long-term opponent Gryffydd ap Rhydderch. Gwynedd now ruled all of Wales, a situation that posed a threat to the English border lands. Already Gruffydd had attempted a few minor raids on Shrewsbury and Hereford, and now that Ælfgar, exiled for his rudeness to the King, had allied himself with Wales…there was no understanding the man. It surprised Harold to admit that he felt sympathy for Leofric, Ælfgar’s father. He had always been a bitter opponent to the Godwines, but Harold knew the misery a traitorous son could cause a family. God’s patience, but Gruffydd himself had slaughtered Leofric’s own brother and his wife’s father back in 1039! Ælfgar was fighting alongside the murderer of close kindred in these tediously repetitive raids across the Severn river.