The Last English King

by Julian Rathbone

  At the big feasts the men and women danced lewdly together with little decorum, and, according to his Norman churchmen, fornication and adultery were rife and largely accepted. Incest was common - not overt, but tolerated.

  More difficult yet to understand was the position of women in this society. Yes, as well as doing the lighter work in the fields, Eve span, looked after the children, made sure clothes were tolerably clean, floors swept, meals cooked, and they kept, by and large, away from the more important concerns of men. But with this difference: here in England these tasks were not thought to be menial, suitable only for chattels, property, slaves (for in most of Normandy that was what women were), but were highly respected and honoured for what they did, and woe-betide any man who tried to interfere. In the women’s world the woman was Queen.

  The hall was the men’s domain. There they drank and decided things, once a month or so formally, at village or manorial meetings, but on a daily basis too disputes were settled, jobs handed out by the thegn’s steward, and so on. All were allowed their say, and were listened too -- for instance if a man felt he had a better idea of how the time he owed his lord could be spent, he’d get his word in, or if he was in difficulties owing to illness, whatever.

  In the winter, if the weather was too bad for outdoor past-times, the hall was also used for bowling large wooden balls at nine club-shaped skittles with sometimes the prize for the winner at the end of the evening as valuable as a live pig. On these and other occasions they would drink ale to excess while the thegn and his sons passed out on mead or wine.

  Often a man would stay on in the hall after his companions had returned to their wives’ or mothers’ bowers because he was in dispute with his wife or mother over some domestic matter and she would not let him return until he had submitted. In Normandy a woman who behaved like that would end up in the stocks.

  And kinship! A woman was naturally and properly constrained to marry outside her nearest kin - but heaven help a husband who then mistreated her, or treated the property she had brought with her as his own. Led by her father a posse of brothers, uncles and cousins would soon be around with staves and stones and worse. And, worst of all, women could hold land and manage homesteads, manors or palaces in their own right if things fell out that way, owing to the deaths or wills of their menfolk. In short, these English actually treasured, even worshipped, their women - sought their approbation, gave them fine gifts and mourned deeply when a wife, mother or daughter died.

  Throughout his reign, in these and many other areas, Edward’s Normans, especially the cluniac-minded priests and monks, used everything from Holy Writ to threat of excommunication and hell-fire to persuade him to change things. But he learnt, not all at once, but bit by bit, to ignore them. It works and it’s the way they like things, he’d say to himself, and if every now and then they get into scrapes they’d rather it was so than have me interfere. Or: this is the English way of doing things, these people chose me for their king because I am half-English by blood if not by inclination - I should be betraying them if I did not allow them to be English.

  And, anyway - and he repeated it more and more to himself as he grew older, and finally, with his illness, almost senile - God would forgive him his laxity, his willingness to let things be for the sake of a quiet life, since Duke William was surely on his way and would put all to rights.

  But at other times, when the sun shone and he had grasped and solved some particularly knotty problem, he had a different sense of it all. One day, shortly after his coronation, during a brief spell of fine weather, he and Tostig again rode into the forest, this time with falconers in attendance with hooded merlins and peregrines trailing their jesses on their wrists, tiny silver bells tinkling. It had been a good ride. Through the downs south of Romsey, there had been primroses in abundance beside the track, cowslips on the downs themselves, the corn was just sprouting green in the fields and the first hawthorn buds were casting a haze of green over the deer hedges round the settlements they passed. Up on the downs there were larks spilling song above sheep flocks where already the young lambs played. There was a harmony about it all that was so palpable he felt he could almost hear it.

  On the edge of the forest he suddenly reined in and paused. In front of him was one of the largest oaks he had ever seen, a great tree indeed, spreading huge boughs over a circle almost thirty paces across, and as high as all but the highest buildings in the land. There were no leaves as yet but the brilliant green of its blossom was spreading over it and birds were already nesting in the fastnesses of its innermost boles and holes.

  England is, or nearly is, or strives to be like that tree, he thought, and not just the tree, but all the countless animals and smaller creatures who live in and off it. The blossom provides nectar for the bees. Acorns follow the blossom and wild pigs as well as squirrels rummage for them when they fall. There were twigs, small branches, great boughs and the massive trunk. And below ground a vast network of roots including the trunk-like tap-root that found water even in the severest drought. He knew this because there were still plenty of up-rooted trees around, victims of the Great Gale that had devastated the south three years earlier. He sensed the extreme differences between each part -- the fragility of the blossom, the harsh roughness of the bark, the vulnerability of the robins and tits in their nests to the magpies and pine martens that invaded from outside, the flashing bright red of the squirrels and the wings of moths, so cunningly patterned that they were indistinguishable from the bark, and others that could simulate the leaves. Then there was the transience of the foliage in contrast to the permanence of the timber. He was aware too of how these great trees looked after themselves - if a bough went rotten with fungus or beetles, the tree shed it. An abundance of oak-apples brought in the birds that would eat the worms that made them. If it over-produced blossom and acorns in one summer, in the next there would be almost none while it rebuilt its strength instead.

  Was there a sense in which one could say one part was more important than the other? Was the glorious canopy superior to the deepest roots, the massive endurance of noble boughs greater than the contribution of passing leaves? Of course he did not know just how the leaves contributed, but he did know that a tree which lost its leaves through disease or fire died. Could any part survive deprived of all of any other? Edward thought not, or was beginning to learn this might be the case.

  And so it was, he sensed, with England. Every part was dependant on every other part and he began to realise where his function in all this lay. Basically, it was a self-regulating system, responding to outside changes and to changes within itself, but such self-regulation could take time and leave it exposed to predators from outside: his job was to foresee such imbalances and, by fine adjustment, correct them, curbing growth here or stimulating it there, making sure that no one part got so much more than the others that the others began to weaken. On one side this could mean restraining the greed of the large land-holders but on the other it also meant that the people, these free people, especially those who worked the land, should not get lazy, doing just enough to support their kin. There had to be surplus too - and not just to ensure there were reserves in times of famine but also so the artisans, the merchants, the potters, the builders and all the rest could make their contributions without having to wonder where the next loaf of bread was coming from. The merchants too could commodify this surplus into material for exchange so they could obtain abroad not just the luxuries and gew-gaws the noble classes so much enjoyed but staples too when famine or shortage struck.

  And the thing that he found most difficult to grasp and even believe in about all this was that, by and large, these people believed in it all too.

  At their best they were bound from lowest to highest by mutual respect. There was an easyness between a lord and his man that he had never seen in Normandy. Sure a man might complain at the long hours he worked for his lord, but he knew his lord would supply him in times of trouble, protect him when invad
ers came, provide him with a church, and above all leave him with enough control over his own life and his family for him to retain the self-respect every Englishman deemed his birth-right. Of course this meant they spent hours, days even, in their confounded moots and councils debating endless points which he, Edward, given the chance, would have settled in a moment. But this was England - all were entitled to have their say. It also meant, and it irked him till the day he died, that no one, often not even the serfs, ever addressed a superior by his correct title, as master, lord, sire, majesty.

  The thing he learnt most to admire, though it was a difficult thing for his Norman upbringing to accept, was that, while the country was, yes, an intricate web of interconnections and interdependencies seen both horizontally from farmstead to manor, from village to burgh, from sheep-farmer to fisherman, from charcoal-burner to iron smelter, or vertically from King to serf, each community accepted responsibility for itself and all its members - the aged, the sick, the women, the children and even the wrong-doers. Step out of line in a way the community felt brought it into disrepute and it could well treat you more harshly than the laws of the land.

  There had to be a word to describe this interlocking of self-interest and genuine altruism. The Latin words mutuus and communis suggested themselves. English society could be said to live and act per mutua, mutually: thus Mutual Help was the process by which it all worked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The coronation took place in Winchester on the third of April, Easter Day, 1043 in the presence of the full Witan. Old Siward of Northumbria and Levfric of Mercia were there. With all of Wessex, Sussex, Kent, much of East Anglia and the Thames Valley ranged against them, they did not have much choice.

  The nobles and notables of England remained at Winchester for the whole of Easter week. During the daylight hours a government was put together, and since the weather remained cold, even frosty, much of it was done indoors in smoke-filled rooms since the long winter had depleted charcoal stocks. There was much wheeling and dealing, horse-trading too (sometimes literally), favours were called in and promised.

  Ageing housecarls were pensioned off with their own and their sons recruited to replace them. The tax to pay for them, called heregeld, the successor of Danegeld, raised to pay for the standing army and navy, was fixed and the extremely complicated ways by which it was to be raised renewed. Appointments were made. The lines between the Kings jurisdiction and private justice administered by local courts and moots were firmly established or re-established. The duties of King’s Reeves were carefully separated from those of Earls’ Sheriffs, so all knew who was responsible for what.

  Clerks scurried about writing it all down, getting Edward signature on document after document, confirming privileges here and dues there. All -- earls, thegns, churchmen, clerks -- agreed that Edward was confident and competent. They also could not tail to notice that Godwin’s third son was always close at his elbow and that occasionally they touched hands or squeezed shoulders. This neither surprised nor distressed them. It did not surprise because they recognised Godwin’s cunning in inserting his third son as the king’s favourite and it did not distress either. Relationships of this sort were common, especially between unmarried men, and, being English, though they gossiped about it, most agreed that what they got up to in private was their own affair. Perhaps God’s too, but certainly no one else’s.

  Edward found all this very refreshing. In Normandy he had had similar relationships, but, in an atmosphere pervaded by the puritanism of the reforming monks from Cluny, found it bothersome to be constantly reminded that God had special places in Hell set aside for sodomites, and tortures too generally involving red-hot pokers.

  He learnt most when things went wrong, which they did frequently during the first five years of his reign.

  A wet, cold summer followed his coronation. Mould grew in the ears of corn before it could be harvested, and by All Saints Day, when many taxes and dues had to be paid, the price of grain peaked at the highest level ever; murrain carried off most of the cattle in the warm, wet autumn. By Christmas people up and down the country were starving. And that was when he saw how seriously the rich and great, both secular and religious, took their responsibilities. Barns of stored grain were opened, taxes remitted, food bought in from the Continent. Of course the bluff Saxon Bishop of Wells assured Edward with a belly laugh that if they allowed all the poor to die then there’d be no idle rich -- but he could see that compassion and duty played a greater part than mere self-interest.

  The same lesson was learned with the terrible winter of 1047, when birds froze in the trees and dropped to the ground; wild animals and the wild men of the woods too, the Celtic fringe, came out of the forests and hung around the enclosures for warmth and scraps, and nearly every homestead and village was cut off for weeks by driven snow. Finally, in 1048 there was an earthquake whose epicentre was in Mercia. It destroyed Worcester, Droitwich and Derby and set off huge forest fires.

  But from then on, as far as natural phenomena were concerned, things went well. The climate mellowed and vines were planted again as far north as York, the population grew but agricultural methods were improved. The surpluses produced money and, amongst the many projects Edward instigated using this capital, the greatest was the building of Westminster Abbey. By 1065, the opinion amongst the common sort was that Edward was a saint, and as such people do, they were happy to lay their good fortune at his door.

  But Edward was no saint. Moreover, he remained a Norman in all but name. Never mind the quality of the art, sculpture and music that surrounded him, he longed for the hierarchical formalities of Norman courts. He became pious and was therefore vulnerable to the Norman priesthood who looked to Rome and the Pope. The English church had little time for piety, nor popery either, for that matter. Duty, yes, saying the offices, looking after the poor, maintaining the fabric of their establishments, above all producing the best, most marvellously illuminated manuscripts and wall paintings anywhere in the world, far far better than the Normans, for instance -- but deep devotion, mortification remained alien. They were suspicious of such enthusiasms.

  However, the famines, bad winters, earthquakes came later. The first crises were political and deeply personal at the same time. The first preceded his coronation by a few weeks, though it was not finally settled until the following September.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Housed in the best building in Winchester apart from the Minster, and one of the few built of stone, dowager Queen Emma, Edward’s mother, kept her own court. She sent for him, late in February, choosing her time well since Godwin and the Godwinsons were either in their own earldoms, or, in Godwin’s and Harold’s case, in the north country negotiating with Old Siward of Northumbria and Leofric of Mercia the terms under which the northerners might accept Edward as their king.

  Emma, daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy, was the widow of two kings, the mother of one, and shortly would be the mother of a second. Her first husband, Ethelred the Redelees, married her in a fit of desperation in 1002 -- no doubt hoping that an alliance with Normandy, cemented by marital ties, would at least stop the Normans from giving the Danes help and support. In fact, the only thing the marriage achieved was the Norman connection which fifty years later became the basis of Bastard William’s claim.

  Emma, then not yet twenty, was Ethelred’s second wife. By his first wife Elfleda, he had had several children, most notably Edmund, known as Ironside. This meant that Emma’s children, Alfred and Edward, were figures of little importance, especially when the heroic Ironside undertook a far sturdier defence of the realm than his father had ever managed, even though their chief assailant was now the equally redoubtable and youthful Canute. Ethelred died and, after exceptionally bloody campaigns against Canute which ended with them agreeing to share the kingdom, Ironside followed his father. The Witan now confirmed Canute as King of all England.

  No doubt hoping to strengthen the legitimacy of what was in effect a
conquest, Canute took the widows hand in marriage. Possibly she was flattered -- even enraptured. The young Danish King was at least seven years younger than she was, huge of limb, of great strength, and a very goodly man to look upon, save for his nose, which was lofty, narrow and hooked; he also had long, fair hair, and eyes brighter than those of any man living.

  Unfortunately for Emma he also had an English/Danish wife, Elgiva of Northampton, alive and well and whom he repudiated. Sort of. In fact she remained queen in the north and east of the country in all but name and actually ruled his Norwegian Empire for a time as regent for their eldest son, Swein. Her second son was Harold Harefoot. Emma’s situation was thus not a lot better than it had been when she was the second wife of Ethelred - in fact in some ways worse. At least Ethelred had been a widower.

  By 1043 she was extremely wealthy. When she married Canute, Exeter, the major city of the west, was her dowry and the taxes and duties it raised were paid directly to her. She was the widow of two kings, one of whom had ruled an empire that stretched from the land of the Midnight Sun to Land’s End and from Land’s End to the shores of the Baltic beyond Denmark. She had treasure in gold coin and jewellery worth many many thousands of pounds -- and it was all in the cellars of her Winchester house. Deprived of any real power at almost every moment of her life she had hoarded the next best thing - the wherewithal to buy power.

  Edward was welcomed by her chaplain and adviser, a monk called Stigand. A strong, burly man in Benedictine black, he had short sandy hair, tonsured, above a square, reddish face, snub nose, mean blue eyes, thickish lips, jowels that shook. He was Edward’s age or a little younger. He had been Canute’s and Harold Harefoot’s chaplain and one of their principal advisers. With some discretion he had withdrawn into the shadows during Harthacanute’s brief reign, acting as chief adviser and chaplain to the dowager Queen, a position he still held. He led Edward to Emma’s hall, announced him and withdrew. Worldly, ambitious, sensual, he typified for Edward all that was bad about the English church.