The Last English King

by Julian Rathbone

  For almost exactly half a century, first Canute and then Godwin and the Godwinsons had kept war confined to the coasts and borders. Not since Ironside disputed the succession with Canute had there been actual serious bloodshed in the heart of middle England. But now the threat was there again it had been fourteen years earlier at Gloucester, and for much the same reason - rivalry between the two greatest families in the land was at the root of it.

  Edwin and Morcar, the grandsons of Leofric of Mercia had timed their move well. When Edward died the succession of an English King - be it the Atheling or Harold himself -- would certainly be contested by William the Bastard, but probably also by Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, who based his claim on a treaty made between his father Magnus and Canute’s son Harthacanute, way back in 1039. Only a united country could possibly deal with the double threat. Edwin was billing Harold in advance for the support of the north and north-east, and with a heart that felt more leaden with every last step he took to Oxford, Harold knew that he would have to cede whatever they demanded.

  Though substantial, the castle, little more than a fortified settlement set in the angle of the old walls which formed two sides of it, was not in the least like a Norman one. The pitched roof of a large hall dominated the rest instead of the sheer stone sides of a keep and, while there were armouries, stables, and food stores in the inner yard, there were also thatched bowers for the women and servants, a flock of sheep held in a sheepcote of hurdles, six cows in milk, a lot of smoke from numerous fires and a continual coming and going of scores of people.

  As well as housecarls clanking and jingling with that purposeful walk soldiers always adopt when they want to convince their superiors they are occupied, there were monks scurrying about with piles of parchments in their arms and ink-horns at their belts who really were busy, smiths and farriers, cooks, herdsmen and herdswomen, builders and carpenters putting the place hastily in repair, pedlars, beggars, buskers, children and sightseers, cats, dogs and even a flock of chaffinches scurrying through the husks the horses left. The smells were a healthy mix of woodsmoke, cooking, dung, ordure, and home-brewing - the noise a rustic bedlam. It was about as different from the scene inside the inner ward of the castles at Rouen or Bayeux as can possibly be imagined. No question here of the right thing in the right place -- though everything had found a space and seemed to function well enough without being told where to go.

  Archbishop Stigand met them in front of the great door to the hall. With one foot on the step, Harold turned on Tostig.

  ‘I don’t want you around. You’ve got to let me settle this on my own.’

  Tostig’s face flared and his knuckles whitened on his sword hilt.

  ‘Take your men. Find lodgings in the city.’

  Tostig held for a moment, then spat on the ground between them. But he turned and with a wave of his hand signalled his ten or so men to follow.

  Stigand took Harold’s hand. Harold bent his head to kiss the episcopal ring, but Stigand took it away.

  ‘Bugger that sort of flummery,’ he said and put an arm round the earl’s shoulder, so they walked through the door together.

  ‘Was that wise?’ he went on, murmuring throatily, referring to Harold’s dismissal of his brother.

  ‘Wise or not, it’s done now. How’s the King?’

  ‘Up and down, but mostly down. One of his feet is cold, looks dead already, and his sight is going. But his mind is still clear. He backs Tostig, of course. Won’t give in. How was Normandy?’

  The hall was dark, over-heated with braziers of charcoal. Monks chanted penitential psalms. At the far end, lit with candles so it already looked like a catafalque, Edward lay on a bier, propped up on pillows. His face was thinner, his complexion flushed, his white hair stood out like a halo. Harold slowed his pace to give himself time to answer Stigand.

  ‘Bad,’ he said. ‘The Bastard got an oath out of me, by trickery and threat, that I would be his man. He’s got your number too -- have you heard of Lanfranc, a Lombard?’

  ‘The headmaster of Le Bec? Nasty little schemer. Why?’

  ‘He’s in line for your job. On his way now to Rome for the Pope’s blessing.’

  ‘Well. We’ll have to make do the best we can. You are, I take it, telling me that right now we should give Edwin and Morcar what they want in return for their backing against the Bastard?’

  ‘I think we have to. It won’t have to be for ever. We can sort them out later if we want to. But right now we need them. We’ll have to give them what it takes.’

  By now they were approaching the King’s couch. Edward lifted his head, red-lidded eyes glared until he recognised them, white fingers pulled at the hem of his coverlet.

  ‘Harold? Where have you been? We needed you.’

  ‘You sent me to Normandy. Remember? To bring back Wulfnoth and Hakon.’

  ‘I did?’

  You did, thought Harold. And somebody, you yourself perhaps, bribed the ship’s master to land us in Ponthieu -- which was where our troubles started.

  ‘Anyway. You’re back now,’ Edward went on. ‘And you can sort out this mess.’ He looked around, peered into the shadows, made a play of pretending to seek out someone who was not there. ‘Where’s Tostig, then? I sent him to meet you.’

  ‘He’s gone into the town looking for lodgings.’

  ‘What’s he want to do that for?’ The old man was petulant. ‘Plenty of room here. Harold. Sit beside me. And tell that fat priest to go away.’

  Stigand moved back into shadows. Harold found a stool and sat beside Edward.

  ‘Harold. We mustn’t let them get away with this. It’s a direct challenge to my authority and I am not dead yet. It’s dam little short of treason.’

  He wheezed and waited, but Harold kept his council so the king went on without it.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you what Tostig means to me.’ His expression hardened. His opaque eyes seemed to clear, challenging Harold to comment or sneer. ‘For ten years, he’s helped me, running things, collecting taxes, that sort of thing. And when you needed him he helped you sort out the Welsh. So. I don’t have to tell you all this. But I will tell you what you have to do. Get an army together and deal with these northern ragamuffins the way you dealt with the Welsh. I’m not having Tostig giving up Northumbria and that’s an end to it.’

  He heaved himself up higher against the pillows and flapped the coverlet. A sickly stench fell on the air.

  ‘Damned leg gone rotten. Can you smell it? Yes? You get used to it. So. Normandy. How was the Duke?’

  ‘Very well. He sends you his fondest regards and prays for your speedy recovery.’

  ‘I doubt it. And in any case his prayers will not be answered. But he’s a fine young man. He’ll make a fine king for you all when I am gone. What do you think, now you’ve met him?’

  Harold said nothing.

  ‘Come on ... I asked you a question.’

  ‘I admire William. He is brave and he works hard. But England should have an English King.’

  Edward met his gaze and held it. Harold did not flinch away.

  ‘You would be king yourself,’ Edward said at last;

  ‘The Witan will decide. I shall speak for the Atheling.’

  ‘That bean-pole! He still sucks his thumb, you know. Anyway, for the moment that is by the way. The business now is to see off these Northumbrian louts. And quickly, too. I want to get back to Westminster. We’re consecrating the Abbey over Christmas. I intend to be there if it’s the last thing I do. And probably it will be.’

  He waved a shaking hand, and Harold realised the audience was at an end.

  Stigand fell in with him again on their way down the hall.

  ‘Does he know what he’s up to?’ Harold asked.

  ‘He knows.’ Stigand was grim. ‘And when he’s not sure of the how of it then the other William, Bishop of London, tells him.’

  ‘So he’s deliberately fomenting a civil war to let Duke William in. What does he hope to
gain?’

  ‘Revenge on the Godwinsons. Canonization.’

  ‘Sainthood! Edward?’ Harold shook his head, walked on. Then another thought came to him. ‘What was Edith up to, ordering the death of Cospatric?’

  ‘You should ask her yourself.’

  He did. The Queen of England was in the principal bower nearby, had had the clay and wattles hung with her choicest tapestries and the place lit with gold oil-lamps - Moorish work wrought in fantastical designs, all stuff that travelled in big, closed carts, wherever the court took her. A harpist summed a ground to a wailing flute and the large, high-roofed room was filled with the odours of spikenard and rosewater. She herself was curled up in a big chair, with her knees drawn up on one side and her elbow supporting her flaming head on the other. The redness of her hair strewn with pearls, the whiteness of her skin, the flimsiness of the long but slit samite robe she wore filled the space around her. Her beauty caught Harold by the throat as it always had, and was hardly diminished by age (she was now in her late thirties and some six years younger than him) unless she exposed unpainted the lines in her neck, the crowsfeet at the corners of her eyes, and the thinness of lips to full daylight. And that she hardly ever did.

  A shaggy Afghan hound, long-snouted, long coat the colour of white gold, a gift from a Persian ambassador who had been seeking favourable trading terms with England, bared teeth at Harold’s approach but sank back at a murmured command.

  She offered her brother her cheek. He brushed it with his lips, took her hand and gently squeezed.

  Then he straightened and looked down at her. She met his stare through a curtain of lashes made, as was the custom, from spiders’ legs.

  ‘You’re angry with me,’ she said. ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Why did you have Cospatric murdered?’

  ‘The news was that Duke William was waiting for an opportunity to kill you in a way that would not attach too much blame to himself. No one expected your safe return. But then no one expected you to swear an oath of fealty to him either.

  ‘Think of it,’ she went on; ‘England without my dear husband and without my best of brothers. It could have been Mercia and Northumbria with Cospatric, whose royal blood is after all Northumbrian, as figurehead -- all this against the Atheling and the rest of England. And William waiting until we had torn ourselves apart.’

  ‘But that’s what has happened. The Northumbrians have marched to avenge Cospatric.’

  She was not her father’s daughter for nothing nor the sister of Harold himself. Her knees swung down and she sat upright.

  ‘Balls,’ she said. ‘Wherever did you get that idea? They were already on the way, and marching, they said, to put Cospatric on the throne of ancient Northumbria if not of the whole of England. That, at any rate, we scotched.’

  He took a turn around the room, chewing his thumb, chain-mail jingling. She was hard, sharp, ruthless as well as beautiful. A priceless ally, a wicked enemy. And he would need her in the coming months, he was sure.

  ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘But I’m back now. I intend to rule when your husband has gone, at least until the Atheling is of age. You must help me but mainly by doing my bidding. Don’t act unless or until I tell you to. Above all do nothing behind my back.’

  Impressed by the strength that seemed to have flooded back into him, and heart pounding too, she offered the promise he asked for then pressed him to stay and drink a little wine with her. He sat beside her on the arm of the big chair and put his left hand on her further shoulder. She let her head rest against his chest.

  ‘You seem . . . certain about all this. Do you want to be King so much?’

  ‘A crown is a fine thing, but no more than a bauble. Together, you, Tostig, the young ones and I have ruled England since Dad died. A crown makes little difference.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘William. The Normans. They are, well . . .’ he hesitated, laughed, unable to express the way the awfulness of Normandy had focused his understanding, even a love of his people and the way they lived. ‘They are--’ he shrugged. ‘Bastards.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Edwin and Morcar would not meet Harold inside the castle walls. Harold refused to go down to Port Meadow. Envoys trotted back and forth between the meadow and the burgh until a meeting was fixed for the following morning, two hours after day-break, in the vestry of the big Saxon church. The rule of the King’s Peace was to be strictly adhered to - no weapons within a hundred paces of the meeting place, ten unarmed men, on each side, no more. Both sides, somewhat to the Northerners’ surprise, agreed that it would be better if Tostig, who seemed to be at the heart of the whole business, should not be present.

  It was agreed that Ealdred, Archbishop of York, would speak for the sons of Aelfgar and, initially at any rate, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, would speak for Harold, who would represent the King. But first both prelates and the clerks who were there joined in a brief service imploring the Holy Spirit to descend and fill their hearts with a sincere longing for peace and a just settlement to their differences.

  With that out of the way, and many a heretofore and whereas, York then set out the Northerners’ grievances against Tostig: his harshness when dealing with tax defaulters; the way he over-rode local feelings and traditions where he felt they were irrational or did not work for the common good; the fact that he often treated the Northumbrian thegns as little more than heathen louts and had often accused them without good reason of plotting with their equals over the border. Some had even accused Tostig of plotting with the Scottish King Malcolm with whom he was known to be friendly since he had escorted him over the borders and down to Westminster to meet Edward some ten years earlier. Then there was the way his officers always expected their southern dialects to be understood by people who actually spoke a mongrel version of Norse or Danish -- wheretofore, enough was enough: the Northumbrians wanted Tostig out, and were happy to accept Morcar, brother of Edwin, Earl of Mercia, in his place.

  Stigand spoke brusquely, his deep voice rattling in the barrel of his chest. He was not here to repudiate the lies that had been told about Tostig, a capable and just administrator as well as a gallant leader of men in the recent campaign against the Welsh, he was here, he said, simply to remind all that it was the King’s prerogative to reward his loyal servants with lands and rank, that this had been tradition and custom for hundreds of years, for that is what it means to be a king, a lord and ring-giver, and that it was the King’s wish that Tostig should be and should remain Earl of Northumbria. And anyone who gainsaid this might as well leave the room, indeed pack his bags and leave the country, before he was arraigned for treason.

  Impasse. Timor, who stood with Walt on one side of the door that led back into the church - two of Edwin’s men stood on the other - yawned and sighed.

  ‘I reckon we’re here for the day, maybe the week.’

  ‘How’s that then?’ Walt asked. ‘It seems pretty clear-cut to me.’

  ‘Neither is talking to the point, and neither dares to. And until they do we’re stuck here.’

  ‘The point?’

  ‘It’s not about Tostig at all. It’s about how much our Harold is ready to give these barbarians in return for their support when the king dies.’

  ‘Oh!’

  From their vantage point on a step in front of the door Walt looked over them all with more interest than he had felt so far.

  Edwin and Morcar, brothers. Earl Edwin the older, early twenties, the fairer of the two, good figure, but something shifty and weak in his face - a chin that was not quite all there, a narrow forehead. Morcar darker, scarcely out of his teens, a touch embarrassed, not yet quite sure of how he should conduct himself at a meeting of this sort, but showing an inner strength Edwin lacked.

  Then there was Ealdred of York, a decent enough old man, still clutching his crozier which shook a little in his hand. He had carefully avoided breaking canon-law in any respect and for this, and on account of his age w
hich meant he would have to be replaced shortly anyway, he was tolerated by Rome. Which was not the case with Stigand who was an excommunicated pluralist with at least one wife.

  They were complementary. Stigand looked after the church’s pastoral duties: his clergy married if they wanted to; they were not devout and often illiterate, but they performed their duties conscientiously and were welcomed and valued by the ordinary people. Consequently there was little trouble on quarter days when tithes and dues were collected, and most peasants seemed to think they were getting value for the one-in-ten or one-in-five days they spent working for the church. Ealdred, on the other hand, made sure that the few abbeys and monasteries were well-run and free from scandal, that the fabric of buildings was kept up, and above all it was he who consecrated new priests and bishops, performed marriages and such-like where the union was of some consequence, and thus gave everything the church did in that way a legality under canon-law it would have lacked had Stigand performed these duties.

  The clerks from both sides now formed a huddle round a small table in front of the fireplace. They spread maps and deeds and got out their quills and ink-horns, their slates and squeaky pencils, and attempted to draw up a protocol whereby withdrawals could be agreed, de-militarized zones declared, dates when the next meetings should be held, and so on.

  The vestry, which was not large, began to fill with smoke from the fire that had been lit in the big stone fireplace -- the chimney perhaps needed sweeping, the logs were green.

  Edwin detached himself from his followers and moved through the smoke-filled room to the other side where Harold was standing.

  They mumbled greetings at each other, Edwin cracked an imported walnut in his palm and offered half the kernel to Harold, who laughed.