The Last English King

by Julian Rathbone

  ‘They’d say that, though, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘And he took his housecarls with him, money too.’

  ‘They had to make a show of it, didn’t they?’

  ‘So . . .?’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s like this. I’m saying it could be. I’m saying that, once Harold’s king, and he’ll have climbed on our backs to get there, he’ll pull up the drawbridge and tell us to fuck off.’

  ‘Him and Tostig. Tostig, Earl of Northumbria.’

  ‘And Mercia, too, likely. Thing is, he still hasn’t wed our Aldyth. Not even named the day.’

  ‘She’s awful young yet. Just a kid. Like you said she was thirteen, but that’s her next birthday. I were just six, I think, when she were born.’

  ‘Twelve, thirteen, who’s to know? Buggered if I do.’

  ‘Mam says she hasn’t started her monthlies yet. Edwin, she’s a kid.’

  ‘So she’ll make Harold a happy man. Listen, Morcar. We’ll back the bugger in the Witan, but first he has to name the day. And we tell him straight -- not a man moves out of the Danelaw on his behalf until he’s properly married. And if the king doesn’t sign that bit of parchment before he dies, making your earldom legal, then that’s the first thing Harold does. Now sup up and we’ll try and get some sleep.’

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Three days later, at about two in the afternoon, with a watery sun still occasionally breaking the low cloud in the south and the west, two horsemen left Harold’s manor at Waltham. It was where he always stayed when he had to be near London, and the small, domestic abbey he had caused to be built there to house yet another relic of the Cross had been finished some five years earlier. The air was icy, tiny flakes of snow hovered like midges in the air, ice crackled beneath the horses’ hooves. They followed the eastern bank of the Lee for three miles with the purlieus of Epping Forest on their left -- the oaks and hawthorn black above frosted ground. No sign of life apart from a pair of peasants, so wrapped in woollen cloths and skins you could see no human feature, gathering fallen wood on a sled, and a pair of crows tearing at a rare coney a fox had left on the river bank.

  They left the hamlet of Leyton on their left, crossed the Lee on a long low narrow wooden bridge, followed the raised causeway across Hackney Marshes. Occasionally they talked as their mounts picked their way over the awkward ground.

  ‘When will you marry the Lady Erica?’

  ‘When all is settled between you and your enemies.’

  The hooves crackled and plopped as the ponies picked their way through the icy mud.

  ‘I should not wait so long.’

  ‘I shall not leave my lord’s side until I know he no longer needs me.’

  Harold laughed.

  ‘That, dear Walt, will be when I am dead,’ he said. ‘But while a marriage may be a lengthy business a wedding is not. Tell me again, where does she live?’

  ‘Shroton, in the shire of Dorset. Beneath Hambledon Hill. Three leagues or so from Cerne and the Fighting Man. In the Vale of the White Hart.’

  ‘It’s good land. Very good.’

  Presently they moved into hillier country round the settlement at Islington and briefly from a height caught a glimpse through the rising mists and enveloping darkness of the permanent pall of smoke above London.

  With firmer ground beneath their hooves they set the ponies into a slow canter down the hill, but presently were slowed again when they reached the riparian plain with its rich alluvial soil, the turned but unharrowed black earth gleaming above deep furrows filled with snow. Half a mile above Westminster they joined the road called Strand. It was almost dark now and the mist from the river was thickening so they could hardly make out their ponies’ ears in front of them. The black shapes of the shanty town around the Abbey floated through the mist towards them and they could hear from behind the daub and wattle walls the grunts, coughing and low talk of workmen, soldiers, lesser thegns and churls eating their last meal of the day, before turning to the giant butts of ale.

  Gleams of dull orange light from tallow and oil lamps cast thin beams through the cracks round the doors. Stabled cattle lowed gently in outhouses and ponies snorted and stamped. Finally, like a great white ghost, the walls, pierced by tall black arched casements, soared above them. They passed round the northern transept and headed towards the flares that burned in front of the great hall. From inside the monks chanted dolefully in Latin of fallen grass and the flower withered on the stem. As they approached one of the torches was plucked from its sconce and thrust into their faces so the orange flame burned their eyes through the darkness and mist.

  ‘Who’s there? Stand and declare yourselves.’

  ‘The king’s men. Harold of Wessex and his man Walt. Come on Wulfstan, you know me.

  Harold swung out of the saddle and dropped to the ground. Walt followed him.

  The soldier, fully armed, called up a groom who gathered the ponies’ reins in his hands and led them away.

  ‘The king sleeps,’ said Wulfstan, keeping his voice low now. ‘Probably for the last time.’

  ‘I come to see my kin. Not the king. This is a bad time for a brother to leave his sister on her own, a woman about to be a widow. She needs her kin.’

  Wulfstan hesitated. His bushy dark brows were pulled together in a frown beneath the rim of his helmet, on either side of the nose-guard. But he sensed the easy confidence and power of the man in front of him, guessed at the greater power the next few hours might bring. He turned, swung back the bar that held the doors secure, then rapped with the pommel of his seax and growled a command. On the other side a churl shifted the inside beam and heaved the doors open.

  The great hall was almost empty for the king had been moved to the upper chamber above the further end. However, his bed was still visible from below since there was no wall or door, just drapes which had not been drawn. The monks sang on, acolytes continued to swing the thuribles, and young men with bowls of copper and tin filled with scented water climbed steep stairs to sponge down the fevered, dying man. For the rest, apart from a small detail guarding the door, the thegns, housecarls and churls had gone, preferring halls still decked with holly and ivy.

  Harold strode up the right-hand aisle with scarcely a glance at the tedious drama of unravelling death until he came to a large alcove. It was curtained with heavy hangings woven to depict a Queen, mounted on a dappled palfrey, carrying a silver bow, hunting through a forest. A roebuck darted across dark spaces between giant oaks in front of her. The other side depicted the Queen and her King in their hall, sitting at a table with goblets of wine in front of them while huntsmen below prepared to joint and dress the roebuck, with the arrow that killed it still in its side.

  Harold tapped the oak lintel above his head and murmured his name. A soft voice answered. Presently two ladies-in-waiting pushed through the gap and, skirts swinging, flitted down the hall to the brazier nearest the door. He turned to Walt.

  ‘Wait. Hear nothing unless I command you to come. Allow no one to pass

  He pulled the curtains apart and went in. Queen Edith was lying on a bed on her side with her head propped high on her elbow. She had her furs around and under her. She was wearing the simple gown of white samite again, embroidered in the seams and low collar with gold; most of her red hair was down, but dressed with tiny fresh- water pearls.

  Harold pulled a stool in close to her and took the hand that lay along her thigh.

  ‘I hope sister, you have something with you more fitting for a funeral.'

  ‘Of course. But I thought I might wear this at the coronation.’

  ‘Ah. Whose?’

  Rich lips pouted.

  ‘God will decide.’

  ‘He will do nothing of the sort.’

  She sucked in breath. ‘Harold. You are too proud. You tempt the Fates with such talk.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I’ll come to the point,’ he said. ‘What has Duke William promised you?’

  ‘T
he palace Queen Emma had in Winchester. With my own household.’

  ‘I can do better than that.’

  ‘You can?’

  ‘A real husband.’

  She sighed, not without bitterness, and shifted on to her back. Her small breasts, the nipples visible through the fine silk, rose and fell.

  ‘You are not beyond child-bearing-’

  ‘Certainly I am not beyond fucking and a husband with balls would be a fine thing and a prick that doesn’t need another prick up his arse before it moves. But I could turn whore if that was all I needed.’

  ‘A king.’

  ‘A king? Where?’

  ‘In Ireland. The kings in the south are our kind. Danes. I was there. You know I was. They are more gracious there, have finer gold and jewels, and much better minstrels and music, the things you like. The Normans will never get that far west --’

  ‘And I shall be well out of your way.’

  ‘No. When all is settled here I shall visit you.’

  He took both her hands in his, resting them on the warm swell of her belly.

  ‘So,’ she murmured. ‘What do you want from me?’

  He leant forward and spoke gently in her ear. She shuddered at the touch of his moustache and clenched his hands more tightly.

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘yes. I can do that. Yes.’

  He pulled back with the smile on his face. She looked up at him, at his blue-green eyes, his heavy brown but grizzled hair, the strong pillar of his neck, his broad shoulders. She released his hands, slipped her own beneath his jerkin and ran them up his sides from the waist to the shoulders, passing them round to his shoulder blades. She marvelled at the iron muscle and the stone-like ribs. Then she pulled him back down again.

  ‘Twenty years ago you were the first. To tell truth, in any real sense at all, the only -’

  ‘I thought our father --’

  ‘That was rape, and I was fourteen. And after you had had me, you married me to that monk, that holy fool, that bugger ... I want it again, Harold. Spare some of yourself now for me, and I’ll make you king of England.’

  Out in the hall, Walt looked up and down the shadowy spaces, to the cave of light at the end and wondered if any but he could hear her. And if they did, would they think that what they heard was the cry of a woman bereft of her dying husband? A monk might, he thought, but a real man would know the difference . . .

  His own feelings about what was happening were neutral or, indeed, warmed to their lust. Although punishable by serfdom, such couplings were common throughout the land - they helped bond kin to kin, and kinship was the mortar of society. The old gods did it all the time. It crossed his mind to wonder what the other Edith would think of it, she with the swan’s neck, but pushed the thought away. Not his business.

  An hour before daybreak Harold came through the curtains, put his arm round Walt’s shoulder and led him a step or two towards the great doors.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said, ‘until the king dies. See what happens. Then ride out to Waltham like a crow in a hurry for I shall need to know.’

  He slapped Walt’s shoulder, strode down the outer aisle and was gone. Walt settled himself against one of the wooden supports and waited, wondering for how much longer he could endure the wailing of the monks, and if anyone on that day, in that hall, had a mind to break their fast. Eventually the ladies-in-waiting returned. And after that a boy with a platter of coddled eggs, rye-bread and milk warm from the udder. Walt begged a breakfast from him and the boy said he would do what he could but the eggs were reserved for the women and the sick. He came back with more black rye covered with thin strips of red cured beef and a beaker of ale. In reply to his question, the boy told him it was snowing outside, but not heavily, not enough to choke the roads. He also promised to check that Walt’s pony had been fed and watered, was saddled up.

  At about four hours after daybreak, with the monks singing Terce, there was a sudden commotion around the king’s bed. An acolyte broke away and ran down the hall to the Queen’s chamber. On the way he tripped on his robe, went flying and Walt was first at his side. He hoisted the lad to his feet and hissed: ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘The king. The death rattle in his throat.’

  He stumbled on, but the curtains were thrown back, no doubt one of the Queen’s ladies had been keeping an eye on things, and Queen Edith herself came out, dressed now in a long black robe trimmed with ermine that swept the floor behind her, and her head in a snood, similarly trimmed. She swept up the hall, head high, majestic in spite of the spareness of her build. The monks parted in front of her like the sea in front of Moses. She climbed the stairs, knelt and put her ear close to the lips of the king.

  His throat rumbled like dry wattle in a wind, a bubble of spittle formed between his lips and burst. The king farted. The king died.

  Queen Edith stood up tall, looked down and into the hall, spoke clear and loud like a trumpet, her voice from that height filling all the spaces.

  ‘My lord the king is dead.’ She took a breath. ‘These were his last words. “I do prophesy the Witan will choose Harold Godwinson to rule England in my place. He has my dying voice.’”

  There was a glow about her as she said these words, an aura, that none had marked on her throughout the twenty and more years she had been married. Widowhood became her.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Next day, the sixth of January 1066, the day of the Epiphany of our Lord, when He was presented to the Three Kings and the world beyond, Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, was presented to his people as their King.

  But before the real business of the day could be taken up the old king had to be disposed of. Early in the morning, as soon as all who claimed a place in the Witan were assembled, the west doors were thrown open and, borne shoulder-high on a litter, the Confessor’s cadaver was brought in out of the cold air into the hall of cold stone. The breath of the pallbearers’ mingled with the smoke of incense above them; the crucifix carried in front of him was now wreathed in black, the monks behind chanted the Reqitiescat in Aeternum. The members of the Witan doffed their head-gear and some knelt, then all joined in the procession behind Queen Edith, wearing her coronation crown, silver set with pearls in crosses and sapphires, and moved up the great nave. Presently, holding a shred of embroidered silk to her face, she seemed to pause, and then sway a little. Her brother Harold quickly left his place behind her and supported her for the rest of the way.

  They swung right at the chancel, passed across the north transept and so came round to the space behind the high altar. There was as yet no rood screen nor were the casements above glazed. It was a cold place, though bright with intermittent beams of sunlight. Stone flags had been crow-barred from the beds they had so recently been laid in. An oblong pit of Thames earth had been dug out to make a grave below the floor.

  A solemn mass for the dead was then sung, with Ealdred of York as celebrant.

  The Witan, nearly a hundred of them, stood around. Some quietly stamped feet against the cold, many coughed and sneezed and the ruder of them hawked and spat. Some got bored, and those who had not been in the Abbey before wandered off to gawp at wonders.

  At last it was done. An acolyte removed the crown from the Confessor’s head and the strands of his white hair floated briefly in the stirring air. Another, removed the gold jewel-encrusted cross from his chest and replaced it with a wooden one, and a third managed, but only with great difficulty, to remove the royal ring set with its giant sapphire, from the ring finger of his still-swollen right hand.

  Using black leather grave strings, the body was lowered into its grave. The Queen came forward and threw in a posy of dried immortelles trimmed with rosemary.

  ‘Sweets to the sweet, farewell,’ she murmured, and turned away, dabbing at her eyes.

  Hardly had the last Amen been sung than there was almost a stampede, certainly a brisk rush into the south transept where a table, benches and some chairs had been laid out.


  Archbishop Ealdred took the largest chair behind the table and called the meeting to some order.

  ‘The King is dead,’ he began, ‘and it behoves us, the Witan of the Kingdom of England, to choose another. Who will speak first? Let him name a name and so grow to a point. . . Harold, Son of Godwin? You have guided and protected this realm for ten years or more in the name of the King -- it is right you should be first.’

  Harold rose from a not un-throne-like chair which Walt had quietly bespoke for him during the funeral rites and moved to the space in front of the table.

  ‘Your Grace, fellow wise men of the Witan. Let us not, in this weighty matter, be guided by fear and expediency. Let us rather trust in God and follow the ancient traditions of our people and choose the man of most royal blood in the kingdom - Edgar the Atheling, grandson of Edward Ironside and the last of Cerdic’s Line. I, Harold of Wessex, speak for the Atheling,’

  A murmur, more than a murmur, of surprise. It was not entirely unexpected, after all a certain modesty is expected from the chief claimant at such times, a show, at any rate, of reluctance, but the way it was put, without qualification, caused them to marvel and in some cases to remonstrate.

  Aethelwine, Bishop of Durham, and the only English bishop who continued the struggle against the Conqueror after 1066, took the floor.

  ‘The rigorous practice of primogeniture is a Frankish custom, a Roman custom. It is not our custom, neither Danish nor Saxon. Let me remind you all that the Witan’s duty is not to abide by such superstitious concepts as that of royal blood and the first-born male, but to choose the man, hopefully from the dead king’s family or household, who is best prepared and equipped to defend the realm and its people.’

  Oswulf, from the northern Borders near Carlisle, now spoke of the grievous dangers the realm was in. He spoke of Malcolm in Scotland, leader of a united country since the death of Macbeth, and of Harald Hardrada in Norway. Oswulf’s thegns, and those of Morcar, could not withstand such powerful enemies without strong leadership and support from the southern earls led by a strong king. He concluded by asserting that the Queen had reported that the Confessor’s dying words had been a request that Harold should succeed him. After Oswulf, came Edwin and then Morcar who spoke of the need for maturity, wisdom and, above all, experience in the coming months.