Of the Ring of Earls (Conqueror Trilogy Book 1)

by Juliet Dymoke

  Where he would go he did not know. At the moment he could not look forward, only back to the joy that had been, but as the day wore on, the sun grew warm and he passed through the fields and woods of the earldom of Huntingdon, the loneliness began to ease. The land was filled with summer beauty, the streams bright with yellow flowers, the tall purple willow herb everywhere lending its colour to the countryside, and he no longer felt alone but as if the Earl were once more riding beside him through his own lands.

  There came into his head then the beginning of a poem he would write in praise of his lord. The stanzas began to form, the words tumbling over each other, and as he rode he began to sing, a lilting tune that would fit the verses.

  He slackened the reins and let his horse lead him where she would. The day was young yet and it did not matter where he would he at nightfall.

  Author’s Note

  The cult of Waltheof lasted for many years. Miracles were reported at the tomb and to many he became a saint and martyr as well as a national hero. Abbot Ulfcytel was deposed for allowing veneration at his tomb and sent into custody at Glastonbury. The new Abbot, a Norman named Ingulf, was soon convinced of the truth of the miracles and the dead Earl’s sanctity. He persuaded William to release Ulfcytel into his care and the former Abbot was allowed to return to Croyland and the proximity of the spiritual son he had loved.

  Judith never re-married. Perhaps her repentance was genuine. Certainly she built and endowed a convent for nuns at Elstow in Bedfordshire as a penance for betraying her husband. She lived to a good age and administered the lands that had been her morning-gift. These eventually passed to Simon of Senlis, husband of her daughter Matilda, and he received the title of Earl of Huntingdon and Northampton. When he died Matilda married King David I of Scotland and thus Waltheof became the ancestor of the line of Scottish kings. Alice married Ralph de Toeni and founded one of the most famous of Norfolk families.

  The chroniclers, both Norman and Saxon, agree in praising Waltheof’s fine looks, his prowess as a fighting man, his generosity, his piety, and Orderic Vitalis had no hesitation in dating William’s troubles from the day on which he ordered the undoubtedly unjust execution of the Earl. It is true that nothing went well for William from that time.

  When fire destroyed the Abbey church Ingulf rebuilt it and the monks moved Waltheof’s damaged coffin. Opening it the monks found that, after sixteen years, the body was still incorrupt, the red line about his throat showing clearly. They gave him a nobler resting place in the chancel, but nothing now remains of that building for the present church is no more than the north aisle of the original. Beside it the ruined nave and chancel are open to the sky. Waltheof’s tomb is lost, but his bones lie somewhere beneath the green turf that grows where once he ‘joyed to tread’.

  THE CONQUEST CONTINUES