The Splintered Kingdom

by James Aitcheson

  In some ways the protracted battle for mastery of the Marches mirrors on a smaller scale the long struggle for England that took place in the aftermath of the Norman invasion. The Battle of Hastings is rightly regarded as a watershed moment in our island’s history, and yet it was merely the opening engagement of the Conquest; effective control of the kingdom was only achieved through a series of bitter campaigns. Indeed, every bit as significant as 1066 itself were the years 1069–70, which witnessed arguably the greatest crisis that the invaders had yet faced. A combination of simultaneous rebellions, invasions, raids and risings, from Cornwall in the south to Yorkshire in the north, brought King Guillaume’s newly established realm almost to breaking point, and eventually led to the brutal campaign of retribution known as the Harrying of the North, which systematically devastated Yorkshire and north-east England and left a lasting mark both on the region itself and on our perceptions of the Normans. It is this critical but little-known chapter of the Conquest that forms the backdrop for The Splintered Kingdom.

  As in Sworn Sword, several of the characters in this novel are based on real historical persons. As well as the various kings who ruled during this period, these include Eadgar Ætheling, the various members of the Malet house, Guillaume fitz Osbern, Earl Hugues of Chester – whose byname ‘the Wolf’ is recorded in contemporary sources – the brothers and princes-in-exile Maredudd and Ithel, the castellan at Shrewsbury (shortly afterwards to become Earl) Roger de Montgommeri, and lastly the dispossessed Shropshire thegn Eadric, commonly known by his soubriquet ‘Wild’, derived from the Old English se wilda, which may in turn have originated from the Latin silvaticus, a term that the twelfth-century chronicler Orderic Vitalis uses to describe many of the English rebels of this period. All of the other characters, including Tancred and his brothers in arms, are products of my own imagination.

  Establishing a firm chronology for the many tumults that engulfed England in the years following the Norman invasion is no easy task, especially since our principal sources for the period are in many places confused and contradictory. In this novel I confess to having taken a few more liberties with respect to the history. One of the decisions I made early on was to conflate some of the events of 1069 with those of 1070, in order to allow Tancred time to develop as a character and to settle into his newly acquired position on the Marches following the Norman victory at York at the end of the first book. Thus although The Splintered Kingdom begins in the summer of 1070, many of the events in fact rightly belong to the previous year, including the rebellion of Wild Eadric in conjunction with his Welsh allies, the Battle of Mechain, the arrival of the Danish fleet (in real life commanded firstly by King Sweyn’s sons Harald and Cnut and his brother Osbjorn before he himself came to England to take charge the following spring), the Danes’ alliance with Eadgar Ætheling and his army of Northumbrian rebels, the fall of York and its two castles, and of course the Harrying of the North, which continued throughout the winter months. The taking of the Malets as hostages is also recorded in our sources, and from later events we know that they must all have been returned safely, but exactly at what point this took place, and whether they were ransomed or rescued by other means, has not been handed down to us. Into that gap in our knowledge I have woven the fictional tale of Tancred’s desperate mission to Beverley.

  The extent to which the various rebellions and invasions that plagued England in this period were connected to one another is open for debate, and I have speculatively linked events which in reality may or may not have been related. For example, there is no direct evidence to suggest that the dynastic struggles between the Welsh kings and their rival claimants, the sons of Gruffydd, had anything to do with Wild Eadric’s rebellion, but given that the two events took place in the same year it is not implausible. All that we know of the fateful Battle of Mechain comes from the Welsh sources Brut y Tywysogion (The Chronicle of the Princes) and the Annales Cambriae (The Annals of Wales), which do not record the circumstances or nature of the encounter, or even the specific location, only the outcome. Neither is there any evidence of Norman involvement in this particular battle. However, in 1072 the Brut mentions them coming to the aid of another dispossessed prince by the name of Caradog in his struggles against the King of Deheubarth, whom they succeeded in killing in a battle on the banks of the river Rhymney. The Normans were evidently keen to play an active role in Welsh affairs during this period, engaging in direct military intervention where necessary and helping to install friendly client kings in place of hostile potentates. It is not impossible that a similar arrangement was reached with Maredudd and Ithel, whose long-standing hatred of Harold Godwineson would have made them natural allies in the eyes of the invaders.

  Likewise it is unknown whether the rebellion of Wild Eadric was in some way related to the ætheling’s campaign, or whether he was operating independently. Indeed Eadric’s aims could well have been less grand than I have supposed – possibly no more than the restitution of his lands and those of his followers – and his actions rather more opportunistic. Orderic, who is one of the principal sources for these years, writes in vague terms of large numbers of the leading men of England and Wales meeting together and sending messengers across Britain in order to instigate risings against the Normans. While this particular episode refers to a point in his narrative relating to 1068, his chronology is not always reliable, and so it is entirely possible that this could refer to later events. If that is the case, it implies an element of co-ordination between the various risings that engulfed the kingdom at this time, although it would perhaps be a step too far to suggest that there was any grand strategy.

  The motives of the Danes are, like those of Wild Eadric, shrouded in mystery. Sweyn’s belief that he had a claim to the crown of England is recorded both by Orderic and by the late-eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen, who writes that he had been promised the succession by King Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042–66). Regardless of the veracity of this, neither the Danes’ alliance with Eadgar Ætheling nor their later actions suggest that they arrived with conquest in mind. Possibly they intended to install Eadgar as a kind of puppet ruler, or perhaps Sweyn merely sought to take advantage of the troubles elsewhere in England and the weakness of the Normans’ grip on the kingdom to plunder widely and exact as large a tribute as possible, in which case it could be said that the expedition proved successful, since as the campaigning season came to a close and winter set in, King Guillaume eventually did negotiate with them. The question of exactly what the Danes were trying to accomplish is one of the great unknowns that continues to puzzle historians of this period, and we can only speculate.

  The Splintered Kingdom reaches its conclusion as the infamous Harrying of the North, one of the defining episodes of the Conquest, is getting under way. For a novelist such as myself writing from the viewpoint of a Norman knight, this presents an obvious problem, for this was a thoroughly despicable act on the part of the invaders for which there is no defence. The widespread despoliation of land was a tactic that was commonly used in the medieval period to deprive an enemy of resources, although the sheer scale of this particular campaign and the suffering that it inflicted upon the native people mark out the Harrying as exceptionally harsh. We cannot know how many Normans were implicated, but it seems to me that it must have divided opinion among King Guillaume’s followers. Orderic, who is otherwise full of praise for the king and his achievements, roundly condemned him for this horrific deed, and doubtless his sentiments were shared by many others both at the time and later.

  A similar, long-forgotten atrocity could well have inspired the lines of poetry spoken by Ædda, which come from an Anglo-Saxon text of unknown origin known to scholars of the period as ‘The Ruin’. A lament on faded glories, the passage of time and the depredations wrought by wyrd (an Old English term for ‘fate’ or ‘destiny’), it uses the image of a decayed Roman city, often identified with the remains of Aquae Sulis in modern-day Bath, as a metaphor for th
e transitory nature of power and material wealth.

  The events depicted in The Splintered Kingdom scarred England for years to come. Nevertheless, even after the culmination of the Harrying of the North, the Normans’ gains were still far from secure. Thus even as Tancred strives to rebuild that which he has lost, before too long he will find himself called upon to face fresh challenges and new enemies.

  Acknowledgements

  ONE NAME APPEARS on the title page of this book, but many other people have contributed at various stages of its development, and without their help it would not be the novel that it is.

  The linguistic landscape of eleventh-century Britain was complex, and I am indebted to several members of the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the University of Cambridge for guiding me through it. Dr Richard Dance of St Catherine’s College kindly translated several passages of modern English dialogue into Old English, while I have Dr Paul Russell and most especially Silva Nurmio to thank for their time and effort spent providing me with nuanced translations into Middle Welsh.

  For their helpful advice, suggestions and support I am grateful to Tricia Wastvedt, Beverly Stark, Liz Pile, Jonathan Carr, Jules Stanbridge and Gordon Egginton, who all read and commented on various sections of the novel in draft form. Their generous feedback has been immensely valuable, and I consider myself fortunate to be a member of such a wonderful and talented circle of writers.

  Many thanks also go to my editor, Rosie de Courcy, together with Nicola Taplin, Amelia Harvell, Katherine Murphy and everyone else at Random House for their hard work behind the scenes, as well as to my copy-editor, Richenda Todd, whose insights and close attention to detail have proved enormously helpful in shaping this novel into its final form.

  Last but certainly not least, many, many thanks to my friends and family and to Laura for all their support, belief and encouragement along the way.

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  Copyright © James Aitcheson 2012

  James Aitcheson has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Preface Publishing

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