Great Tales from English History: The Truth About King Arthur, Lady Godiva, Richard the Lionheart, and More: 1

by Robert Lacey

  AD 597: St Augustine’s Magic

  After describing Augustine’s arrival in Canterbury, Bede went on to relate how the pagan altars around England became Christian. Maps showing the spread of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England are among the many original features of David Hill’s indispensable atlas. The original St Augustine’s throne has long vanished, but if you visit Canterbury you can see the marble chair made in the early 1200s that stands near Thomas Becket’s shrine.

  Hill, David, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Toronto, University of Toronto Press), 1981.

  AD 664: King Oswy and the Crown of Thorns

  The gothic ruins of the Abbey of Whitby will be familiar to devotees of Dracula - Bram Stoker wrote his famous novel looking up at it. Today you can look down from the abbey on to the bracing sea view enjoyed by the guests of St Hilda at the synod in 664. Legend has it that the migrating geese who rest on the headland on their way down from the Arctic every year are pilgrims paying tribute to her memory: www.whitby.co.uk.

  c.AD 680: Caedmon,The First English Poet

  You can read Caedmon’s ‘Hymn’ in the gem-like anthology of Anglo-Saxon verse compiled by the poet Kevin Crossley-Holland, together with the complete text of Beowulf, The Dream of the Rood and a bawdy collection of Anglo-Saxon riddles. Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf has been rightly praised.

  Crossley-Holland, Kevin (ed. and trans.), The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology (Oxford, Oxford University Press), 1984.

  Heaney, Seamus, Beowulf (London, Faber and Faber), 1999.

  AD 672/3-735: The Venerable Bede

  www.bedesworld.co.uk offers a flavour of the old monastery at Jarrow, with visitor information. If you can’t get to the north-east, the British Library video, The Lindisfarne Gospels (written by BL experts and narrated by Kevin Whateley of Inspector Morse fame) is atmospheric on monasticism in this period. Brown and de Hamel provide well illustrated accounts of how the writing studios at such monasteries produced their masterpieces. The Age of Bede sets out some good contemporary sources. Bede himself would surely be delighted by the cultural renaissance of modern Tyneside - his spirit is now said by some locals to flit between Durham Cathedral, where his bones rest, and Anthony Gormley’s magnificent statue, the Angel of the North, in Gateshead.

  Brown, Michelle P., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (London, The British Library), 1991.

  de Hamel, Christopher, Medieval Craftsmen: Scribes and Illuminators (London, British Museum Press), 1997.

  Webb, J. F. (trans.), Farmer, D. H. (intro.), The Age of Bede (London, Penguin), 1998.

  AD 878: Alfred and the Cakes

  Start with the original, Bishop Asser’s Life of King Alfred. Then turn to the much criticised Alfred Smyth, who maintains that Asser was a forgery. There is not much marshland left in the Somerset Levels these days, but you can get a feeling of how the waters once swirled around the sedge when you look out from the train between Taunton and Bruton on a wet winter’s day. On summer afternoons, you can climb up the great tower built at Athelney in the eighteenth century to commemorate Alfred’s adventures in the swamps. That other great Anglo-Saxon king of the previous century, Offa of Mercia, left more of a memorial in the shape of his massive earthwork built to keep out the Welsh. Offa’s Dyke Centre is at Knighton in Powys, halfway along the eighty-mile border trail: www.offasdyke.demon.co.uk.

  Jones, Gwyn, The Vikings (London, The Folio Society), 1997.

  Keynes, Simon, and Lapidge, Michael (trans.), Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (London, Penguin Books), 1983.

  Smyth, Alfred P., King Alfred the Great (Oxford, Oxford University Press), 1995.

  AD 911–911: The Lady of the Mercians

  From this point onwards, and for the next two centuries, we can enjoy the acerbic comments of the compilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Kathleen Herbert, Henrietta Leyser and Pauline Stafford examine from different angles the role of women in medieval society.

  Herbert, Kathleen, Peace-Weavers and Shield-Maidens: Women in Early English Society (Hockwold-cum-Wilton, Anglo-Saxon Books), 1997.

  Leyser, Henrietta, Medieval Women (London, Phoenix), 1997.

  Stafford, Pauline, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-century England (Oxford, Blackwell Publishers), 1997.

  Swanton, Michael (trans. and ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London, J. M. Dent), 1997.

  AD 978–978: Ethelred the Unready

  Corfe Castle in Dorset, the site of the killing of Ethelred’s half-brother Edward, is all that a castle should be, with a history of warfare that extends as late as the Civil War of the 1640s - see www.corfe-castle.co.uk. Lavelle’s recent biography bravely defends the Unready’s reputation. Michael Swanton’s anthology contains Archbishop Wulfstan’s famous denunciation of the evils of the reign of Ethelred - the Sermon of the Wolf to the English. To get a glimpse of the life created by the Danes whom Ethelred tried to slaughter, head for Jorvik (York to us), the place that a surprising number of Vikings called home: www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk.

  Lavelle, Ryan, Aethelred II: King of the English 978-1016 (Stroud, Tempus), 2002.

  Swanton, Michael (trans. and ed. ), Anglo-Saxon Prose (London, J. M. Dent), 1993.

  c.AD 1010: Elmer the Flying Monk

  Elmer went by many names in the documents -Aethelmaer, Eilmer, Aylmer and even Oliver - all derived from readings and misreadings of the original account of his flight by his fellow-monk William of Malmesbury. At Malmesbury Abbey the Friends of the Abbey bookshop sells a full account of the flight, including the researches of Dr Lynn White Jr, President of the US Society for the History of Technology. If you want the Friends to send you a copy of the book you will have to send them a book of stamps, since they do not have credit card facilities.

  Malmesbury, William of, Gesta Regum Anglorum, The History of the English Kings, volume 2, general intro. and commentary by R. M. Thomson with M. Winterbottom (Oxford, Clarendon Press), 1999.

  Woosnam, Maxwell, Eilmer, Eleventh-century Monk of Malmesbury: The Flight and the Comet (Malmesbury, Friends of Malmesbury Abbey), 1986.

  AD 1016–1016: King Canute and the Waves

  Few of King Canute’s attempts to make himself an English gentleman have survived. The story of how he tried to turn back the waves provides a great opportunity to dip into Henry of Huntingdon, the first of the post-Norman chroniclers to come our way. Lawson provides a thorough review of the original sources.

  Huntingdon, Henry of, The History of the English People 1000-1154, trans. Diana Greenway (Oxford, Oxford University Press), 2002.

  Lawson, M. K., Cnut: The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century (London, Longman), 1993.

  AD 1042–66: Edward the Confessor

  The Westminster Abbey that we see today was started in the reign of Henry III, but it is the obvious place to experience the dream of the Confessor. Make sure you visit the cloisters beside the abbey to get the flavour of the monastic buildings attached to the great church. The abbey’s website is particularly rich in historical detail and displays an interpretation of what the Confessor’s original abbey probably looked like: www.westminster-abbey.org. Debby Banham offers a wonderful insight into the everyday life of mid-eleventh-century monks through an analysis of the sign language they used when they were not allowed to speak - ‘Pass my underpants, please.’

  Banham, Debby (ed. and trans.), Monasteriales Indicia: The Anglo-Saxon Monastic Sign Language (Hockwold-cum-Wilton, Anglo-Saxon Books), 1996.

  c.AD 1043: The Legend of Lady Godiva

  Call up ‘Godiva’ on your search engine and you will have difficulty finding the strictly historical sites. The Harvard professor Daniel Donoghue has written a stimulating analysis of the Godiva legend, which includes a translated text of Roger of Wendover.

  Donoghue, Daniel, Lady Godiva: A Literary History of the Legend (Oxford, Blackwell Publishing), 2003.

  AD 1066: The Year of Three Kings

  Trackin
g the most graphic evidence for the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings requires a trip across the Channel to Bayeux in Normandy: www.bayeux-tourism.com. But almost better than a visit, Martin Foys’s new CD-Rom enables you to scroll the whole tapestry and magnify images so that individual stitches can be seen, and compare the modern images with the facsimiles of the past. On www.hastings1066.com you can view the tapestry for nothing. From 1066 onwards, Nigel Saul delivers measured guidance to all the major events and themes.

  Foys, Martin K., The Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition (Woodbridge, Boydell & Brewer), 2003.

  Saul, Nigel, A Companion to Medieval England, 1066-1485 (Stroud, Tempus), 2000.

  Howarth, David, 1066: The Year of the Conquest (New York, Penguin Books), 1981.

  AD 1066: The Death of Brave King Harold

  Battle Abbey in East Sussex - said to be built on the very spot where Harold’s body was found - is open the year round and English Heritage guides will show you round the famous battlefield. The pioneering work of David Hill and John McSween has yet to be published but is summarised, with some illustrations, in Lawson’s exhaustive study.

  Hill, David, and McSween, John, The Bayeux Tapestry: The Establishment of a Text, forthcoming.

  Lawson, M. K., The Battle of Hastings, 1066 (Stroud, Tempus), 2002.

  AD 1070: Hereward the Wake and the Norman Yoke

  Once again, Michael Wood (see General Histories, above) is the most readable. His account of the Norman Yoke starts memorably with his encounter as a teenager with the great general, Montgomery of Alamein - with Clement Attlee playing a supporting role. Castle websites abound. Start with www.castles.org and www.castles-abbeys.co.uk. And if you missed Marc Morris’s television series, don’t miss his book.

  Morris, Marc, Castle (London, Channel 4), 2003.

  AD 1086: The Domesday Book

  The Public Record Office was recently rebranded as the National Archives. It remains an airy temple of documentary delights. There is a small exhibition room on the ground floor where you can view Domesday in its glass case, in the company of a changing selection of themed exhibits: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk.

  Hallam, Elizabeth, Domesday: Souvenir Guide (London, Public Record Office), 1986.

  AD 1100: The Mysterious Death of William Rufus

  You can visit William Rufus’s magnificent banqueting hall in the Palace of Westminster - www.parliament.uk/parliament/guide/palace.htm. To get the flavour of a Norman royal hunting preserve, visit the New Forest in Hampshire - ideally with a copy of Duncan Grinnell-Milne’s book, which treats William Rufus’s killing in the style of a murder mystery. The Yale English Monarchs series provides consistently excellent biographies of all the medieval kings, but try Brooke for a single volume overview, which is particularly perceptive on Rufus’s death.

  Brooke, Christopher, The Saxon and Norman Kings (London, Fontana), 1984.

  Grinnell-Milne, Duncan, The Killing of William Rufus: An Investigation in the New Forest (Newton Abbot, David & Charles), 1968.

  AD 1120: Henry I and the White Ship

  Once again a trip to Normandy is in order. From the lighthouse on the cliffs beside Barfleur you can see the rock on which the White Ship foundered. The account by Orderic Vitalis is one of the most gripping passages in any of the medieval chronicles.

  Chibnall, Marjorie (trans. and ed.), The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, volume 6, Books XI, XII and XIII (Oxford, Clarendon Press), 1978.

  AD 1135–1135: Stephen and Matilda

  This is where we say goodbye to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, whose description of the civil war horrors around Peterborough provides a rousing, if tragic, conclusion.

  Davis, R. H. C., King Stephen 1135-1154 (London, Longman), 1990.

  AD 1170: Murder in the Cathedral and AD 1174: A King Repents

  The stunning stained-glass windows in Canterbury Cathedral’s Trinity Chapel, which were created within half a century of Thomas Becket’s death, tell the story of his murder and the miracles that followed. Henry VIII tried his best to eradicate the cult of St Thomas in the sixteenth century, but the aura of the martyr survives. Frank Barlow’s study of Becket is a particularly fine biography.

  Barlow, Frank, Thomas Becket (London, The Folio Society), 2002.

  AD 1172: The River-bank Take-away

  You can read the full text of William FitzStephen’s description of London in Frank Stenton’s Historical Association leaflet. The Museum of London is the place to go for imaginative exhibits on the medieval city: www.museum-london.org.uk.

  Stenton, Frank, Norman London, An Essay (London, Historical Association), 1934.

  AD 1189–1189: Richard the Lionheart

  Coeur de Lion has been well served by his biographers, with John Gillingham the most notable. Should you be lucky enough to go sailing down the River Danube, look out for the site of Richard’s imprisonment, Castle Durnstein, the archetypal wicked baron’s fortress. Lying buried side by side in Fontevrault Abbey by the River Loire, Richard and his parents, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, make a poignant family scene.

  Gillingham, John, Richard the Lionheart (London, Yale), 1999.

  Nelson, Janet L. (ed.), Richard Coeur de Lion in History and Myth, Medieval History series (London, King’s College), 1992.

  Phillips, Jonathan, The Crusades 1095-1197 (Harlow, Pearson Education), 2002.

  AD 1215: John Lackland and Magna Carta

  You can see John’s tomb in Worcester Cathedral. When it was opened in the eighteenth century, the King’s skeleton was measured. Lackland was found to be just 5ft 5ins tall. Two of the surviving copies of Magna Carta from June 1215 can be seen at the British Library, with the other two at Lincoln and Salisbury Cathedrals.

  Breay, Claire, Magna Carta: Manuscripts and Myths (London, The British Library), 2002.

  AD 1225: Hobbehod, Prince of Thieves

  Errol Flynn and Kevin Costner convey the fanciful modern vision. Holt, Keen and Spraggs explain how that vision developed over the centuries, with some fruitful comparisons to the legends of Hereward the Wake and highwaymen like Dick Turpin.

  Holt, J. C., Robin Hood (London, Thames & Hudson), 1989.

  Keen, Maurice The Outlaws of Medieval Legend (London, Routledge), 1987.

  Spraggs, Gillian, Outlaws and Highwaymen: The Cult of the Robber in England from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (London, Pimlico), 2001.

  AD 1265: Simon de Montfort and his Talking-place

  A monument near Evesham Abbey beside the River Avon in Worcestershire recalls the death of Simon de Montfort on 4 August 1265, surrounded by the royalist forces and fighting against impossible odds. As a song of the time put it, it was ‘the murder of Evesham, for bataile non it was’. Modern historians are sniffy about the work of Treharne, but he remains de Montfort’s true historical disciple. Maddicott is more detached, and readable too.

  Maddicott, J. R., Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), 1994.

  Treharne, R. F., Simon de Montfort and Baronial Reform: Thirteenth-Century Essays, ed. E. B. Fryde (London, Hambledon Press), 1986.

  AD 1284: A Prince Who Speaks No Word of English

  Jan Morris has composed the definitive Welsh diatribe demolishing the legend of the Prince of Wales. Caernarfon Castle itself, like Harlech, Conway and Edward’s other great castles, survives triumphantly - as the eighteenth-century Welsh antiquarian Thomas Pennant put it, ‘the magnificent badge of our servitude’. For full details consult the Welsh Historic Monuments website - www.cadw.wales.gov.uk. Professor Prestwich’s survey of the Edwards is magisterial.

  Morris, Jan, The Princeship of Wales (Llandysul, Gomer Press), 1995.

  Prestwich, Michael, The Three Edwards: War and State in England 1272-1377 (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson), 1980.

  AD 1308: Piers Gaveston and Edward II

  Pierre Chaplais has recently advanced the argument that the relationship between Edward II and Piers Gaveston was non-sexual. Nice try. Kenilworth Castle, home of �
��the black hound of Arden’, is well worth the visit. Originally fortified by King John, it later passed to John of Gaunt. Berkeley Castle is now a flash hotel, but the dungeon where Edward II met his agonising end is open to the public.

  Chaplais, Pierre, Piers Gaveston: Edward II’s Adoptive Brother (Oxford, Clarendon Press), 1994.

  AD 1346: A Prince Wins His Spurs

  At Nottingham Castle you can see the secret passage by which the young Edward III claimed his right to rule England. It is known as Mortimer’s Hole, and is the only surviving part of the original twelfth-century motte-and-bailey fortress. For visiting times see www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk. Donald Featherstone’s book is a fascinating study of the men and the weapon that got England off to such a deceptively good start in the Hundred Years War. Michael Packe died before he could finish his rich and idiosyncratic biography of Edward III, but it was well completed by L. C. B. Seaman.

  Featherstone, Donald, The Bowmen of England: The Story of the English Longbow (Barnsley, Pen & Sword Books), 2003.

  Packe, Michael, King Edward III, ed. L. C. B. Seaman (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul), 1983.

  AD 1347: The Burghers of Calais