Divorced, Beheaded, Died: The History of Britain's Kings and Queens in Bite-Sized Chunks (5 page)

The Last Kings of Anglo-Saxon England

The deaths of the dreadful Viking sons of Cnut allowed the return of the royal English bloodline in the form of King Edward the Confessor, after he had waited twenty years in exile in Normandy. England was at this time almost a confederation of regions with different ethnic backgrounds: the Vikings were represented strongly in the east and the north, the Britons in the west and the English in-between. The aristocracy was referred to as ‘Anglo-Danish’ as the English and the Danish Vikings intermarried. Typical was Earl Godwin, an English aristocrat who made two advantageous marriages to Danes, firstly to King Cnut’s sister and then to a granddaughter of another King of Denmark. Their son Harold became the last English King.

E
DWARD THE
C
ONFESSOR

Reigned 1042–1066

Edward was the son of Aethelred II and Emma of Normandy, and was born in around 1003. He was exiled to Normandy during the reign of the Viking kings, but was recalled by his half-brother King Harthacnut and became heir to the throne.

On Harthacnut’s death, Edward faced many difficulties in restoring the English monarchy, the most dangerous being the number of contenders for the English throne. Edward did not help matters in this respect, as there is evidence that he offered the succession to the Kings of Denmark and Norway, and his cousin William of Normandy also claimed that he had been made heir. Furthermore, Edward’s marriage in 1045 to Edith, the daughter of Earl Godwin of Wessex, boosted the already enormously powerful Godwin clan’s aspirations to the throne. Edward could have resolved all this by producing an heir, but he and Edith had no children. Indeed, there were rumours that the marriage was never consummated.

Edward’s reign was made difficult by the powerful position of the Godwin family, which threatened civil war. Earl Godwin was implicated in the blinding and murder of Edward’s brother, Alfred, and was involved in several armed conflicts with the King. But by the end of his reign, Edward seems to have reconciled with the clan as Godwin’s son, Harold, was declared heir to the throne.

Edward’s reign was relatively peaceful and he oversaw some successes against the Welsh and the Scots, with his nominee Malcolm, for example, achieving the overthrow of Macbeth with English support.

A deeply pious man, Edward built the magnificent Westminster Abbey (though none of his building remains), where he was buried on his death in 1066. He was made a saint in 1161.

H
AROLD
II

Reigned 1066

Harold Godwinson was King Edward’s brother-in-law, the son of the powerful Earl Godwin of Wessex. Godwin had supported Cnut, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor during their reigns, and by the end of his life he was arguably more powerful than the King. Harold was a highly competent member of his father’s entourage and also loyally supported Edward the Confessor, even against his own rebellious brothers, Swein of Mercia and Tostig of Northumbria, who were later both exiled. He married Edith, daughter of the Earl of Mercia, and widow of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, the only native ruler to exercise power throughout Wales. He also had a famous mistress, Edith Swan Neck, and had five or six illegitimate children.

On the death of King Edward, Harold was named as his successor and approved by the King’s council, the Witan. But this did not cut much ice with Scandinavian and Norman claimants to the throne. The lack of royal blood in Harold’s veins was a serious weakness for which he was to pay dearly.

When Harold was crowned in 1066, the nation came under immediate threat of invasion from Normandy and Norway. Defences against William of Normandy were prepared, but the first threat to materialize came from King Harald Hardrada of Norway. Hardrada was supported by Tostig, Harold Godwinson’s younger brother, who had been dispossessed of his Northumbrian earldom. The Norwegian army landed in the north and defeated the earls of Mercia and Northumbria near York. They were resting at Stamford Bridge when the English army, led by Harold, appeared as if from nowhere and after a terrific struggle completely defeated the Norwegians, killing Tostig and Hardrada.

News then reached Harold that William of Normandy had landed at Pevensey and was laying waste to the countryside. Rather than waiting for reinforcements, Harold marched southwards to deal with the Normans. The two armies clashed at Senlac, near Hastings. The English held out all day but as the evening approached, a retreat by the Normans gave the tiring English a hope of outright victory, and they broke their shield wall to pursue the Normans. Either by design or strength of will, the Normans rallied, routing the English and killing Harold and his brothers. An English warrior depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry as being shot through the eye with an arrow, may or may not be Harold.

After the Battle of Hastings, the English held London against William for a while, but eventually made the decision to surrender to a strong king rather than fight to put a weak one on the throne, the only other contender (as all of Harold’s brothers had been killed) being Edgar the Atheling, Edmund Ironside’s grandson, who was still a young boy. Perhaps the success of King Cnut’s reign reduced their fears of submitting to another foreign king.

The Normans

The Normans were Vikings (Northmen) who settled in France from the ninth century onwards. The French King accepted their control of Normandy in 911 and gave them the title of Dukes of Normandy. Gradually they became integrated with the French, and practised a particularly ruthless form of feudalism that enabled them to turn out well-equipped, well-trained and fearless warriors. They conquered England and parts of Scotland, Ireland, and Sicily, and ran the Christian kingdom in the Holy Land. The Normans’ castles and architecture formed a lasting legacy in England, as did the contribution of French words to the English language.

W
ILLIAM
I

Reigned 1066–1087

The legacy of William the Conqueror is debated. Was he the man who destroyed Anglo-Saxon England? Or did he lay the foundation for the glorious future of the nation? On the one hand, William eradicated the English aristocracy, replacing it with the feudal system, with the hated French as powerful barons, thereby creating a Britain divided by class. On the other hand, the Norman Conquest was responsible for merging the practicality of the Anglo-Saxons with the flair of the French, creating a hybrid race and language that proved stronger and more adaptable as a result. By the end of William’s reign virtually every major landlord was French, every leading clergyman was foreign, and the English language had been replaced with French and Latin.

William was born in 1027/8 in Falaise Castle, Normandy, the illegitimate son of Robert, Duke of Normandy, and a tanner’s daughter. He succeeded to the Dukedom as a child in 1035 and conquered Maine (in northern France) in 1063. In 1066 he claimed the throne of England on the death of Edward the Confessor. His claim was very weak but he said it had been offered to him by Edward and that Edward’s ‘official’ successor, Harold Godwinson, had vowed to support it (this was disputed by Harold). William received the support of the Pope and gathered a huge fleet full of freebooters, willing to risk all for the spoils of war. His victory over King Harold at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 marks one of the most important dates in the course of English history.

William’s coronation on Christmas Day 1066 at Westminster Abbey was a disaster, as Norman troops ran riot after mistaking sounds of acclamation coming from within the abbey for an English rebellion. This set the tone for much of his early reign, as William dealt with continued resistance ruthlessly. The Saxon leader Hereward the Wake was causing trouble in East Anglia; Edgar the Atheling and the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, supported by the Danes, led a rebellion in the north; and there were uprisings in the Midlands. In response, William adopted a scorched-earth policy, which included genocide and the salting of the land in the infamous ‘Harrying of the North’. The consequence was mass starvation, and the north took decades to recover. The creation of the royal forests – swathes of land that were cleared of Saxon villages and reserved for the sole use of the King and his nobles – was also deeply resented.

However, William maintained a well-ordered, strong kingdom in which crime was contained. The efficiency of Norman bureaucracy is shown by the creation of the Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of who owned what in England, which was completed in 1086, shortly before William’s death in Rouen from war wounds in 1087. William married Matilda of Flanders and had ten children. Remarkably for this time, he seems to have remained faithful to his wife.

W
ILLIAM
II

Reigned 1087–1100

William II was the fifth child and third son of William the Conqueror, and was born in around 1056 in Normandy. His fair hair and ruddy complexion earned him the nickname ‘Rufus’ (meaning ‘red’). He was a rather flamboyant figure, with ‘effeminate’ long hair and extravagant clothes, and is said to have led a dissolute life. He never married and was not linked with any women, which in an age when the succession was the most important matter of state is quite startling and has led to suggestions that he was gay.

However, he was a strong warrior who conquered all whom he faced in battle, although he was more generous and less ruthless than his father. He was able to consolidate the Norman rule over England and to protect and extend the Normandy homelands, which had been given to his older brother, Robert. The two brothers intrigued and fought against each other constantly until 1096, when Robert leased Normandy to William in exchange for money which Robert needed in order to join the First Crusade.

William may have been an excellent king, but he was given an exceedingly bad write-up by the monks who recorded history. This is not surprising, given that throughout his reign he did much to antagonize the Church. He delayed appointing church leaders, so that he could enjoy their incomes, and fought with Rome over whether the King or the Pope had the final say when it came to church appointments. He eventually drove the saintly Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm, into exile.

There has been much speculation about William’s mysterious death, when he was struck by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. William’s younger brother Henry was a member of the hunting party that day and had much to gain from his brother’s death.

H
ENRY
I

Reigned 1100–1135

Born in 1068 in Selby, Yorkshire, Henry was the youngest and only English-born son of William the Conqueror. Although his father denied him the kingdom he craved, Henry did inherit his ruthless determination. Neither of his older brothers, Robert and William, trusted him and they agreed that Henry would inherit neither Normandy nor England upon their deaths. However, in 1100, Henry’s opportunity came. Robert was away on the First Crusade when William II was killed in a ‘hunting accident’ in the New Forest. Henry was nearby and abandoned his brother’s corpse to gallop to the capital, Winchester, to secure the treasury and the throne for himself. Three days later, he was crowned.

Henry was clever, educated and a master diplomat. He used his English birth, along with generous gifts and bribes, to gain support from the English, who were still smarting from the Norman Conquest. He married Matilda, who was not only the great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside but also the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland, and their son William was given the Anglo-Saxon title of Atheling. One source gives Henry and Matilda the English nicknames ‘Gaffer Goodrich’ and ‘Goody Maud’. In reality, though, Henry was a Norman through and through.

Within six years of being crowned, Henry had defeated Robert in Normandy and reunited the two dominions. Robert was imprisoned for twenty-six years, eventually dying in Cardiff Castle. He was said to have been blinded after a failed escape attempt.

Much of the rest of his reign was spent protecting Normandy from threats and rebellions, many focusing on Robert’s son, who had been spared the fate of his father. Desperately short of money, Henry developed the English legal system and bureaucracy in order to fund his government, thereby limiting the independence of the rapacious Norman aristocracy. Among the King’s achievements, therefore, are the foundations of the English common law system and the development of a powerful treasury, or Exchequer (the name coming from the chequerboard table Henry used as an abacus when agreeing accounts with his subjects).

Henry had four legitimate children with Matilda, none with his second wife, Adeliza, and an astonishing twenty-five or more illegitimate offspring. But in 1120 hopes for a return to legitimate English rule under the Atheling, William, were dashed when he and his younger brother Richard were drowned in the ‘White Ship’, when it went down off the Normandy coast. They were Henry’s only legitimate sons, so he was forced to appoint his daughter Matilda as his heir. Henry died in 1135 of a ‘surfeit of Lamphreys’ (similar to eels).

S
TEPHEN

Reigned 1135–1154

Stephen was a nephew of Henry I. He was born in around 1097 at Blois in France. His older brother succeeded as Count of Blois, while Stephen and his brother Henry (later Bishop of Winchester) sought their fortune with the Normans and were made hugely wealthy with the King’s support. The heir to Henry I’s throne was his daughter Matilda who, when Henry died in 1135, was married to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. The Normans were not prepared to have a queen as their monarch, and certainly not one who was married to one of their Angevin enemies, so Stephen saw his chance to make a bid for the throne. Within weeks of his uncle’s death, he had succeeded.

Stephen was ‘a mild man who was soft and good’, qualities which explain both his popularity and the fact that his reign was so chaotic. Things started off well, but he was soon faced with civil war, when Matilda invaded England in 1139, while her husband attacked Normandy. This period is known as the Anarchy – the ‘nineteen long winters’ of strife during which the local lords were virtually unrestrained by the warring powers. When his forces captured Matilda a more ruthless king would have finished the civil war with a brutal murder; instead Matilda escaped, and in 1141 the tables were turned when Stephen was himself captured after the Battle of Lincoln. Matilda took the throne, the first English reigning queen, though she styled herself ‘Lady of the English’.

Preparations were put in place for a glorious coronation, but Stephen’s redoubtable wife, also called Matilda (of Boulogne), rallied his supporters and advanced on London. Londoners turned against the haughty, unpopular Queen and ‘like thronging swarms from beehives’ forced her to flee. Her principal supporter, Robert of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I, was captured and Matilda was forced to free Stephen in an exchange of prisoners.

Stephen regained the initiative and the throne, and captured Matilda at Oxford Castle in 1142, but she escaped yet again, climbing down the castle walls and fleeing across the frozen river. Matilda’s son Henry gathered together a small army of mercenaries to invade England, but ran out of money to pay his soldiers. Unbelievably, Stephen gave Henry the money he needed, while rallying support for his own son, Eustace, as heir. But the death of Eustace and Henry’s control of Normandy, which had been taken by his father in 1144, made Stephen’s position increasingly difficult. Faced with an invasion by Henry, Stephen agreed that on his death Henry would take the throne, while Stephen’s youngest son, William, would inherit all his father’s lands but renounce his own claim. The civilized agreement was some reward for Stephen’s kindness, and the Anarchy was at an end.

Stephen and his wife had five children, and he had a further five illegitimate children.