London (27 page)

THE CONQUEROR

1066

On January 6, the feast of Epiphany, in the year of Our Lord 1066, the greatest men in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England gathered on the little island of Thorney just outside the port of London to take part in extraordinary events. Everyone was there: Stigand, the Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury; the king’s council, the Witan; the powerful burghers of London. They had been keeping vigil for two weeks.

But nothing, that cold winter morning, was more remarkable than the place where they met.

For generations, a modest community of monks had dwelt on the little island by the old ford. Their church, dedicated to St Peter, was just big enough for themselves and a small congregation. Now, however, a new building had taken its place by the river. There had been nothing like it in England since Roman times. Set in a wide, walled precinct, its ground plan in the shape of a cross, this new church of chalk-white stone dwarfed even the old cathedral of St Paul’s on its hill in the city nearby. Because the monastery on Thorney lay just west of London, it had come to be known as the West Minster, and so this new landmark would thereafter be called Westminster Abbey.

Only twelve days before, on Christmas morning, the frail, white-bearded King Edward, whose life’s work the Abbey was, had proudly watched as the archbishop hallowed the new building. For this pious work, he would become known as Edward the Confessor. But now the vigil was over. His work done, he was free to seek eternal rest. They had buried King Edward in his Abbey that morning, and as they emerged from the church, the great men knew that the eyes of all Christendom were upon them.

From the papal court in Rome to the fjords of Scandinavia, it had been an open secret that the English king was dying. He had no son. At that very moment, adventurers in Normandy, Denmark and Norway were making their preparations, and every court in the northern world was buzzing with the single question: “Who will take up the crown?”

The hooded figure watched them silently, unnoticed.

Wrapped in heavy cloaks, the two men were standing outside, somewhat sheltered by the great Abbey just behind. It was said that nothing could shake their friendship, but he did not believe that. Enmity lasts. Friendship is less certain. Especially at such times as these.

A light snow had begun to fall as, a hundred yards away, the members of the Witan made their way across the enclosure to the long low hall by the riverbank that had been the dead king’s residence, and where they would now choose the new king. Beyond, the river wore a choppy yet sluggish look that suggested the tide was about to turn. Less than two miles away, across the mud flats of the river’s huge bend, the walls of London and the long wooden roof of the Saxon cathedral of St Paul’s could just be seen through the falling snow.

The figure on the left was well set, about forty, his thinning hair compensated for by a rich golden beard. Like his ancestor Cerdic, who had shipped slaves from the ancient trading post now called the Aldwych, he had a broad chest, a broad, Germanic face, an air of cheerful, sturdy self-control, and hard blue eyes that could spot a short measure of goods at a hundred paces. He had a reputation for being very cautious, which some found a virtue, others a fault. But no man had ever known him break his word. His only weakness was a painful back thanks to a fall from his horse, but he was proud that only those closest to him knew he often suffered. He was Leofric, merchant of London.

If Leofric was burly, his companion was a giant. Hrothgar the Dane towered over his Saxon friend. A great mane of red hair grew upon his head; his huge red beard was two feet wide and three feet long. This massive descendant of the Vikings could lift a grown man with each hand. His periodic rages, when his face became as red as his hair, were legendary. When he pounded his fist upon the table, strong men blanched; at his bellowing roar, lines of doors along the street would hastily close. That this rich and powerful noble was nonetheless held in affection by his neighbours might, however, be expected from his ancestry. Two centuries before, his great-great-grandfather had earned a reputation as a fearsome Viking warrior who disliked killing children. His order before each raid of “
Bairn ni Kel
” – “Don’t kill the children” – was so well known that it became a nickname. Five generations later his descendants were still generally referred to as the family of Bar-ni-kel. Since he lived on the eastern of London’s two hills, and traded from the wharf below called Billingsgate, he was usually referred to as Barnikel of Billingsgate.

The Saxon’s green cloak was trimmed with red squirrel fur, but Barnikel’s blue cloak was trimmed with costly ermine from the Viking state of Russia, a sign that he was rich indeed. And if the Saxon owed the wealthy Dane a debt of money, what was that between friends? Leofric’s eldest child, his daughter, was due to marry the Norseman’s son next year.

Few things gave Barnikel greater pleasure. Whenever he saw the girl his huge face softened and broke into a smile. “You’re lucky I chose her for you,” he would tell his son with satisfaction. Demure, with a pleasant smile and soft, thoughtful eyes, she was only fourteen, but she had learned thoroughly the business of running a household, she could read, and her father confessed that she understood his business almost as well as he did. Already the huge red-bearded Dane felt like a father to her. He looked forward eagerly to the time when she would sit at his family table – “Where I can keep an eye on you, and make sure my son is looking after you properly,” he would tell her jovially. “As for Leofric’s debt to me,” he confided to his wife, “don’t tell him, but when the marriage takes place I’m going to cancel it.”

As the Witan went into session the two men waited, stamping their feet in the cold.

The hooded figure watched them thoughtfully. Both men, he knew, had much to fear that day, but it seemed to him that the Saxon was in the greater danger. This suited him very well. He had no interest in the Dane, but the Saxon was another matter. He had sent Leofric a message the day before. As yet, the Saxon had not replied. Soon, however, he would have to. “And then,” the figure murmured, “he’ll be mine.”

A Saxon and a Dane. Yet if anyone had asked either Leofric or Barnikel to name his homeland, both would have replied, without hesitation, that they were English. To understand how this was, and the nature of the choice before the Witan that fateful January morning in 1066, it is necessary to consider certain important developments that had taken place in the northern world.

In the four centuries since St Augustine’s mission to Britain, though Celtic Scotland and Wales remained apart, the numerous Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had slowly begun to coalesce into the entity called England. But then, two centuries ago, in the reign of good King Alfred, England had nearly been destroyed.

The onslaught of the fearsome Vikings upon the northern world lasted several centuries. These Norsemen – Swedes, Norwegians and Danes – have been called merchants, explorers and pirates. They were all those things. Emerging from their fjords and harbours, they wandered the oceans in longships to form colonies in Russia, Ireland, Normandy, the Mediterranean, and even America. From the Arctic to Italy, they traded furs, gold and whatever else they could lay their hands on. With fierce blue eyes, flaming beards, heavy swords and mighty axes, these adventurers drank hugely, swore oaths of loyalty to one another, and bore tremendous names like Ragnar Longhair, Slayer of Tostig the Proud, as though they were still heroes from the Nordic legends of old.

The Vikings who swept across England in the ninth century were mostly Danish. They entered the walled trading centre London and burnt it. But for the heroic battles of King Alfred, they would have taken over the whole island; even after Alfred’s victories, they still controlled most of the English territory north of the Thames.

The area where they settled came to be known as the Danelaw. Here, the English population had to live by Danish custom. Yet this was not so bad. The Danes were Nordic folk, their language like Anglo-Saxon. They even became Christians. And while in the Saxon south the poorer peasants gradually became serfs, the freebooting Danes led a more open life where peasants were independent, belonging to no man. After Alfred’s descendants had gradually regained control of the Danelaw and reunited England, the men of the south would still say, with a shrug: “You can’t argue with a northerner. They’re independent up there.”

However, things were seldom peaceful in the tumultuous northern world, and just before the year 1000, the Danes again descended upon the rich island.

This time they were in better luck. The English leader was not Alfred, but his inept descendant Ethelred, who, because he usually failed to take good advice –
raed
in Anglo-Saxon – was known as Ethelred
Un-raed
, the Unready. Year after year, this foolish king paid them protection – Danegeld – until at last the English, sick of him, accepted the Danish king as their monarch instead. As Leofric’s grandfather had remarked, “If I’m going to pay Danegeld I’d like to have some order.”

Nor was he disappointed. The reign of King Canute, who shortly succeeded to the thrones of both Denmark and England, was long and exemplary. His strength was feared; his simple common sense was legendary. The Danish Barnikel family found a ready welcome at his court, but so had Leofric’s grandfather and many Saxons like him. Impartially ruling England as an English king, he brought unity, peace and prosperity to the land, and if his son had not suddenly died soon after succeeding him, forcing the English Witan to choose pious Edward from the old Saxon line, England might have remained an Anglo-Danish kingdom.

Nowhere was this marriage of Saxon and Danish cultures more successful than in the growing port now known as London. Lying on the old borderland between Saxon and Danish England, it was natural that the two cultures should merge there. Though the assembly of all the citizens, summoned three times a year by the great bell to the old cross that stood beside St Paul’s, was still the Saxon Folkmoot, the court where the city fathers regulated the city’s trade and commerce had a Danish name: the Hustings. Whilst some of the little wooden churches were dedicated to Saxon saints like Ethelburga, others bore Scandinavian names like Magnus or Olaf. And along the lane that led to Westminster lay a rural parish of former Viking settlers called St Clement Danes.

On this cold winter morning, therefore, both Barnikel the Dane and Leofric the Saxon were united by a common desire: they wanted an English king.

One might suppose from his pious name that Edward the Confessor had been revered. He had not. Not only was his character petty, but he was foreign. Although Saxon born, he had been brought up in a French monastery and had taken a French wife, and whilst used to the long-established communities of French and German merchants in London, the burghers and nobles had not taken to the Frenchmen who infested his court. His Abbey said it all. Saxon buildings were usually modest timber structures full of intricate carving. Even the few stone churches sometimes looked as if they were meant to be made of wood. But the Abbey’s massive pillars and rounded arches were in the stern Romanesque style of the Continent. Not English at all.

The final insult, however, had been William of Normandy.

The Witan had three choices. Only one, a nephew of King Edward’s, was legitimate, but he was a youth, brought up abroad by a foreign mother and without a following in England. “He won’t do,” Leofric declared. Then there was Harold. Not royal, but a great English noble, a fine commander, and popular.

And then there was the Norman.

It was generations since Viking adventurers had colonized this northern coastal region of France. Merging with the local population, they were French-speaking now, but their Viking wanderlust remained. The last Duke of Normandy, having no legitimate heir, had left a bastard son to succeed him.

Ruthless, ambitious, probably driven by the sense of his illegitimacy, William of Normandy was a formidable adversary. Marrying into the family of Edward the Confessor’s wife, he saw the chance to succeed the childless monarch and make himself king. From across the English Channel, he was claiming that Edward had promised him the throne. “And knowing the king, he probably did,” Barnikel remarked gloomily.

But now the two men fell silent. The Witan was emerging.

“Look down upon our humble prayers and bless this Thy servant whom we, with humble devotion, have chosen to be King of the Angles and Saxons.” So ran the prayers they used as they held the crown over the new king’s head. Then came the coronation oath, in which the king promised peace, order and mercy. After this, the bishop, invoking Abraham, Moses, Joshua, King David and Solomon the Wise, once more asked God’s blessing and anointed the king with oil. Only then was he invested with the crown of good King Alfred and given the sceptre for power and the rod for justice.

In this way, just hours after the funeral of King Edward, the traditional English coronation for the first time took place in Westminster Abbey. As Leofric and Barnikel looked at the well-built, brown-bearded figure whose clear blue eyes stared out boldly from the throne, they felt a new hope. Saxon King Harold would do very well.

It was as they came out of the Abbey at the end of the service that Barnikel of Billingsgate made his great mistake.

The hooded man who had been watching them was positioned near the door. His head was bare now, the hood pushed back on to his shoulders.

He was a strange figure. Standing close to one of the church’s massive pillars, he might have been taken for a statue, a dark excrescence of the stone. His cloak was black and furled around him like the wings of a bird. His uncovered head revealed that his face was clean-shaven and his hair cut in a close-cropped circle well above his ears, in the current Norman fashion. But it was another feature that was truly remarkable. Emerging from his pale, oval face was a nose of notable dimensions. It was not so much broad as long; not pointed but rounded at the tip; not red but somewhat shiny. A nose so distinctive, so serious, that with his head tucked down it seemed to descend into the folds of his cloak like the beak of some ominous raven.