Kings & Queens: Amazing & Extraordinary Facts

by Day, Malcolm

The location of the burial was a known centre of East Anglian royal power. The Merovingian coins found in a purse have been dated c.625 CE, the period given by the Anglo-Saxon historian Bede for the death of King Redwald. Anglo-Saxon society was a loose confederation of kingdoms and on that premise alone many kings could be candidates. But one king alone had the title ‘Bretwalda’, or Overlord, and at the time of Sutton Hoo it was Redwald.

  THE BRETWALDA

  This somewhat enigmatic title is associated with Anglo-Saxon kingship. Originally it meant ‘over-king’, the king who rules other kings, and was probably nothing more than honorary. But in time its status acquired power and the title came to mean ‘Britain-ruler’. Because early Anglo-Saxon society roughly consisted of a heptarchy of seven kingdoms – Kent, Sussex (South Saxons), Wessex (West Saxons), Essex (East Saxons), East Anglians, Mercia (Midlands), and Northumbria (northern Anglians) – there arose the need for an overall ruler. The term originated in Old High German and was imported when the Saxon tribes migrated to Britain. Unlike modern dynastic succession the title was not hereditary, but seemed to be granted by common consent. Quite what were the grounds for that entitlement is unclear. It is possible that the term carried some form of investiture of the god Woden, from which Anglo Saxon kings derived their divine right to rule. Whatever was the full significance of the Bretwalda, the title marked a key stage in the development of the English institution of monarchy.

  The grave-goods were undoubtedly of supreme quality, and the regalia found may well have belonged to the Bretwalda. But one item in particular shone out as pointing to a figure of Redwald’s status. This was the whetstone, a finely crafted sceptre made of the hardest stone. It is decorated with mysterious male faces and topped by a black disc surmounted by a stag with fine arcing antlers. Stags were symbols of royalty. Whetstones were found in Swedish graves of this period, but none as large as this one, two feet long. One eminent archaeologist described it as ‘monstrous, a unique savage thing; and inexplicable except as a symbol proper to the king himself.’

  So if it was indeed King Redwald’s funeral, why no trace of a body? Some say the ship was only a cenotaph (monument of the dead), and that a pyre nearby would have cremated the body. Even forensic experts could find no human remains. However, what was discovered was a complete set of iron coffin fittings. These formed a perfect rectangular outline of a wooden coffin around which the grave goods were neatly arranged. A scientific explanation for the missing body maintains that acid sand in which the boat lay could have gradually rotted away the bones, even the teeth.

  Romantic speculation about Sutton Hoo is further fuelled by the poem Beowulf, written much later but which perhaps preserves some of the memories of such a momentous event. A great pyre was built and after the body and weapons were consumed in flames,

  … the Great people began to construct a mound on a headland …

  It was their hero’s memorial; what remained from the fire

  They housed inside it …

  And they buried torques in the barrow, and jewels

  And a trove …

  Little is known about the life of Redwald. Bede says he converted to Christianity in Kent but on his return to East Anglia reverted to his old pagan worship. Perhaps his burial combined elements of both faiths.

  First Christian English King

  Ethelbert sees the Roman Church as key to political power

  After the collapse of Rome as a political power, Britain became a two-sided society: on the one hand there were the Romano-British people who clung to the institutions and culture that had evolved over the last 500 years, and on the other hand there were the Anglo-Saxon settlers who exerted control over the land. With the latter came their pagan beliefs and customs. The Anglo-Saxon world of the sixth century was one of dragons and witches, and its kings all claimed descent from the Germanic god Woden with all his magical power.

  At about the same time, across the Channel, Gaul had been taken over by a barbarian people, the Franks, who spoke a similar language to the Saxons, coming as they did from Germany. But the culture which prevailed in the land which took their name, France, was a good deal more refined than its Anglo-Saxon counterpart, and more powerful too, having quickly expanded into an empire. Much of the Gallic tradition continued to be observed by the people, including its Christian faith.

  Eyeing the opportunity

  Now Anglo-Saxon kings did not have much status in Europe, and Ethelbert, though bretwalda, was envious of the Franks’ success. He wished not only to establish a strong reign in his own land but also to extend his influence abroad. With this in mind, he married the Frankish princess Bertha. But part of the condition of that union, imposed by her family, was that Ethelbert become a Christian like his wife. And here Ethelbert saw a political opportunity.

  It was put to Pope Gregory the Great that the English were willing to be baptised, and to this end he dispatched a mission led by Augustine in 597. Now Ethelbert was a cautious man, as well as shrewd. On their arrival he held the missionaries on the Island of Thanet in Kent while he assessed this new faith. Not wanting to risk being overpowered by its god and priests, he made them present themselves in the open air, so that any magic spell they might try to cast would disperse the more easily.

  Ethelbert was impressed by the ceremony, with its elaborate dress, symbols and music. Knowing how much the Franks had benefited from having Roman Christian subjects, he duly allowed the papal envoys to go about their business. It is said, they baptised 10,000 new converts in Kent over Christmas. And Ethelbert could see the willingness with which his English subjects embraced their new religion.

  Much about the Roman Church appealed to Ethelbert, steeped as he was in crude Anglo-Saxon paganism: its law, its Latin liturgy, its massive churches built of stone, and perhaps most of all the absolute supremacy of its leader.

  If only Ethelbert himself would convert, Augustine beseeched, all this would be available to him, as king of Christian England. A wry smile must have graced Ethelbert’s face as he finally took the oath of allegiance.

  First ever document in English

  Indeed so enthusiastic did Ethelbert’s support of the Church become that he commissioned the first cathedral of St Paul’s to be built (alas destroyed by fire in the tenth century).

  He is also thought to have written the first ever document in English, in the oldest form of the language we have. Almost immediately after converting, Ethelbert insisted on issuing a code of laws in a language his people could understand. Augustine (who would become the first Archbishop of Canterbury) no doubt helped him draft the form of it, but its content is undoubtedly Anglo-Saxon.

  Dyke Twice the Length of Hadrian’s Wall

  But why did the great Offa build one at all?

  King Offa of Mercia must go down in English history as one of the most feared monarchs of the Dark Ages:

  … in Mercia there ruled a mighty king called Offa, who struck all the kings and regions around him with terror. He it was who ordered the great dyke to be constructed between Wales and Mercia, stretching from sea to sea. (Bishop Asser, On the Deeds of King Alfred)

  Offa is best known today for his dyke that stretches from the Irish Sea to the Bristol Channel. Yet in his day no record was made of it. In fact the extract above, written by Bishop Asser, was the first written record, put down some 100 years later. Even by today’s standards the enterprise – part ditch, part rampart – is hugely impressive. It still stands six metres (20 feet) high in places and forms most of the border between Wales and England. But historians disagree about why it was built. Did it mark an agreed frontier? Or was it a fortification to be used as a Mercian command base from which to attack the Welsh?

  The organization and labour involved must have been colossal. In a concerted programme, thousands of Anglo-Saxon peasants, perhaps drawn from different regions, would have assembled on the border country. They brought with them their horses and carts, tents, spades, axes, hammers, weapons, and set to work digging
a ditch eight metres (25 feet) deep and 20 metres (65 feet) wide. Oxen hauled heavy ploughs to help turn up the earth. Everything they excavated was heaped up to form a huge rampart.

  Throughout the spring, summer and probably the autumn, in about 787 CE, gangs of workmen would have been assigned piecemeal right along the 135 miles of dyke, camping out at night and labouring by day, like the railway navvies of the 19th century. Where the topography made alignment difficult, large beacons were set up on hilltops to ensure a continuous line. With a visibility range of up to 20 miles, these miniature lighthouses acted as a warning system against Welsh raids; indeed the system continued in use up to Elizabethan times when it served to alert the nation of the approaching Spanish Armada.

  Running along the top of the dyke was a wooden palisade, with stone bastions, the entire length broken only by occasional gateways for traders to pass through. Marshalls on horseback would have monitored progress, and sometimes among them figured the fearsome King Offa. Only someone with the regal clout he clearly possessed could have ensured such a project was completed. And completed it was within the year.

  Megalomania

  Although the whole enterprise is shrouded somewhat in mystery, we know something of the man who envisioned this extraordinary feat. Offa was a single-minded and determined leader. He was quite capable of seeing off any rival or obstruction that might bar his way, casually applying as much brutality as necessary.

  For example, he had designs on Kent because of its trading gateway to the continent. The Church had considerable power in this region through its possession of the see of Canterbury. But Offa did not let this stand in his way and devised a suitable stunt. Two papal legates were invited to a Council of the English Church. After some intense debate Offa won the day and had Lichfield, located in the heartland of Mercia, raised to an archbishopric whose incumbent would bound to support his elector.

  Another indication of the king’s megalomania was the coinage minted in his day. Offa had the silver penny enlarged and upgraded. His image appears to be modelled on the form of King David of ancient Israel. Following the tradition established there of ordained kingship, Offa had his son anointed as a divinely approved heir. Vast quantities of his coinage were struck and used to trade with the expanding economy of France – monetary inflation had never been so rampant.

  Perhaps Offa’s ploy was essentially one of safeguarding his border with the turbulent Welsh so that he could concentrate his energies on spreading his influence across the Channel.

  First Saxon King of England

  An unpromising start sees Egbert rise to the top

  One of many victims of the mighty Offa, King of Mercia, was a young heir to the throne of Wessex. Fearing for his life, Egbert fled to France to seek refuge at the court of Emperor Charlemagne. Egbert bided his time there until a propitious moment at the beginning of the ninth century when he could return from exile and claim the throne of Wessex with relative ease.

  A series of effective rebellions had undermined the overarching power of Mercia that had existed since the days of Offa. In the emerging free for all Wessex stepped up to become the supreme kingdom. Egbert, who was widely regarded as grand liberator, was then hailed in 825 as overall ruler – the very first king of a united Anglo-Saxon England.

  Thus brought to a conclusion the several lines of kings that had comprised the seven separate Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Kent had 18 kings up to Egbert; East Anglia had 16 kings, ending with St Edmund, after whom Bury St Edmunds in Hertfordshire is named; Essex had 15 kings; Sussex nine kings; Mercia 15 kings; Northumbria 25 kings; and Wessex 19 kings.

  The Mystique of Scone

  Kenneth MacAlpine inaugurates Scottish monarchy

  At a time when the legendary Brutus ruled his kingdom in southern Britain, a northern people known as the Picts held an independent realm, now Scotland. The Scots were confined to a small region known as Dalriada in Argyll, sometimes controlled by the Picts. Over many centuries the Scots grew more numerous and powerful until, one day in the ninth century, when the Pictish accession was in doubt, the king of the Scots, Kenneth McAlpine, made a bid for the throne on the ground that he was slightly Pictish himself. He devised a devilish plot to succeed.

  McAlpine met the Pictish leaders at their sacred centre of Scone, near Perth, to discuss the succession. Inviting them to a banquet afterwards, he seated the nobles on benches placed above trap doors. When all were comfortable, he gave the order for supporting bolts to be drawn away sending the hapless Picts to a cellar below where waiting guards slaughtered them.

  Having eliminated all his rivals to the throne in one fell swoop, McAlpine was free to rule a new kingdom of the Scots, traditionally called Albany, for it constituted the part of Albion north of the border drawn from the Clyde to the Forth which the Romans never conquered. From then on, this northern land was united under the Scots and also came to incorporate Strathclyde, a kingdom ruled at the time by the Welsh.

  Stone of destiny

  It was McAlpine who instituted the so-called Stone of Destiny in order to invest his rule with legitimacy, even divine authority. A sacred stone said to be the one on which the biblical Jacob once rested his head and dreamed of the descendants of Israel, had been brought to Ireland, according to legend, by an eastern princess, named Tea. She married an Irish king and the stone featured in coronation rituals as the Stone of Destiny. This holy but bulky unhewn rock was brought over to Iona by Prince Fergus, founder of Dalriada. McAlpine now carried it on to Scone.

  The stone was set up in a throne on which McAlpine and every successive monarch of Scotland would sit to receive the crown. The stone of Scone became an integral part of the mystique of Scottish royal legitimacy. In 1296, the victorious English king Edward I removed the stone to Westminster after conquering Scotland. The Scots say that wherever the stone is a Scot shall rule. This belief was vindicated in 1603 when James VI of Scotland was also crowned James I of England.

  The King Who Forgave his Enemies

  Alfred the Great, gentleman and scholar

  By the time Alfred became king of Wessex, aged bout 22, three elder brothers had already been on the throne. Their fair-minded father Ethelwulf had made the brothers agree to a novel policy of succession by which each surviving brother would in turn take the throne, leaving sufficient property rights to the children of the deceased. Alfred’s life as a boy coincided with the great Viking invasion of Britain, hence his accession to the throne at such a tender age.

  The early years of his reign were a desperate struggle for survival, and several times he was forced into hiding. It was during this period that the famous legend tells of his stay on Athelney Island in a swineherd’s cottage. After burning the cakes that he was asked to watch Alfred was rebuked by the swineherd’s wife, she not knowing he was the king. Yet, from this ignominious position Alfred learned his lesson. Summoning all the strength possessed of his character, he managed, bit by bit, battle by battle, to win back all the territories he had lost.

  The ‘Alfred Jewel’

  Making of the man

  From an early age Alfred displayed a keen intelligence and an enquiring mind. Before the troubles began, Ethulwulf took Alfred, aged six, on a pilgrimage to Rome where they stayed for over a year. The boy is thought to have received some sort of consecration by the pope, an event which clearly made a lasting impression on him.

  Once home, and thrust into the maelstrom of battles, Alfred earned some of his ‘greatness’ in the way he handled the outcomes. In one of the most important campaigns in English history, at the Battle of Edington in Wiltshire, a prolonged engagement of fierce fighting with heavy swords and axes resulted in victory for the home side and marked a turning point in Wessex’s fortunes against the invading hordes.

  The manner of Alfred’s treatment of his Viking counterpart, Guthrum, was curious. Any one of his Anglo-Saxon predecessors would have slain the enemy there and then. Alfred not only spared Guthrum, but insisted on the pagan becoming baptised as a
Christian. Alfred was his godfather.

  The Saxon leader’s benevolence did not stop there. Alfred then threw a party for the Vikings that lasted many days and showered them with gifts. At the end of the festivities, he released all the captives – and enjoyed peace with them for a decade and a half.

  Civilising influence

  In peacetime, Alfred did not idle away his days: ‘no wise man wants a soft life,’ he maintained. Instead he sought to secure his kingdom and subjects as best he could. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before he would have to face more Viking raids, the Saxon king pioneered a fleet of warships, each manned with 60 oars, making them fast in the water. Thus was created England’s first navy.

  Alfred was also the first English king to devise a rotating system of conscription. Half his subjects would do spells of military service, then return to their usual occupation, while the other half took their place. In this way, Alfred ensured he always had a ready army.

  He founded 30 fortified towns, strategically located so that nowhere was more than 20 miles (a day’s march) away from another. Each of these settlements, or boroughs (from the Saxon word, burgh, meaning fortress), would have a garrison and land to support the inhabitants, the largest being Winchester, his capital.

  The building of these towns gave his subjects a fairer share in society. As opposed to a castle owned by a baron and served by slaves, these boroughs were devised by a Christian mind having due care for his fellow citizens. All would perform to their best ability in support of the whole. In fact Alfred made a survey of his entire kingdom, the ‘Book of Winchester’, and for the first time divided the land into counties, parishes and hundreds, endeavouring to spread his new model society throughout the land.