The murmur of conversation was low within the Council chamber, flickering in unison with the dance of the candle flames. All but a few of the Witan were present. Nine and thirty men. Two Archbishops: Stigand of Canterbury and Ealdred of York. The bishops of London, Hereford, Exeter, Wells, Lichfield and Durham; among the abbots, the houses of Peterborough, Bath and Evesham. Shire reeves and thegns—Ralf, Esgar, Eadnoth, Bondi, Wigod and Æthelnoth among others; the royal clerics, Osbern, Peter and Robert; Regenbald the King’s chancellor…and the five earls of England: Harold, his brothers Leofwine and Gyrth, and Eadwine and Morkere. They talked of the morrow’s expected weather, the succulence of the meat served for dinner, the ship that had so unexpectedly sunk in mid-river that very morning. Anything and everything unrelated to the difficulties that lay ahead in these next few hours and days.
Archbishop Ealdred exchanged a glance with Stigand, who nodded agreement. He stood and cleared his throat. “My lords, gentlemen, we must, however hard it be for us, discuss what we most fervently would have hoped not yet to have to.”
The light talk faded, grim faces turned to him, men settled themselves on benches or stools, a few remained standing.
“It is doubted that Edward will survive this night. It is our duty, our responsibility, to choose the man who is to take up his crown. I put it to you, the Council of England, to decide our next king.” Then Ealdred folded his robes around him and sat.
Those present were suddenly animated; opinions rose and fell like a stick of wood bobbing about on an incoming tide. Only two names were on their lips: Edgar the boy ætheling, and Harold.
The two in question sat quiet, on opposite sides of the chamber: one still asking himself if this was what he wanted; the other, bewildered and blear-eyed from the lateness of the hour. He had never before been summoned to attend the Council. It was not a thing for a boy, this was the world of men, of warlords and leaders. He was not much impressed by it.
Edgar looked from one to another, listened to snatches of the talk. He had been immersed in a game of taefl with his best friend—had been winning. One more move…and they had come, fetched him away, curse it! Sigurd always won at taefl; it had been Edgar’s big moment, his one chance to get even…
For an hour they debated, the hour-candle burning lower as the discussion ebbed and flowed. Occasionally someone would toss out a sharp question to the boy or Harold, seeking opinions, assurance. Edgar answered as well he could, Harold with patient politeness.
Midnight was approaching; servants had come and replaced the hour candle with a new one. The same words passed around and around.
“As I see things.” Archbishop Stigand said, his voice pitched to drown the rattle of debate, “we have talked of but the two contenders. Edgar?” He beckoned the lad forward. He came hesitantly, not much caring for this direct focus of attention for he was a shy lad.
Stigand continued, not noticing the boy’s reluctance. If Edgar were elected king it would make no difference that the lad did not want the title. To be king was a thing ordained and sanctioned by God, personal preference did not come into it. “He is of the blood, but not of age. Second, Harold of Wessex.” Again the Archbishop paused to motion the man forward. “He has ruled England on Edward’s behalf these past many years and has proven himself a wise and capable man. But there is a third possibility. Duke William may claim the crown through the Lady, Queen Emma, and through some misguided impression that Edward once offered him the title.”
Immediately there were mutterings, shaking of heads, tutting. Uneducated foreigners, especially Norman dukes, it seemed, were unanimously declared as not understanding the civilised ways of the English.
Stigand half smiled, said, “I take it, then, that William is excluded from the voting?”
“Aye.”
“That he is!”
“Damned impudence, if you ask me.”
“Does he think we would stoop so low as to elect a king who could not sign his own name?”
The clerk at his table to one side was scribbling hastily, attempting to write down as many of the comments as he could; the records would be rewritten later in neat script, the irrelevancies deleted, the gist of the proceedings tailored to fit the Church-kept—and censored—chronicle.
“Duke William cannot be so easily dismissed,” Harold interrupted. He waited for the babble of voices to quieten. “The Duke will not heed anything said in this room. If he has set his mind on wearing a crown then he will come and attempt to take it, I have no doubt of that. If he is rejected here in this Council, the question, my lords, will not be if or how or can he attack us, but when.”
“But he may be satisfied knowing a grandson of his was to hold England.” The Chancellor, Regenbald, spoke up, “You are to wed his daughter, does that not adequately relieve the situation?”
Aye, they were all agreed, it did. All except Harold.
He stood beside Stigand, saying nothing more. It was not his place to influence Council, but it was difficult to keep his tongue silent with some of these more inane remarks. Duke William looked at things as if through thick-blown glass, his view distorted to match his own expectations. Besides, to placate William with an alliance of marriage presupposed that Harold would be elected king, and they had not, yet, done so.
The door to the chamber opened, eyes turned, speech faded. Abbot Baldwin entered. He had no need to say anything, his expression told his message.
Archbishop Ealdred murmured a few words of prayer, joined by Stigand and other holy men. “Amen,” he said. Then he looked up, his eyes sweeping across the room.
“We are agreed then? The King commended his wife, our good Lady Edith, into the care of the Earl of Wessex. It is in my mind that by this he intended for Earl Harold to protect and reign over England.”
There came but one murmur of disapproval: from Morkere, new-made Earl of Northumbria.
“It is in my mind that Earl Harold, once crowned king, may go back on his word and restore his brother to favour. I have no intention of relinquishing my earldom.” He spoke plainly, but firmly. His brother, Eadwine, close at his side, nodded. Several thegns and nobles from the northern earldoms agreed also. A bishop too, Harold noticed. The representative of Durham, was frowning. No doubt once Morkere had chance to donate as many gifts as Tostig had, opinion there would dramatically change.
Harold stepped forward, offering his hand to Morkere. “My brother has become a jealous fool. I make no secret of the fact that I would rather have him back in England, where I can keep eye on him, but he will never return to Northumbria. You have my sworn word.”
Morkere did not take the proffered hand. “Is your word good, my Lord Earl? Did you not grant your word—your oath—that you would support William of Normandy in his claim for England?”
An uneasy silence. Harold smiled laconically. Morkere showed signs of becoming a good earl, a worthy man to hold Northumbria.
“That oath,” Harold said, “was taken under duress. I am under no obligation to keep it. I was given the choice of losing my honour or my life and freedom, and that of my men. There are oaths, and oaths, my friend.” He nudged his hand further forward, inviting Morkere to take it, still smiling. “I made that vow to William knowing full well that it was more dishonourable for a lord to endanger the lives of others than to pledge an oath with no intention of keeping it. I make this one to you with a view to the opposite.” Aware he had to give some other insurance to convince this rightfully suspicious young man, he added, “Within our traditional law there is no dishonour in breaking a promise to a man who is himself dishonourable. To those who are worthy ’tis different.” For a third time he offered his hand. “Take my word, Morkere, Tostig will not have Northumbria while I am able to prevent it. I give that unbreakable vow to a man I would call worthy to receive it.”
Morkere was tempted to look at his brother, seek his opinion, but did not. He was his o
wn man, earl in his own right, with his own decisions to make—be they right or wrong.
Decisively, with a single, abrupt nod of his head, gazing steadily into Harold’s eyes, he set his broad hand into the other man’s. “I accept your pledge, my Lord of Wessex.” Corrected himself. “My Lord King.”
There was no need for Morkere to add anything further, for Harold understood the look that accompanied that acceptance from steady, unblinking eyes: God protect you, though, should you break it.
2
Westminster
Standing flanked by the Archbishops Ealdred of York and Stigand of Canterbury, Harold struggled to retain his concentration. A combination of tiredness, excitement and unexpected nerves was getting the better of him. To his left, a slab of marble lay new-mortared into the floor before the altar. Harold stared down at it as the abbey echoed from the singing of the Te deum laudamus, the ceremony of acclamation. Beneath the slab rested Edward’s coffin and the shrouded body of the dead king.
But he is no longer king, Harold thought, incredulously. The people have been asked if they will accept me as their sovereign and they have acclaimed me so. Ealdred’s explicit words reverberated in Harold’s mind: “The King, elected by the clergy and the people.”
The abbey of Saint Peter of Westminster, this sixth day of January in the year 1066, was as crowded now as it had been earlier in the day for Edward’s funeral—some of the populace who had trooped from London and neighbouring villages and hamlets, unwilling to give up a prized position on a bench, had remained stubbornly in their seats, drinking their skins of ale and chewing goat’s cheese and bread. A cold easterly wind raged outside, another reason to stay warm and dry within.
Reading in English from a schedule given him by the Archbishop, Harold solemnly declared the triple oath, his mind flirting with incongruous personal thoughts as Ealdred proceeded to give instruction and admonishment for his own good and for that of his people. Soon, he would ask Harold to make the promises to keep true peace within the Church of God and the whole dominion of his Christian people, to forbid rape and wrongful acts in every degree, and to ordain that justice and mercy should be observed in all legal judgments: the traditional preliminaries to the ceremony proper.
Several times Harold felt the urge to run from the abbey, flee before it was too late. He was to be king, the first to be crowned in this abbey—by God’s good mercy could he do this thing? Edgar, the boy, was the heir and ætheling—but if he, a man grown, was filled with these doubts and anxieties, how would a lad of his age grapple with the enormity of the task ahead? Those doubts had almost overcome Harold in the early hours of yesterday morning as news came that Edward was dead. “Do I deserve to be elected king?” he had said to the Council. “I am a statesman, a warlord, but am I the stuff of kingship?”
“What is it you shirk from?” his brother Gyrth had asked. “Or do you fear those who will, undoubtedly, oppose you? The commitment to God and country? The responsibility?”
“I fear all those!” Harold had retorted emphatically. “I would be the greater fool were I not to.”
“Which is why you will make a good king,” Eadwine of Mercia had countered, offering his hand in friendship as Harold had to Morkere.
In the abbey, Harold jerked his attention back to the ceremony. Ealdred was again standing before him, anointing his head with chrism, the holiest oil known to the Church, and the anthem “They Anointed Solomon” lifted from the sweet, clear voices of the choir.
Trouble would come from Normandy over this. Could there be any doubting that unofficial word was already speeding on its way southwards? Officially, a letter would be sent by courier on the morrow, duly endorsed by the newly crowned and anointed king, greeting William and asking that the marriage arrangement be upheld, to unite Normandy and England in the union of kinship. Kinship? What stability or loyalty did kinship bring?
A brother. Tostig. How was he going to react to this day’s crowning? Harold could guess only too well. And his sister Edith, where did her loyalty lie? With a brother, certainly, but not with the one declared by the Council as king. She had refused to attend this ceremony, claiming it was too soon after Edward’s death. Harold admitted she was right there, for he too had protested, yesterday, against a kingmaking coming on the same day as a king’s burial. Edward had died in the early hours of the fifth day of January, was put into his grave on the morning of the sixth and his crown placed on the head of his successor that same afternoon.
“We wait until the next calling of the Council, then, do we?” the Council had responded with unanimous scorn. “Let England flounder like a beached whale, inviting our enemies to come through the wide open door to sample our ale and women?”
For too long already had earls been absent from their manors, thegns from their farm holdings, bishops and abbots from congregation and monastery. Council ought to have disbanded three days past, for the weather was turning bitter with cold. Snow would be coming soon.
Archbishop Ealdred had said boldly, “We must all of us leave Westminster on the morning after Edward is buried. We cannot wait until the next Council for a coronation. It would be better for you to claim your crown now. By Easter, who knows who else may come to try for the fit of it.”
Morkere had added, with his own brand of dry, Mercian-bred humorous pessimism, “Besides, we may not have time to think about a crowning later in the year, when we are busy fighting to keep your unanimously elected backside on the throne.”
To combine the laws of land and God together, the Church had created a liturgy for the investiture of the Regalia of Kingship. There were five items of holy symbolism: the ring, sword, crown, the sceptre and rod, given to the King with the blessings of the Mother of God, Saint Peter, prince of apostles and Saint Gregory the apostle of the English and all the saints.
“May God make you victorious and conqueror over your enemies; may He grant you peace and with the palm of victory lead you to His eternal kingdom. May God bless this, our chosen king, that he may rule like David and govern with the mildness of Solomon.”
And the abbey, which smelt of sawdust and mortar, incense and male sweat, was filled with the answering roar of acclaim, shouted from every lip and every heart as men came to their feet, three times lifting their arms in salute and their voices in endorsement: Vivat Rex! Vivat Rex! Vivat Rex in aeternum!
Harold sat, enthroned, enrobed, his expression a look of almost childlike wonder. He saw a sea, an ocean of faces, all with their right arms raised, mouths open acclaiming him. Long live the King! His brothers Leofwine and Gyrth—his nephew, Hakon, so delighted to be home in England among his kindred. The Earls Eadwine and Morkere; ealdormen of the Council; men of the Holy Church. His friends, housecarls, thegns. To one side, his mother Countess Gytha, sated with pride and pleasure. Beside her, his sons, his daughters. Goddwin, Edmund, Magnus, Ulf, Algytha and Gunnhild. The boys with great moon-full grins, hands raised, chins jutting, shouting Vivat Rex!
And Edyth. His heart ached to run forward, gather her to him, wipe from her cheek that glistening tear that he could see, trailing silver. She was smiling, shouting as loud as the rest of them, shutting out the pain within her as the door closed, finally, on the years, those good, loving years, that they had shared as man and wife.
3
Rouen
The messenger refused to hand the letter sent from England to the Duke personally. Instead, he sought fitz Osbern.
“But this is for Duke William. Why have you brought it to me, man?” Fitz Osbern was irritated. Naught had gone right this day—before leaving his bed he had quarrelled with his wife, then he had discovered his favourite hound had been in a fight during the night, sustaining a torn ear and tooth-gouged neck. Added to that, indigestion was burning in his chest and now this fool was standing there hopping from foot to foot, proffering a parchment that was meant for the Duke. As if he did not have enough of his own corresponde
nce to see to this day!
At least the messenger was honest in his reply. “Sir, I bring it to you because it contains bad news. I have no intention of being on the receiving end of his temper.”
William fitz Osbern sat at his table, maps and letters spread before him, a quill pen leaning from the ink well, shavings from other trimmed quills brushed into a neat pile. He had stared at the scrolled parchment in his hand. It was from William, Bishop of London. He sighed. There was so much to do and so little time in which to accomplish it. Norman administration would be easier were the Duke able to attend to the reading of charters and letters himself, and if the whole system were not so complicated. The recording of taxable land in England, for example, was much more organised, with everything meticulously written down and recorded in one set book within each shire.
“If it is about King Edward’s health, then we are already aware that he is failing. The Duke is expecting to hear that he is dead.” Will handed the scroll back to the messenger. “You have my assurance that he will not bark at you for that.” Mint leaves would be good for his bubbling stomach. Perhaps he ought to send a servant to fetch some.
The messenger took a step backwards, emphatically refusing to take the document. “’Tis not the bark that concerns me, my Lord. ’Tis the sharp-toothed bite!”
Fitz Osbern suppressed a belch. “For the sake of God, man, you have been paid to deliver a message to Duke William. Do so.” Fitz Osbern tossed the scroll at the man, who made no attempt to catch it.
“Nay, sir, ’tis not my place to disagree with you, but I were commissioned to fetch this to Normandy as soon as might be possible. That, sir, I have done. No one said anything about taking it direct to the Duke himself.”
I Am the Chosen King Page 56