I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  Someone touched his arm. He spun round, a gasp half leaving his lips, almost expecting to see Harold’s headless corpse standing there. No ghost, only William fitz Osbern, his face haggard with fatigue. “My Lord, there are two women asking to have audience with you.”

  Irritated, William snapped, “I have no time for the weeping of widows—tell them they may take their husbands’ remains and be gone. I have more important things to tend, Will.”

  “Sir, these are no ordinary women. One is Countess Gytha, Lord Harold’s mother, the other is his concubine, Edyth the Fair.”

  William raised an eyebrow. They have come to bargain with me? What is it they want? My protection? Tell them I intend no harm to women who do not oppose me.”

  Fitz Osbern said nothing for a moment. The appalling savagery that he had witnessed—participated in—since their ships had beached on the bay at Pevensey sickened even him, a seasoned warrior. He had believed this campaign to be right, that Edward had promised the throne to William, that Harold had thrown a given oath into the wind and deserved punishment. But not like this. Not with the slaughter of the innocent. Of women and infants. Nor with the cowardly mutilation that had happened up on that ridge, “Sir, the Countess asks for naught but her eldest son’s body. She has offered its weight in gold, were you to return it to her for Christian burial.”

  “And where would that be, think you? This Christian burial?” William snorted.

  Fitz Osbern shrugged; he did not know, had not asked. “Winchester, I assume, where I believe his father, Godwine of Wessex lies. Or Westminster, within the cathedral that King Edward had built, where he rests.”

  Duke William ran his gaze over the sprawl of the Norman dead, beginning to be gathered by those who had survived. Looked further, to the crest of the hill, where the Saxon women were still walking, searching for the remains of husbands, fathers or sons. So many dead, and all for the arrogance of one who thought he could take that which was not his—Harold had caused all this, Harold, who had called himself king—and they wanted to bury him beside other, lawful kings? Non. Jamais. That he would not permit! But these women could prove useful for his own purpose.

  “Tell them I will consider their request, but first they must find what they want. This Edyth, if she is Harold’s whore, she will be able to identify him for us.”

  ***

  The night had passed with bitter slowness for Edyth. All those men who could walk, limp or hobble had drifted away, silent, into the darkness, making for their own homes, to try to forget what they had witnessed; to rest, to heal. To be ready to fight again, if they were wanted, another day. Those who were left, the wounded who had no strength for walking, lay waiting for death. Most of them had not survived the night of cold rain. The women had made their way among them throughout the night, collecting up those they knew for burial, helping those few who remained alive to the tents in the woods to be comforted and bandaged as best they could.

  Strange, but Edyth’s tears would not come. They were there, screaming in her throat, in her head, but they would not reach her eyes. And beyond that silent scream there was nothing else. Nothing, only a blankness and that last view of Harold as he had stood beneath the trees, one hand raised in a salute of farewell…

  The sounds of that ending had carried through the forest, tossed by the wind moaning through the autumn-coloured leaves of the trees. She had heard that last cry, that desolate howl of defeat, the bewildered silence that had followed.

  They had gone up to the ridge, Gytha and she, with the other women, once the dark had settled and the Normans had gone back down to their side of the valley beyond the brook. Had carried a torch, eerie in the blackness, that had flared and hissed as the rain spat into the pitch. The rain…if only the rain had come earlier! They had looked for Harold, but had not found him.

  She thought she would not be able to do this thing, to walk up and down the lines of what had once—only yesterday—been men. The Normans had gathered those who had fallen beside the standards together, laid them in a row along the gory ridge. So much blood, the rain had not yet washed it clean. They had all been stripped naked, their hauberks and tunics stolen, everything that belonged to one man of value to another. So many of them were without limbs or heads, their bellies slit open, their innards pulled out…She tried not to look at the details as she walked from one corpse to another. She recognised the faces, distorted in the agony or surprise of death. These were—had been—Harold’s housecarls, his loyal men who had given everything to serve him, some of them since he had become Earl of East Anglia, on through his being Earl of Wessex and King. Some had even served Godwine before Harold.

  It was no use looking at those who had faces to recognise. She would not find Harold by his familiar face or by the colour of his hair. They had hewed his head from his neck. William, the Duke, had told her so as he had come up on the ridge escorted by that other man, fitz Osbern. How he had looked at her, spoken to her! As if she were something a boot had trodden in. He had stood, legs spread, fists resting on his hips, his head, with the hair shaven in the style of all his kind, tipped backwards, bloated with arrogance.

  “So you are his whore,” he had said.

  Edyth had looked at him, eye to eye, her pride the more dignified, the more honourable. “I would rather be whore to a good man like Harold than duchess to a man who commands murder to satisfy his ambition.”

  She found Harold towards the end of the row. Recognised him by the faded, distinctive scar that swerved across his shoulder. And by the others on the upper arm, the right thigh, the small V shape on the hip. Scars, honourably won in skirmish and battle, in fight and feud. It was the one on the shoulder, though, that she reached out for. Her trembling fingers stretched forward but did not touch. She remembered her dog, his brother’s dagger making this wound. The killing of her dog and the kindling of their love.

  “Is this it? Is this him?” The voice, the eager words in French, startled her. William stood behind her, ordering men to take away what remained of the body. His men began carrying it down the slope towards the Norman encampment.

  “Monseigneur!” she cried, coming to life, running after William who was starting to walk away. She caught hold of his tunic sleeve; he snatched it from her grasp as if stung, a hiss of anger leaving his lips.

  “Monseigneur, the body is for my Lord’s mother! Did you not say she could take it? She is with the English wounded, not down yonder. We would give my Lord proper burial.”

  William glowered at her, unused to being questioned. “Do you think I shall not ensure it, madame? He shall be buried, but where no one will know or tell of it. By the sea, I think. Oui, he can guard the coast he failed to defend. Allons-y.” He hurried the men forward, flicking his hand impatiently at the woman who stood stunned, disbelieving, as they took what remained of her beloved away.

  The woman forgotten, William called to one of his lesser commanders who was making his way obliquely across the sloping, scarred hillside. “Malet! William Malet!”

  The man raised his head at the shout, trotted to meet his lord duke, listened gravely to his orders. Already he had been charged with the burial of all these dead—the Norman dead, the English could look to their own. Mass graves, he had decided, would be best, pits dug away to the east where the ground appeared softer. Now he had this other grave to dig. By the shore, the Duke said. That would mean a journey back to the coast—as if he had not enough to do this day! But so be it. The Duke had commanded it.

  Edyth sank to her knees. There on the blood-mired trampled grass, she covered her face with her hands. He was gone. Harold, her lord, her lover. Harold, husband, father, earl and king, was gone from her for ever. The tears were coming and now that they fell, it would be so hard to stop them.

  Down on the slope, a robin fluttered to the highest branch of a fallen tree. He lifted his head and sang, proclaiming his territory.

 
A far sweeter song than the bloodied one that had been carolled here but yesterday.

  Author’s Note

  The year 1066 is probably the most famous date in English history. It marks a decisive battle that dramatically altered English history, literally overnight—but English history did not begin in 1066. The Saxon kings—Harold II among them—were civilised, educated men. English law and chronicles were recorded and written, the administrative work of government highly sophisticated and well organised. William’s Domesday Book, a list of all the taxable commodities in England, was compiled so quickly and accurately because the information was already there. It only had to be updated.

  The majority of what is known about the sequence of events that led to two such remarkable men—Harold and William—facing each other across a battlefield, seven or so miles from Hastings, was recorded after the event by the victors. Propaganda we would call it today—hardly a good starting point for accuracy. There was a keen need to hide or at least bend certain facts: that William had no right whatsoever to the English throne being one of them.

  I Am the Chosen King is a novel. I have based it on fact, but cannot claim that the details of the events and circumstances are all historically accurate; it is, after all, only an interpretation. There are too many disagreements, even among the experts, ever to be able to state categorically that anything in history is undisputed fact. Unless we were there to see for ourselves, we will never know, and even then the truth can often be elaborated or exaggerated.

  As with many events this far back into the past, we know what happened, often where, occasionally when but rarely the why or the how. Much of our information about the Norman Conquest comes from the Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidery (not, in fact, a tapestry) which was probably commissioned by Duke William’s half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Being of Norman origin and showing only “cartoon-like” illustrations, it leaves much open to conjecture. For example, it shows us Harold leaving Bosham by sea and being captured by Guy de Ponthieu, of his being a “guest” of William—but why he went to Normandy is entirely unknown. It is in the tapestry that Harold rescues two men from drowning; that a woman named as Ælfgyva appears (who she was, we do not know; I have conjectured that she was Agatha, William’s daughter); Halley’s comet is there; and the consecration of a barely completed Westminster Abbey—we see a man putting the weather vane on the roof. And, of course, William’s preparations for invasion, the sea voyage and the battle itself—all strictly from the Norman view.

  The main characters of my novel existed; I have merely invented some of the “bit parts” and added colour and animation. One practical problem was with their Saxon names, often similar or the same, or with spelling unfamiliar to a modern reader. I decided to use a variety of spellings to differentiate between characters sharing the same name—for example the three “Edith’s”: Edith, Harold’s sister; Edyth, his concubine; and Alditha his formal wife—as I have also used Edward and Ædward, Godwine and Goddwin. Canute—of turning the tide fame—is the more well-known spelling, but “Cnut” the more correct, and as he is a central character in my novel devoted to Queen Emma, I considered he ought to be so honoured.

  We know that Queen Edith, Harold’s sister, never had a child and that later writers declared Edward to be intentionally celibate. This seems unlikely as it was the duty of a king to provide heirs who would become “throne-worthy.” It was never written that Edith was barren, with the blame put openly on her, therefore it seems more probable that the truth was shielded: that Edward was either impotent or homosexual. I have not used King Edward’s later title—the Confessor—as this was not applied until his politically manufactured canonisation in 1161.

  Some minor dates I have slightly altered to fit the convenience of narrative. For instance, Tostig was more probably married in 1052. His wife, Judith, I have placed as sister to William’s wife. Some authoritative works place her as Mathilda’s step-aunt, but as I needed my characters to be similar in age, a sister fitted better.

  With a story that covers more than twenty years, it is difficult to know how or where unobtrusively to indicate the passing of years. Within the narrative is clumsy and artificial; as chapter headings, a risk of reading as a chronology. I believe the majority of readers wish to know where and when the action is happening, but without being distracted. I hope the eventual compromise is a suitable solution.

  Specific dates mentioned within the narrative are actual known dates as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and similar documents.

  Most sources imply that Ædward the Exile returned to London by mid-April 1057, but some believe it was later in the year—whatever the date, the event happened: Ædward died within a few days of reaching England before ever seeing Edward. The question remains, however, did he die of natural causes or not…? His son Edgar was hastily declared King after Hastings, but was, as Harold and the Council had feared, too young to be an effective leader against a man like William. He was forced to capitulate to the Duke when London surrendered late in 1066. Edgar returned to Normandy with William in 1067, probably not by choice. He did eventually attempt to raise a rebellion, but it was too late, the Normans were too firmly entrenched. His sister Margaret fled to Scotland, where she married King Malcolm and later became canonised as Saint Margaret. Their daughter married William’s son, Henry I of England.

  There is no substantial evidence that Harold was descended from Cerdic through Alfred the Great, nor, of course, that he was the mythical King Arthur’s son, but I wanted some small and tenuous link with my Arthurian trilogy and this one suited nicely.

  For those readers who are interested in the details of what is real and what is imaginary: Swegn did abduct the Abbess from Leominster Abbey and did murder his kinsman; Godwine and his family were exiled but clawed their way back into favour as I have described it; Harold did surprise Gruffydd at Rhuddlan at Christmas. I have invented the location of Harold’s manor house, but he definitely founded Waltham Abbey after being taken ill and Edyth, his concubine, was forced to identify his mutilated torso after the great battle. His mother pleaded with William to exchange his remains for their weight in gold. The Duke refused.

  As for Harold’s resting place, that remains open to conjecture and personal preference. William ordered his remains to be buried by the sea—that is all we know for certain. Waltham Abbey lays stout claim to his body, as does the marked place of the high altar at Battle Abbey. The skeleton of a man’s headless torso placed in an unmarked but expensive coffin was discovered beneath the Chancel Arch of Bosham Church in 1954. Some say this was Godwine’s body—but he was buried at Winchester with public honours. And even if his body was placed at Bosham, why in an unmarked grave? Earl Godwine died in his bed at Winchester, three days after suffering a mortal seizure having declared his innocence of murder before God. Harold was hacked to pieces on the battlefield. With apologies to my local town of Waltham Abbey, I believe that it is, Harold’s body that rests at Bosham. His mother, Countess Gytha, remained there a while before she fled abroad—and Bosham is, after all, by the sea…perhaps poor William Malet just did not have the time to go back to Hastings to bury a body; perhaps he took a bribe from a wealthy Countess instead? Who knows?

  Harold was the first English King to be crowned in Westminster Abbey, though William, arrogantly declaring Harold’s anointing as king void, later claimed that accolade for himself when he was crowned there on Christmas Day 1066.

  My interpretation of the battles may be open to debate—but here again I would emphasise that this is a novel, although my ideas are based on the theories of those with a far greater historical knowledge and intellect than I possess. I have merely woven opinion into a story. With regard to sea battles: the Vikings were the most experienced and skilled seamen ever to have sailed the waters of this world. Trade ships and merchantmen were deep-draughted, slow-moving sailing ships—but the sleek, narrow-keeled longship, the true dragon ship, was manoeuvr
ed by skilled oarsmen. William had to wait for the wind because the majority of his ships were merchant craft, relying on sail not oar. There is plentiful evidence that seafarers of this time were perfectly able to fight from shipboard. The English of Harold’s time remained closely connected to their Danish sea ancestry, and had a worthy fleet of ships. Harold’s own grandfather was renowned as a sea pirate. Remembering that the surviving accounts of William’s invasion of England were written by the Normans, we have no information on or details of what went wrong. We can only ask questions and guess at the answers. Did William make sail earlier than was admitted? We know that many of his ships were destroyed somewhere between Dives and Saint Valéry, and that he had the bodies of dead sailors buried in secret so as not to spread alarm. Why? We are told that the damage was caused by bad weather—but was it? If storms were the cause, why not just give reassurance that they would wait for a fair wind? The advantage of being a novelist is that the original story can be unravelled and re-spun to a different pattern, using the very same yarn. Eadric the Steersman did exist—he was one of the few men immediately banished into exile by William after the conquest.

  The use of cavalry at Stamford Bridge was highly probable. Horses must have been ridden on Harold’s incredible march north; infantry could not have maintained that pace and fought immediately upon their arrival and the widespread historians’ declaration that the Saxons only fought on foot is nonsense. If this was so, why was the explicitly bred warhorse so highly valued? There are many instances of such horses being left to beneficiaries in wills. Any old nag could be used as transport. So why did Harold not fight William on horseback at Hastings? Ann Hyland, in her excellent work The Medieval Warhorse, suggests the most likely reason: the forced march north, and back again, took its toll on the horses; many had been killed on the battlefield in Yorkshire and of those remaining, many were probably lame or exhausted.