Although I have poured for many months over historical sources, Peaceweaver is a work of fiction. The records of the Anglo Saxon period are incomplete, and those detailing the lives of women few and far between. This offers great scope for the novelist but it can also make the job harder.
I have sifted through the muddle of fact, legend and fantasy to craft a story for Eadgyth that I hope my readers will enjoy. My main aim is to provide a voice for her and to illustrate, from a female perspective, what the years leading up to the Battle of Hastings may have been like. I plead forgiveness for any blunders I may have made.
Eadgyth appears fleetingly in the historical record, even her name is written variously as Aldith, Eadgyth, Aldgyth and Eadgifu. The Anglo-Norman historian Oderic Vitalis, writing in the early 12th century, states that Ælfgar’s daughter, Ealdgyth was wed to Gruffydd ap Llewellyn to secure his alliance with her father, the Earl of East Anglia. She is barely mentioned again until 1065 so I made it my job to fill in those missing years.
The main characters in the first half of Peaceweaver are factual, although it is not possible to trace their movements exactly. Anwen is a fictional character, a companion forged to move through the story beside Eadgyth, to protect her and also act as an outlet for Eadgyth’s innermost thoughts and feelings.
The servants at Rhuddlan, Heulwen, Maude and Envys, are imaginary also but Llyward and Tangwystl are the recorded names of Gruffydd’s chamberlain and his wife. Gruffydd’s brothers and sons are on the historical record but Alys and Rhys at the llys of Dinefwr are my inventions.
Young Rhodri, I am afraid, is a figment of my imagination also. I wanted to provide Eadgyth with some romantic joy in her early life and I cannot believe that she would have held any tender feelings for a husband so many years her senior. Rhodri’s murder at his father’s hands was an authorial device to accentuate Gruffydd’s ruthlessness.
Gruffydd was, by all accounts, a brutally efficient ruler, undoubtedly clocking up resentment and dissent among his fellow countrymen in his quest for power. It is widely recorded that, while under siege in Snowdonia, he was killed by his own men but the chroniclers offer no detailed explanation of their motive to do so.
The Welsh, under Gruffydd’s half-brothers, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, then capitulated to Harold. Gruffydd’s severed head was delivered to Edward’s court as proof of a job well done. We do not know why Gruffydd was betrayed but, for the sake of fiction, I felt constrained to make him as unpleasant a character as possible.
I stumbled across the story of Gruffydd’s encounter with his first wife in an obscure journal and was compelled to include it in his story. It may be the stuff of legend but it suited my purpose to use it. We do not know the manner of her death but, since the major cause of female death at this time was childbirth, I thought it a credible demise.
Harold’s attack on Rhuddlan is well documented; it took place just after Christmas. What became of Eadgyth during the raid is not detailed in the sources but we do know that, either just before or just after his coronation, she married Harold. Eadgyth gave birth to his son, or possibly twin sons, in the December following the battle at Hastings in 1066.
Whether Eadgyth and Harold really enjoyed the love match I have provided for them is doubtful, the records do not speculate upon tender feelings. There is no doubt the marriage was politic but the love angle adds a little spice and poignancy to my tale.
After having suffered the experiences with Gruffydd, I for one, would have fallen at Harold’s feet. He was a good match; powerful, rich and even the Norman’s allow that he was a good-looking, heroic figure. One article I read made a connection between Harold’s banner of The Fighting Man with the Cern Abbas Giant on the hillside in Dorset. I found this so intriguing that I have included it in my story.
Harold was around forty-four when he was killed. I have made his relationship with Eadgyth volatile and highlighted her insecurities for the same reason that I make her conscious of her failings as the ideal woman. She was a child thrust into a terrifying world and I wanted to illustrate the pressures put upon all women to adhere to preset expectations that, even in this day and age, can only have a negative effect.
As her story progresses it is easy to forget that she is so young. Her resilience in the face of the troubles heaped upon her evoke a much older woman. Eadgyth was just 21 years old at the Battle of Hastings and, by the end of the same year, she had given birth to five children and buried two husbands. It makes one stop and think.
In the second half of the book, set at Edward’s court, most of the characters (apart from the servants Ethel and Mary) are historically recorded. There has always been speculation as to King Edward’s reasons for not consummating his marriage to Edith and his reluctance, or refusal, to provide an heir. Victorian historians were content to accept piety as an explanation but modern day scholars tend to dismiss this. Several theories have been put forward, impotence and homosexuality among them so, unwilling to commit myself, I have hinted at both without being conclusive.
It is Queen Edith, to whom we owe thanks for the manuscript Vita Edwardi Regis. It provides invaluable information about her family, the Godwinsons, and also King Edward’s reign. (Or perhaps I should qualify that and say, as much as Edith wished us to know.)
In Peaceweaver she is rather shallow and unfulfilled, none of which is historically based. I feel that, in an age when a woman’s prime responsibility was to provide children, a queen in her position may have been made to feel inadequate. She did have many royal wards and the evidence tends to go against the scene I have written which suggests she was uncomfortable with children. I feel she was, more probably, a woman who suffered her barren state deeply and sought compensation in religion. After the battle she capitulated to William and was allowed to remain on her properties in Winchester.
I have tried to adhere to the battle sequences as best I can, bearing in mind that it is reported through the eyes of a woman with no knowledge of strategy or warfare. I was also keen to show the women fighting their own, rather different battle along side the men at Hastings; attempting to save lives rather than take them.
Anglo Saxon chroniclers were infuriatingly vague about women and the little they did record tantalises and teases the imagination. We can never glean the real truth from their faded script.
Most surviving records of the Battle at Hastings were written by Norman scribes but a few survive that were the work of Saxon hands; many of them written long after the battle date. None are unbiased so I have tried to cut my pathway somewhere through the middle.
We do not know for sure the place where Harold was laid to rest. Norman records state he was buried on the shore watching over the channel but others say he was moved to Waltham. Some claim he lies at the church at Bosham, where a body of the correct date was discovered. The remains of blond hair and bones showing signs of violence lead some to believe it is Harold.
However, there are other more likely possibilities. It could the body of his father, Godwin, who is recorded as being interred there or, perhaps, one of his brothers, or even his cousin, Beorn.
After Hastings, the Saxons did not roll over beneath their Norman masters but for many years fought on against them. Some of the characters in Peaceweaver are documented fighting on in the resistance to the new regime; others fade from the record.
Of Eadgytha Swanneck we know nothing more, even the legends have not bothered to speculate on her fate. Many women rushed for safety’s sake into nunneries at this time and we know that Gunnhild, the daughter of Eadgytha (Swanneck) and Harold, was in the nunnery at Wilton.
It seems that the religious houses were not as safe as we are led to believe for, in 1093, Gunnhild was abducted by a Norman named Alan the Red. Alan had recieved Eadgytha Swanneck’s lands from William as a reward for his support. Harold and Eadgytha’s other daughter, Gytha, did indeed marry her Russian Duke and gave him many children.
In 1067, Harold’s mother, Gytha, fortified and held Exeter while Will
iam was absent in Normandy. As soon as he returned to our shores he turned his attention to Exeter, one of the largest towns in England. She held out against him for eighteen days, destroying many Norman soldiers in the process. It is believed Godwin and Edmund (and some records say Magnus) may have been present.
Godwin and Edmund went to Dublin with their huscarls to seek aid from King Dairmait. In the summer of 1068, after trying unsuccessfully to take Bristol, they invaded the West Country with a large Hiberno-Norse force. There followed a large battle with many losses on both sides but the brothers managed to escape. In 1069 they returned again with a fleet of sixty ships and attempted to take Exeter but were foiled by the large garrison and newly implemented fortifications. Later they raided Somerset and Cornwall until defeated by a large Norman force led by Count Brian. They returned to Ireland with just a remnant of their army. Their ultimate end is not recorded.
Of their brother, Magnus Haroldsson, nothing is known, some say he died in battle in the West Country but, there is a tiny chance that, perhaps he didn’t.
Near Lewes in Sussex an inscription of that date records the presence of a Prince Magnus, who came of the royal northern race. It may be the stuff of legend but some suggest that this is Magnus Haroldsson and that he lived on in Sussex which had long been the home of the Godwin family. Legend says that he lived as an anchorite until his death.
In 1068 William appointed Robert de Comines as Earl of Northumberland in place of Earl Morcar. The men of Northumberland, unhappy with his decision, massacred Robert and nine hundred of his men in Durham. Edgar the Ætheling was thus encouraged to come from his refuge in Scotland but William, hearing of his movements, marched north, surprising the rebels and slaughtering hundreds of them before torching the city of Durham.
On the Welsh border, a local thegn, later to become known as Eadric the Wild, allied with Gruffydd’s brothers, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, attacked the castle at Hereford and devastated Herefordshire as far south as the River Lugg. They then retreated to the Welsh hills and carried out guerrilla warfare against the Normans.
In 1072 the Scots began to muster men to Edgar Ætheling’s standard but William took an army across the border and forced King Malcolm to back down and make peace. On his way to Scotland to join the mustering armies, Edwin, Eadgyth’s brother, fell into a dispute and was slain by his own followers. It was after this that Morcar joined Hereward the Wake as a fugitive.
Hereward the Wake together with many of the survivors from earlier uprisings plagued William from his hiding place in the fens. The events that took place under the command of Hereward in the Isle of Ely have become legendary.
More than once William lay siege to them but they could not be moved from their stronghold. The eventual betrayal of the rebels by the monks of Ely led to the breakup of the rebel army but Hereward escaped, continuing to harrass William for many years.
There is some discrepancy over the identity but a man named Morcar was captured and imprisoned by the Conqueror in one of his castles in Normandy until pardoned by William on his deathbed in 1087. Some chronicles say that following his release he was immediately re-arrested by William's successor, William Rufus, finally dying in captivity in 1092.
When Harold beat Gruffydd ap Llewellyn in 1062 he divided Wales between Gruffydd’s half brothers, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon ap Cynfyn. When they obtained sufficient strength, Eadgyth’s sons, Maredudd and Idwal ap Gruffydd contested for their Welsh lands at the Battle of Mechain. Maredudd and Idwal were defeated, one slaughtered during the battle and the other perishing shortly afterwards. Rhiwallon was also slain, leaving Bleddyn to rule alone.
I must apologise to little Nesta, and her descendents, for suggesting that she was not the legitimate daughter of Gruffydd. I can only restate that Peaceweaver is a work of fiction and it suited my purpose to make the inference. The real Nesta married Osbern fitz Richard of Richard’s castle in Shropshire and had at least two children. Hugh FitzOsbern and Nesta fech Osbern.
Eadgyth gave birth to Harold’s son, Harold Haroldsson at Chester in December 1066. (Some records state that Harold had a twin named Wulf or Ulf). One record claims that Eadgyth fled to Ireland with her son(s) and I have hinted at this possibility.
There is little mention of Ulf in the historical record although some say that he spent the whole of the reign of William in prison. The records may be confusing Ulf with his uncle Wulfnoth who spent most of his life a prisoner. Ulf gained his freedom and William’s eldest son, Robert Curthose, who became Duke of Normandy after his father’s death, knighted him. It is possible that he fought with Robert in the First Crusade.
As a man, Harold Haroldsson journeyed to Norway to the court of King Magnus and, according to William of Malmesbury, was well-received because of the mercy King Harold had shown at Stamford Bridge.
It is believed he may have fought with Magnus against the Norman earls of Shrewsbury and Chester where Earl Hugh of Shrewsbury was killed by an arrow. After that Harold Haroldsson fades from the record although a Norse saga tells of a King Harold living as a hermit near Chester.
In the tale this king speaks to King Henry I, and some believe that, the King Harold referred to in the legend could be Harold II’s son, Harold Haroldsson.
© copyright juditharnopp2011
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