by Griff Hosker
The Emperor John Komnenos fought against the Hungarians under King later Saint Stephen. He lost and had to sue for peace. The incident with our hero is purely fictional.
There was never an Earl of Cleveland although the area known as Cleveland did exist and was south of the river. At this time the only northern earls were those of Northumberland. The incumbent was Gospatric who rebelled against England when King Henry died.
The Scots were taking advantage of a power vacuum on their borders. They did, according to chroniclers of the time behave particularly badly.
"an execrable army, more atrocious than the pagans, neither fearing God nor regarding man, spread desolation over the whole province and slaughtered everywhere people of either sex, of every age and rank, destroying, pillaging and burning towns, churches and houses"
"Then (horrible to relate) they carried off, like so much booty, the noble matrons and chaste virgins, together with other women. These naked, fettered, herded together; by whips and thongs they drove before them, goading them with their spears and other weapons. This took place in other wars, but in this to a far greater extent."
"For the sick on their couches, women pregnant and in childbed, infants in the womb, innocents at the breast, or on the mother's knee, with the mothers themselves, decrepit old men and worn-out old women, and persons debilitated from whatever cause, wherever they met with them, they put to the edge of the sword, and transfixed with their spears; and by how much more horrible a death they could dispatch them, so much the more did they rejoice."
Robert of Hexham
Following the birth of the second of Matilda and Geoffrey's two children relations between Matilda and her father became strained. Many Normans disliked the idea of handing power to Anjou. There were many minor incursions and rebellions, many of them supported by the French. It was following Stephen of Blois' sudden coronation that kingdom and dukedom were divided. Stephen controlled England and Matilda fought to claim Normandy. Matilda’s half-brother, Robert of Gloucester (one of Henry’s bastards) declared for Matilda and a civil war ensued. The war went on until Stephen died and was called the anarchy because everyone was looking out for themselves. There were no sides as such. Allies could become enemies overnight. Murder, ambush and assassination became the order of the day. The only warriors who could be relied upon were the household knights of a lord- his oathsworn. The feudal system, which had been an ordered pyramid, was thrown into confusion by the civil war. Lords created their own conroi, or groups of knights and men at arms. Successful lords would ensure that they had a mixture of knights, archers and foot soldiers. The idea of knights at this time always fighting on horseback is not necessarily true. There were many examples of knights dismounting to fight on foot and, frequently, this proved to be successful.
The word Fitz shows that the owner of the name is an illegitimate son of a knight or is used, with the lower case, to show the mother as in Henry fitz Empress. As such they would not necessarily inherit when their father died. There were many such knights. William himself was illegitimate. Robert of Gloucester was also known as Robert of Caen and Robert Fitzroy.
Ridley, the father of my hero, was in three earlier books. There were two regiments of Varangians: one was English in character and one Scandinavian. They both fought in the same way and were armed I much the same way as the Housecarls of Harold and the Vikings of Hadrada had at the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. As the bodyguards of the Emperor they were able to reap rich rewards for their service.
The Normans were formidable fighters. The conquest of England happened after a single battle. They conquered southern Italy and Sicily with a handful of knights. Strongbow, a Norman mercenary, took a small mercenary force and dominated Ireland so much that as soon as a force of Normans, led by the king land, all defence on the island crumbled. In one of Strongbow's battles a force of 100 knights defeated 4000 Irish warriors!
The combination of heavy horse and archers working together became uniquely English. The 12th century saw its genesis and it culminated in the army of Henry V which defeated a much larger army. To work properly the two arms had to work together. When the Scottish light horse managed to get at the English archers at Bannockburn the English lost the battle. Even Henry V's brother the Duke of Clarence made mistakes. When he left the safety of his archers he and his knights were easily defeated. The archers relied upon the huge number of arrows they could release. Even when fighting at Agincourt where the plate armour could deflect most of the arrows the sheer number they used still managed to find cracks in the armour. They often used a flat trajectory to try to penetrate the tiny gaps in the helmet through which the men at arms peered. Most importantly the English archer was unique in that he was a master light infantryman. He could use a sword and a buckler and he knew how to kill.
Ranulf Flambard was the controversial Bishop of Durham who was imprisoned in the tower by Henry for supporting his brother. Although reinstated the Bishop was viewed with suspicion by the king and did not enjoy as much power as either his predecessors or his successors. He had been something of a womaniser in his younger days and he tried to make up for that by giving to the poor when he was older. He was responsible for much of the defensive works of Durham Castle and was truly a Bishop Prince. He died around 1128. The incident with the Bishop being held captive is pure fiction. However he died in 1128 and there was a great deal of unrest while King Henry was away in Normandy. The Gospatric family did show their true colours when the Scottish king tried to take advantage of the internal strife between Stephen and Matilda and invade England. A leopard does not change his spots. The land between the Tees and the Scottish lowlands was always fiercely contested by Scotland, England and those who lived there.
Geoffrey Rufus became Bishop of Durham and he had a clerk called William Cumin (Comyn). Comyn became Bishop of Durham. Geoffrey Rufus fell out of favour when he failed to support his castles. Norham was left isolated and fell to the Scots giving them control over that corner of the Anglo-Scottish border.
Hartness (Hartlepool) was given to the De Brus family by Henry and the family played a power game siding with Henry and David depending upon what they had to gain. They were also given land around Guisborough in North Yorkshire.
Squires were not always the sons of nobles. Often they were lowly born and would never aspire to knighthood. It was not only the king who could make knights. Lords had that power too. Normally a man would become a knight at the age of 21. Young landless knights would often leave home to find a master to serve in the hope of treasure or loot. The idea of chivalry was some way away. The Norman knight wanted land, riches and power. Knights would have a palfrey or ordinary riding horse and a destrier or war horse. Squires would ride either a palfrey, if they had a thoughtful knight or a rouncy (pack horse). The squires carried all of the knight’s war gear on the pack horses. Sometimes a knight would have a number of squires serving him. One of the squire’s tasks was to have a spare horse in case the knight’s destrier fell in battle. Another way for a knight to make money was to capture an enemy and ransom him. This even happened to Richard 1st of England who was captured in Austria and held to ransom.
At this time a penny was a valuable coin and often payment would be taken by ‘nicking’ pieces off it. Totally round copper and silver coins were not the norm in 12th Century Europe. Each local ruler would make his own small coins. The whole country was run like a pyramid with the king at the top. He took from those below him in the form of taxes and service and it cascaded down. There was a great deal of corruption as well as anarchy. The idea of a central army did not exist. King Henry had his household knights and would call upon his nobles to supply knights and men at arms when he needed to go to war. The expense for that army would be borne by the noble.
The border between England and Scotland has always been a prickly one from the time of the Romans onward. Before that time the border was along the line of Glasgow to Edinburgh. The creation of an artificial frontier, Hadrian’s
Wall, created an area of dispute for the people living on either side of it. William the Conqueror had the novel idea of slaughtering everyone who lived between the Tees and the Tyne/Tweed in an attempt to resolve the problem. It did not work and lords on both sides of the borders, as well as the monarchs, used the dispute to switch sides as it suited them.
The manors I write about were around at the time the book is set. For a brief time a De Brus was lord of Normanby. It changed hands a number of times until it came under the control of the Percy family. This is a work of fiction but I have based events on the ones which occurred in the 12th century.
I can find no evidence for a castle in Norton although it was second in importance only to Durham and I assume that there must have been a defensive structure of some kind there. I suspect it was a wooden structure built to the north of the present church. The church in Norton is Norman but it is not my church. Stockton Castle was pulled down in the Civil War of the 17th Century. It was put up in the early fourteenth century. My castle is obviously earlier. As Stockton became a manor in the 12th century and the river crossing was important I am guessing that there would have been a castle there. There may have been an earlier castle on the site of Stockton Castle but until they pull down the hotel and shopping centre built on the site it is difficult to know for sure. The simple tower with a curtain wall was typical of late Norman castles. The river crossing was so important that I have to believe that there would have been some defensive structure there before the 1300s. The manor of Stockton was created in 1138. To avoid confusion in the later civil war I have moved it forward by a few years.
Vikings continued to raid the rivers and isolated villages of England for centuries. There are recorded raids as late as the sixteenth century along the coast south of the Fylde. These were not the huge raids of the ninth and tenth centuries but were pirates keen for slaves and treasure. The Barbary Pirates also raided the southern coast. Alfred’s navy had been a temporary measure to deal with the Danish threat. A Royal Navy would have to wait until Henry VIII.
The Welsh did take advantage of the death of the master of Chester and rampaged through Cheshire. King Henry and his knights defeated them although King Henry was wounded by an arrow. The king’s punishment was the surrender of 10,000 cattle. The Welsh did not attack England again until King Henry was dead!
Matilda was married to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Henry, in 1116 when she was 14. They had no children and the marriage was not a happy one. When William Adelin died in the White Ship disaster then Henry had no choice but to name his daughter as his heir. However, by that time she had been married to Geoffrey Count of Anjou, Fulk's son and King Henry was suspicious of his former enemy's heir. His vacillation caused the civil war which was known as the Anarchy.
In the high middle ages there was a hierarchy of hawks. At this time there was not. A baron was supposed to have a bustard which is not even a hawk. Some think it was a corruption of buzzard or was a generic name for a hawk of indeterminate type. Aiden finds hawks' eggs and raises them. The 'cadge' was the square frame on which the hawks were carried and it was normally carried by a man called a codger. Hence the English slang for old codger; a retainer who was too old for anything else. It might also be the derivation of cadge (ask for) a lift- more English slang.
Gospatric was a real character. His father had been Earl of Northumberland but was replaced by William the Conqueror. He was granted lands in Scotland, around Dunbar. Once the Conqueror was dead he managed to gain lands in England around the borders. He was killed at the Battle of the Standard fighting for the Scots. I have used this as the basis for his treachery. He was succeeded by his son, Gospatric, but the family confirmed their Scottish loyalties. His other sons are, as far as I know my own invention although I daresay if he was anything like the other lords and knights he would have been spreading his largess around to all and sundry!
Hartburn is a small village just outside Stockton. My American readers may be interested to know that the Washington family of your first President lived there and were lords of the manor from the thirteenth century onwards. It was called Herrteburne in those days. In the sixteenth century the family had it taken from them and it was replaced by the manor of Wessington, which became Washington. Had they not moved then your president might live in Hartburn DC!
The King of Gwynedd, Gruffudd ap Cynan, recaptured Anglesey from the Normans and his son, Owain who later became known as Owain the Great began to encroach upon the Norman lands around Cheshire. Robert of Gloucester might have subdued South Wales but North Wales was a different matter. Eventually the men of Gwynedd would defeat the Normans and it was not until the time of Henry II that they began to suffer heavy defeats. The Welsh were aided by Vikings from Dublin as well as Irish mercenaries. Owain had been brought up in Ireland and his mother had family there. It gave the Welsh an advantage for the Vikings brought heavy armoured infantry to aid them. The Vikings continued to raid England until the fifteenth century but at this time they were no longer the fearsome warriors who conquered so much of the world in what we now term, the dark ages.
Ranulf de Gernan was Earl of Chester and was married to another Matilda/Maud- the daughter of the Earl of Gloucester. They seemed to have used a limited number of names at this time! I have tried to use real names where ever possible. I apologise for any confusion.
The plague and pestilence were two terms used for contagious diseases which usually killed. The Black Death was a specific plague which could be attributed to one cause. Influenza, smallpox, chicken pox even measles could wipe out vast numbers. The survivors normally had anti-bodies within their blood stream. Medicine was of little use.
The Lords of Coucy were robber barons who plagued Louis the Fat and the lands of Blois. They were as cruel as I suggest and I have made nothing up. Henry’s daughter and her husband, Eustace, did rebel and Henry took away their Norman lands. King Henry had to spend a great deal of his time in Normandy and the lands in England were left to Robert of Gloucester and his small coterie of friends like Sir Richard Redvers, Roger of Mandeville, Richard d’Avranches and Robert Fitzharmon. My fictional hero also fits into this category.
The ram and the stone thrower were the main siege engines used at this time. Later weapons such as the trebuchet would render the stone thrower redundant. The skills of the Romans had been forgotten but Crusaders returning from the East brought back plans and ideas which were still used in the Byzantine Empire.
Alfraed could not have slept with the Empress Matilda- he is fictional. The Empress did become pregnant in1132 and gave birth to Henry II in March 1133. I use real events whenever I can but I write about the grey areas. Geoffrey was much younger than his wife and they did not get on. It seemed to me possible that she would take a lover. Ironically her son Henry II also married a much older woman- Eleanor of Aquitaine who, like Matilda, had formerly been married to a ruler. In her case it was the King of France. My fiction is no stranger than the truth. Her difficult time giving birth to Geoffrey is true and she was near to death.
The Bishop of Durham, the Archbishop of Canterbury and William Cumin were all real people. I have filled in the back stories of all of them for the purposes of plot but the events could have happened as I describe them.
Anjou was known as Angieus in 1127 and later in the century became Angiers this in turn became Angers. I have used the modern spelling as the twelfth century was a time of great change.
The language we now call English evolved over a long period. For those interested in it then the book The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg is a superb read. The Ancient Celtic language was changed through the addition of not only Latin words but many from the languages of the auxiliaries who served on the frontier. The Jutes invaded, bringing their words with them and then the Angles and the Saxons. Although I call the language the natives of England speak as Saxon its name is now accepted as Old English. Most of the functional words in English are still Old English. When Sir Winston Churchill wr
ote his 'fight them on the beaches' speech the majority of the words he used are Old English in origin. The Normans added many words to the English language and Old English became Middle English. If we had the ability to travel back in time then the Middle English of Chaucer would have appeared as a foreign language to us. It took until Shakespeare's time for it to become closer to the language we use today.
King Stephen did indeed come to the north before Easter 1136 where he negotiated a peace treaty with King David. The Scots gave up all that they had captured save Carlisle and in return King David's son, Prince Henry, was allowed to keep his lands in Huntingdon. Alfraed's successful campaign is fiction.
Brough Castle, like many castles in the north, was built in the early part of the Norman Conquest. Brough was built by William Rufus and was made of stone. Bowes castle was only raised by Henry II. Until then there was just the remains of a Roman fort and a farm there.
King David invaded England on the pretext of supporting his niece. There is little evidence to support the idea that he would have given any land back to her. His defeat was at the hands of an army led by Archbishop Thurstan and was an alliance of friends and foes who had one thing in common, a fear of a Scottish dominated England.
Sieges at this time relied on starving to death the occupants. Wooden castles, the early motte and bailey, could be fired but a stone one with a good ditch could defeat most enemies. The ditches they used were copied from the Roman ones. Once an enemy was in a ditch it was almost impossible to retreat. The trebuchet was in its early stages of development and the mangonels and onagers had to be used close enough for them to be subject to archers. Rams were useful but they were not particularly robust and could be set on fire. They also needed a smooth surface. That was not common in the twelfth century.