Crusade

by Stewart Binns

It was the bravest act I have ever known. I should have been there, but Hereward wanted me to survive as the embodiment of England’s past and to remain a symbol of resistance for the future. For many years I asked myself if I had given in too readily to Hereward’s insistence. Did I take the easy way out? In my heart I know I did not, but, again, I grew stronger from the experience.

  It took the King several months to break the besieged city. The end came in October 1071, almost five years to the day from Senlac Ridge. Few survived the Norman vengeance. Those who did were mutilated; most died from their wounds or, unable to care for themselves, starved to death. Morcar was the only one spared and left whole, but was imprisoned for the rest of his life.

  Hereward’s loyal companions – Martin Lightfoot, Einar of Northumbria and Alphonso of Granada – were also killed, but some of his family escaped to the home they had made in Aquitaine. However, the fate of his twin daughters, Gunnhild and Estrith, only became known to me many years later.

  As for Hereward himself, that became an even greater mystery. It was rumoured he had been taken alive, but then flogged to death by William’s men. Others believed he was killed by William’s own hand in the Chapel of St Etheldreda and buried in secret at Crowland Abbey. A few even believed he escaped into the Bruneswald and lived a long life away from England. Some even believe that he is still alive now. Sadly, that is not possible, as he would be almost 100 years old, but he deserved a long and contented life for all he did in leading our fight against the Normans. The Siege of Ely may have ended when the rebels’ resistance was broken, but he made sure our spirit never was.

  My memory of him is still vivid. He was an extraordinary man, very tall, with great strength and courage. He carried a mighty double-headed battle-axe, the Great Axe of Göteborg, with which he slew countless victims. He also wore a mystical talisman given to him by his wife, the seer, Torfida. She too was said to be a remarkable woman, but I never met her. Sadly, she died in strange circumstances a few months after Senlac Ridge.

  I hope that one day, despite what the Norman scribes may write, the heroism of Hereward and all those who fought for freedom and justice with him at Ely will be remembered for generations to come.

  I spent the years after the fall of Ely at the court of Malcolm Canmore in Scotland with my sisters Margaret and Christina, feeling sorry for myself and for England. Canmore was good to me but he could be a brute. He had little learning of any kind – he was a thug, on a par with the harshest of his housecarls. He sent Christina to the nuns in England and demanded that my beloved sister Margaret marry him. She was not only beautiful and kind, she also carried the bloodline of England’s kings stretching back to Alfred the Great, which was very appealing to Canmore. The poor woman had no choice if we were to have the safety of his kingdom.

  She, on the other hand, was a saint. She produced a large brood of children for him, brought culture and sophistication to the court and worked tirelessly for the poor and the Church. She was everything he was not, and much loved for it. Happily, she was a good influence on him and he began to moderate his ways. Eventually, she became fond of him – perhaps she felt it was her duty to bring a woeful sinner back into God’s fold.

  In many ways, Malcolm and Margaret became my surrogate parents – he the powerful, domineering father, but one to be respected and admired, and she the kindly and confiding mother every boy should have.

  King William loomed prominently in my life throughout the years I spent at the Scottish court. I loathed him for many reasons, not the least of which was that he wore the crown that rightly belonged to me. He was also a brute, not like Canmore – who was a simple soul with some redeeming features – but a brilliant, remorseless monster of a man. The time Margaret and I were held hostage by him after Senlac Ridge was a terrifying experience that I would never want to repeat. It was during this ordeal that I learned how to deal with my anger, how to deal with the Normans and how to survive.

  As he had shown in his conquest of England, William lacked neither audacious ambition nor astonishing military aptitude. In 1072, he launched a brilliant attack on Scotland with both a large army and a huge fleet.

  He marched more than 3,000 of his finest cavalry from Durham, crossed the Forth at Stirling and met with his fleet on the banks of the Tay. He had assembled 200 ships carrying 3,000 infantry and butescarls up the east coast. It was a mighty invasion force, not quite on the scale of the host that had crossed the Channel in 1066, but large enough to put the fear of God into Canmore.

  While William sat and waited by the Tay, Canmore pondered his response. Not the most intelligent of men, he nevertheless had the cunning of a warrior and carefully weighed his options.

  ‘I will go to him and negotiate. I have no choice. Edgar, you will come with me.’

  His judicious decision was applauded by my dear sister.

  ‘That is a wise choice, my husband. Let Edgar help you; he will give you good advice. Do what is best for Scotland and don’t let your pride get in the way. I will pray for your safe return.’

  I was overawed by the sight of William’s army. He was camped around the old Pictish tower at the settlement of Abernethy, his tents in neat rows, his destriers tethered on ordered picket lines in the meadows. His massive fleet was in sight to the north, the ships lashed together in long rows by the banks of the Tay. This was the work of a leader of armies second to none. When he greeted Canmore he was at the head of his Matilda Conroi, the finest cavalry in Europe. He was a large, imposing man with a considerable girth and a deep, growling voice.

  Canmore also looked impressive at the head of his hearthtroop. I was to his left, his son Duncan, a boy of twelve, to his right. He tried to remain calm as he addressed his doughty opponent.

  ‘You are a long way from home, William of England. With so many men, I assume this is not a hunting party.’

  ‘I will come to the point, Malcolm of the Scots. You attack my northern realm as far as Bamburgh and Durham in the east and Carlisle and Penrith in the west. This must cease forthwith.’

  ‘The border between our kingdoms has never been agreed, so who are you to say whose realm it is? Besides, what my men may have done is nothing compared to the slaughter you meted out to the English, a people you now call your own.’

  ‘What I do in my own domain is my business. You will stay out of it, south of a border we will agree here and now at the line of the Wall of Hadrian.’

  ‘That is an insult. Cumbria has been part of Scotland for centuries.’

  ‘Not any more. I will take your son as hostage to our agreement and I also require you to send Prince Edgar from your court. He may go to Europe, but I do not want him on this island fomenting trouble among my people.’

  At that, I felt compelled to assert myself.

  ‘My Lord Duke, they are my people too and I have a stronger claim to be their lord than you.’

  ‘You offend me, Prince Edgar. I am your King; even the rebels at Ely acknowledged it.’

  ‘But I do not!’

  ‘Enough, Edgar.’

  My brief spat with William had given Canmore time to think. Forthright though he was in his verbal sparring with William, he knew he had to concede.

  ‘It is a hard bargain, but I agree to your terms; your army gives me no choice. I will not let them do here what they did in Northumbria. I will bow to you this day; but take your men back over the border where they belong. Duncan will join your court in England and Edgar will leave these shores directly.’

  Canmore and William dismounted and entered the base of the tower. In circumstances that William had contrived with great symbolism and with Walchere, the new Bishop of Durham and Earl of Northumbria, presiding, the two Kings swore their agreement on the ancient Bible of Bede, brought especially for the occasion from Durham. Two monks had to hold the giant book so that Malcolm could place his hand on it. Then, to make the obedience complete, William laid his hand over Malcolm’s and rested his baculus, the fabled Viking mace of his ancestors, on
his forearm.

  The deed was done. William had secured his northern border, and Canmore could be at peace in his Alban realm – for a while, at least.

  My blood ran cold as I contemplated the circumstances. Malcolm and his Scottish warriors were a formidable force, but he stood there humbled by the overwhelming strength and ambition of William and the Normans. As for me, I remained the embodiment of the defeated English, a mere witness to yet another Norman conquest.

  Even so, my determination to find my own destiny grew ever stronger.

  On hearing the outcome upon our return to Dunfermline, the Queen was relieved that Malcolm had acted with such restraint, but greatly upset that part of the price was the loss of her son and brother.

  Duncan took a small retinue and left within hours to reach William’s army before it had gone too far. I left two days later to make my way to William’s neighbours and enemies in Flanders and France. However, I would be back far earlier than I anticipated.

  I travelled with only a dozen men and two stewards, and moved quickly through England’s ravaged North.

  It was a difficult journey for me. The Great North Road was a hive of activity with cartloads of provisions of all sorts going backwards and forwards. York and Durham and the burghs towards the southern part of Northumbria were alive with masons and carpenters about their work, but it was a different story away from the routes under the watchful eye of the Norman overlords and their garrisons.

  Ragged little children would often appear at the side of the road, begging for food. Sometimes, half hidden by the trees, the remnants of abandoned villages could be seen. There was fear and loathing just beneath the surface. It was well disguised, but it was there – as was the deep-seated melancholy of a once proud people, now vanquished and forlorn.

  When we got to Mercia, I left my men at Peterborough and, disguised as a monk, rode to Ely to find out more about what had happened there a year earlier.

  What I found filled me with a heartfelt sorrow. The burgh of Ely, although small, was thriving. The causeway across the Fens, which King William had built to break Hereward’s resistance, was thronged with merchants and farmers. There was a considerable garrison of Normans at work on a huge motte and bailey, their work almost complete. Although all trace of the bloody encounter of thirteen months ago – which had seen England’s final capitulation to the Normans and the deaths of so many brave men – had gone, I shuddered at the thought of it.

  Few would speak about the events of 1071, and those who did merely repeated the oft-told myths and rumours. The new abbot, a man called Theodwin, was not a Benedictine monk but a secular governor, placed there by the King to keep order and oversee the garrison and the building of the fortifications. I was told that the King also intended to tear down the abbey and St Etheldreda’s Chapel to build an enormous cathedral, modelled on the ones in his homeland. The door of her chapel was still barred and had not been opened since the King ordered it to be sealed at the end of the siege. Many believed that it had become Hereward’s tomb, his body still lying where it had been left after his execution at William’s own hand.

  Outside the abbey I did find a man who would speak to me. I did not recognize him – perhaps I should have done, as he was one of the few survivors of Ely and had campaigned with us in the North. But he was only a wretched shell of his former self.

  His name was Wolnatius. He had been blinded after being captured at the collapse of the final redoubt and had barely survived the following winter. But when a new community of monks arrived, they took him in and cared for him. He was reluctant to speak to me until I gave him details, which only I could have known, about events in York during the rising and he was able to feel the Cerdician seal on my ring.

  He had been close to Einar when he fell, had seen Martin brutally slain by the King and confirmed that Hereward had been taken alive – and flogged, he assumed, to death. Like many others, he thought his body had been buried by the Normans in a secret location to prevent it becoming a shrine to the English cause.

  ‘Like King Harold?’

  ‘Not exactly, my Lord Prince. Harold lies in an unmarked tomb in Waltham Abbey.’

  ‘How did he get there?’

  ‘Sire, it is said that Edith Swan-Neck returned to his makeshift grave on the beach near Senlac and took him to Waltham. The monks loyal to his memory keep his resting place a closely guarded secret. I am sure they will let you visit it.’

  ‘I will indeed visit him there and pray to his memory.’

  Brave Wolnatius had little more detail to add. He wished me well and promised to be at my coronation when it happened. In return, I guaranteed him a place in my honour guard on that propitious day. As I left, I gave him a little silver to help with his care. He grabbed my arm and buried his face in my sleeve, sobbing like a child.

  So this is what had become of one of our bravest housecarls: reduced to poverty. I resolved there and then to do all I could to help restore the pride of men like Wolnatius.

  My first act was to rejoin my men at Peterborough and make my pilgrimage to Waltham to pay my respects to Harold’s remains.

  I have never resented Harold’s decision to claim the throne. He was the right choice for England’s future security. With foes like Hardrada and William threatening our shores, my prospects as King would not have been promising. I would have been lucky to survive Stamford Bridge, let alone Senlac Ridge.

  I knelt by Harold’s unmarked crypt for a long time, thinking about the desperate and brave decisions he had made. Should he have waited for more men to arrive in London in those fateful days before the battle, before heading for the coast? Perhaps he did act too quickly, but he was fearless; that was his strength. He took a gamble, as daring men do, and although it was a close-run thing, he paid with his life.

  I knew I could never be like Harold or Hereward, but I also knew that their example could be a guiding light for me, which, coupled with my own gift for thoughtful and considered decisions, might allow me to find a way to lead others and make my mark.

  As I left, I placed my hand on the plain, cold slab of his sarcophagus and vowed that one day I would pay homage in the same way to England’s other noble warrior, Hereward of Bourne.

  The canons of Waltham, ever loyal to Harold’s and England’s memory, agreed that I could stay in Waltham for a while to plan my next move. I needed new allies; they were not difficult to find. William had many enemies, and my claim to the English throne made me a useful asset. I sent word to Flanders and to France and soon had a response.

  Young King Philip of France had emerged from his weakened position as a boy-king to become a young ruler of great skill and tenacity and was keen to challenge William for control of Normandy. He offered me the formidable castle of Montreuil on the French coast, from where I could harass the Normans.

  I took a ship from Maldon, but fortune once more deserted me. Not far off the coast of Essex, a ferocious easterly gale got up and pushed us relentlessly towards the sandbanks off Foulness. We ran aground and, within minutes, were in the water, losing most of my men and all of my silver.

  I eventually made it back to Dunfermline, exhausted and thwarted once more. I was in my twenty-first year, but I felt like a boy again.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ was Canmore’s blunt response when he received me. ‘I will give you a chest of silver, but you can’t stay in Scotland.’

  Margaret pleaded my case.

  ‘William has gone to Normandy and taken Duncan with him. He won’t hear of Edgar’s return for months. Besides, when did you ever care about upsetting the King of England?’

  ‘I need time to build my forces. This Norman bastard is building castles all over England, and he can put navies to sea and cavalry on the march in great numbers; what I saw on the Tay was a force a Roman emperor would have been proud of. I fear no man, but I can’t let him take Scotland like he took England. As soon as he knows Edgar is here, he will be at my gates within the month.’

  Marga
ret held me. She had tears in her eyes.

  ‘What will you do?’

  I was desperate but knew I had to leave. My next decision was the making of me. Had I stayed in the King’s comfortable fortress at Dunfermline, I would have withered away, consumed by my own anger and regrets.

  ‘I am going to submit to William.’

  ‘No, Edgar! We tried that; you remember what it was like.’

  ‘I know, but I’m older and wiser now. I have to find a life for myself. I will submit, gain his trust and bide my time. I will learn from the Normans. They are all-conquering; I have to understand why.’

  Canmore looked at me curiously.

  ‘That’s a clever move. I am not done with William yet. Learn from him – and when the time is right, we will meet again to see what can be gained for both of us.’

  ‘My Lord King, you have given me a refuge here. I will always be in your debt. Please take care of Margaret.’

  The Queen rode with me all the way to the Forth, where one of Canmore’s ships was made ready to take me to France. He had granted me a small retinue and a not inconsiderable purse. I would travel well.

  Margaret understood me better than anybody. Like many women who live obscured by the larger shadows of their menfolk, she knew that beneath the aura of masculinity that men are required to show, they are often vulnerable and anxious. She knew my weaknesses and had helped me overcome them throughout my childhood.

  She used our journey together to help me even more.

  ‘You are not a mighty warlord like Malcolm, but you have great courage, a clever mind and excellent judgement. Have faith in yourself and trust your instincts.’

  ‘What will I do without you, Margaret?’

  ‘You will do well; I know it. You have great gifts and are decent and loyal. Those precious things are not given to many.’

  Margaret’s words were a source of great strength to me. I knew she was not just being kind; she was a good judge of character and too thoughtful to fill me with false hopes.

  When we parted, I held her tightly as she sobbed at the renewed pain of losing both a brother and a son and begged me to keep an eye on young Duncan in the Normans’ lair.