IX. A MATTER OF SUCCESSION
Wulfgar of Surrey, supposedly the lover of Wynnflæd in 951
Amidst the Winter of 945, the East Anglian court was gripped by both scandal and tragedy. The legitimacy of Wynnflæd’s own children had been put into question by much of the realm’s nobility, as an extramarital affair had been uncovered between the Lady of the East Angles and a Thegn from Surrey. Their relationship had supposedly been ongoing for close to a decade, and coincided with the birth of Wynnflæd’s first three children.
Coincidentally, the East Anglian Lady had contracted tuberculosis four months following the supposed discovery of Wynnflæd’s adulterous nature. To many, this was divine retribution for her impiety. However, no action was pursued to rectify her purported infidelity.
As gossip enthralled Dunwich’s court, a second misfortune had befallen the realm in Winchester. Perhaps, the pressures of ruling a kingdom – to live up to Eormenred’s legacy – had overwhelmed Cerdic, and had caused a fatal brain haemorrhage in December, dying at the age of 38. His cousin, Swithræd – Ealdorman of Kent – had assumed the throne with the support of the Witan, as a hastily-organised coronation occurred in Kingston-upon-Thames one month following Cerdic’s death.
Cerdic’s brother, Eormenred the Younger, had disputed the election of his cousin in January, and had gathered significant support in Wales to claim England as his birthright. Unofficially, this had marked Wales’ separation from the English crown’s domination, as Eormenred the Younger had split the realm between cultural lines, perhaps unintentionally creating a unified Welsh realm under the guise of an Anglo-Saxon one. Swithræd, in recognition of Wynnflæd’s support in his ascension to the throne, had extended the Lady’s East Anglian Ealdormanry south to the northern banks of the Thames, incorporating Essex into his northern vassal’s burgeoning domain, previously administered by the Ealdormanry of Kent.
While Eormenred’s Welsh aristocracy – particularly Gwynedd’s – had backed his claim to the English throne, none had supported the assertion of his birthright, content with low-intensity raids on Mercia’s border. Unlike his cousin, the pretender lacked any demesne to call his own and wielded scant influence over the actions of his supposed subjects. In reality, his claim posed little threat to Swithræd – So much so that Wynnflæd's requests to fortify the Welsh border were invariably denied by the new king.
On the 1st of May, 947, Wynnflæd had once more made the trek to Winchester to legitimise her submission to Swithræd. This time, however – despite the King’s expressed disdain for the East Anglian Lady – Wynnflæd had brought nothing but words. Between June and July, the Lady suffered notable familial loss, as fate had dealt her two tragedies. Her twin-sons, Stigand and Sæweald, had both died. One, a stillborn, and the other succumbing to the pneumonia which had gripped the one-month-old since late-June.
Swithræd, King of the English
Despite her deteriorating physical health, Wynnflæd endured two attempts on her life in 949, emerging remarkably victorious against both man and nature. To many, it appeared that Wynnflæd, in spite of her sins, was invincible. Such a myth was reinforced the following year, as, according to East Anglian sources, she was miraculously cured of her ailments, including the tuberculosis which had haunted the Lady’s life for a half-decade.
In January of 951, she became pregnant with her seventh child. As many, assumedly, grumbled at her invincibility and feigned their celebrations, the impossible occurred – Wynnflæd had choked on her dinner and abruptly passed away in June. Coincidentally, her lover – the Thegn from Surrey – had passed away the same year. This, much to the misfortune of her family, had occurred in the midst of an attempted Norse conquest of East Anglia. As she died, her properties were passed on to her two living sons, Morcær and Wulfstan, and the Ealdormanries which she had administered were reserved for their appointments until they had come of age.
As East Anglia was undergoing a chaotic transition of power, the King’s fyrd had repelled the Norse siege of Dunwich in September with the support of the garrison, and had driven a force of almost 7,000 to the sea. Following the Anglo-Saxon repellance of would-be Norse conquerors in 951, the King wielded greater authority than any previously, exerting considerable influence and de facto control over the extensive realm that Beornwulf had conquered two decades prior. As such, East Anglian and West Saxon sources no longer conflict with each other in the titling of any future Lords, with the south-eastern and northern kingdoms officially incorporated into the English realm by 952 – though this had occurred in all but name since 940.
Left: Morcær, Right: Wulfstan
Morcær, compared to his youngest brother – a 5-year-old Wulfstan – suffered much in the vicious political fallout following his mother’s death. Questions of his bastardry were ever-present in courtly circles, with his brother receiving more favour among the northern nobility. His upbringing in Warwick, as opposed to a more traditional childhood in Dunwich had given Wulfstan more cultural familiarity with the Mercians particularly, and had made the Northumbrians more accepting of a southern noble ruling the north. While Morcær had suffered much in the struggles for influence and favour in his great-grandfather’s conquests, his second brother – a 6-year-old Osric – had received nothing from his inheritance, fading into obscurity among the political backstabbings and feuds. A son, or child, receiving no inheritance was an incredibly uncommon practice for the period, as gavelkind, or similar forms of succession were favoured, and customary for 10th century England.
In addition to this unfavoured position, Morcær had become an unwitting scapegoat in a struggle for power within Northumbria. The Bishop of York had made attempts to increase his own influence at the expense of the realm – and upon receiving pushback, had pinned much of his own shortcomings on the young Morcær. This had culminated in the boy’s disappearance from Dunwich’s court somewhere between July and August of 953, and was never mentioned thereafter in any contemporary sources – a complete disappearance from the historical record.
England in 952, before Morcær's disappearance
Regardless of the facts presented, a 7-year-old Wulfstan was the sole inheritor of his mother’s personal properties by 953, and was provided with the expectation that he would rise to the position of Ealdorman of the northern realms (and East Anglia) upon adulthood – a burden which the boy was not meant to shoulder so early, and for such significant swathes of land.
Europe in 970, 19 Years after Wynnflæd's Passing
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