1136 – 1138 A Cross Roads
As a new year dawned, it was brought to my attention that none of my children had been married. My 20-year old daughter, Beorngyth, and 18-year old daughter, Sorcha, had been waiting for years. And now my son and heir, Leofric, was also ready to marry. I hadn’t realized how long it had been as I been at war for most of the past seven years. I immediately looked to rectify that.
Beorngyth was married to a Duke, Duke Ebregisel Chatenois of Lausitz, a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire whose lands were to the east of her Frisian cousins. My sisters had mainly been married matrilineally, but that had been because I was my father’s only son and much younger than them all. My father had wanted to ensure that the Bamburgh line would continue and couldn’t wait to see if I reached adulthood and had children of my own. My daughters were older than my sons, but I had three sons already and four daughters, and my sisters’ children were also having their own children, the Bamburgh line was sure to continue for some time.
So, I also had no qualms in marrying my second daughter to my vassal Hereweard de Criel, Earl of Cheshire. They were close in age and had known each other for most of their lives, they would be happy, I think.
For Leofric, I was looking for someone to rule at his side. I had originally tried to find someone with a claim on England, to perhaps try a new approach to restoring Anglo-Saxon rule, but no females with claims, either Anglo-Saxon, Norwegian, or even Dane, were available or willing to marry my son. I would try again with the younger boys when their time came. Then I looked for woman with nearby claims, but that was also fruitless. In the end, I chose a young woman with good administrative skills and diplomacy to help the boy rule. Her name was Alfonsina de Sezzadio, from Northern Italy, one of the daughters of the Countess Candida of Cuneo.
Out of these marriages arrangements I gained two sons, one daughter, and a war. My Lausitz son-in-law called me into his war to press Countess Christina’s claim on the County of Zielona Góra against the King of Poland. I accepted the call, not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with my daughter’s new husband. I quickly gathered my army and set out for the east.
Some months after I had sailed east across the North Sea to join this war, I received some shocking news. King Henrik Estrid was dead. That wasn’t the shocking part, all men die and Henrik and I had gotten old together. I was over 50 years old myself and Henrik had been a few years older. I didn’t hear the details of his death. But as I said, that wasn’t the shocking part. The shocking part was that the new King was Gospatric Dunbar, a heretic and a Scot, and, I think, a distant kinsman. He held no land in Scotland, so all he inherited was the crown and county of Hampshire. The Duchy of Kent had gone to one of Henrik’s sons, Olaf, I think.
I’d known some Dunbars had a claim, but I never expected one to inherit ahead of the Scandinavian choices. I had let myself becoming distracted and had lost sight of how the electors and candidates were playing out. While I might say I preferred a Scot to a Dane, I wasn’t completely sure that was true. But neither should be on the throne.
How did I learn this news, you may ask. I learned it from a messenger who came a long way to bring me an invitation to join King Gospatric’s Council as the Steward of England. I asked the messenger if he knew who else was on this Council. He said Queen Nuala of course, and the Insular Archbishop Indulf, Duchess Martha of East Seaxe was Chancellor. Earl Eastmund of Gloucestershir was Marshal and Duke Trygge of Cornwall was spymaster. The last threw me for a second, Duke of Cornwall? The messenger explained that the new King had created the Duchy of Cornwall and granted it to his fellow Insular heretic, Earl Trygge of Dorset.
I was too far away, on the border of Poland, to do more than shake my head at all this confounding news. I turned my attention back to the siege of Lubusz. The sooner this war was over, the sooner I could go home.
My son, 13-year old Wulfhelm was with me on campaign acting as my squire. His association with some of my better Knights had led him to embrace generosity, something he had not gotten from Æthelwold Slee.
In the Spring of 1137, Lubusz fell and Countess Suanhilde was captured. This brought the war closer to an end, but only a little more time was needed to make King Wieslaw of Poland and his ally King Csaba II of Hungary surrender to Duke Ebregisel. I ransomed Countess Suanhilde back to her husband, he was very generous paying 165 gold for his wife.
In August, the war was over. Duke Ebregisel’s vassal Countess Christina claimed Zielona Góra and I could go home.
But then another messenger arrived with another invitation to sit upon the Council as the Steward of England. This invitation was from Åle Yngling, King of England. The brief reign of King Gospatric Dunbar had been shorter than my son-in-law’s war against Poland. King Henrik had ruled 40 years, King Gospatric had ruled 10 months.
I finally returned to England and got more information on my new King. King Åle was another heretic, following Insular Christianity. He also held the only the County of Hampshire and the crown of England. He had two underage sons, the Princes Gudrød and Erlend. His primary wife was Queen Maria Orkneyjar, who had been a widow, before marrying Åle and had borne three other children, though only two still lived.
It seemed at the moment the current heir for throne was King Gospatric’s son Evander Dunbar. Again, I wasn’t sure if a Scot was an improvement over a Norwegian.
I returned to Bebbanburg and decided make some more improvements in Bebbanburg and Bernicia. I expanded the defenses with traps and ditches along the approaches to my fortifications. And then I decided to make a tour of my holdings and determine what would be of use in each of them. I went to West Riding, visiting Leodis first. I decide to make some improvements in Leodis, adding bastions and curtain walls to the defenses.
North of Leodis, I stopped in at Bolton. Thane Beorhtwine of Bolton was the late Thane Hroberht’s younger brother. He had been his brother’s second for years and would do well, but he was now 68 years old himself, so I didn’t know how much longer he would be around. My friend Reeve Sæthryth, was the youngest in the Bolton family.
From Bolton, I went west into Lancashire. There I decided to add a small harbor to the County. Then I circled north into Cumbraland to Carleol and expanded the military camps by adding cook houses at the camps to better store food and organize meals for my levys stationed there. I went back east into North Riding and started construction of bastions and curtain walls at Eoforwic. Then headed south into East Riding. Poclintun already had bastions and curtain walls, so instead I provided my newest subjects with land and seed to plant more crops. And finally, I stopped at Dunholm on my way back to Bebbanburg and started improvements on the defenses with earth ramparts.
All-in-all this little tour cost me about a third of my treasury, 800 gold. But most of that coin had come from Crusade and about half the improvements would soon be paying money back, while the rest would help me better defend my holdings and all of Northumbria.
In October of 1137, my main construction project for the past few years was completed, as Æthelsige Grey became the Reeve of my newest Barony, the Borough of Rothbury. The first steps toward this goal had taken place almost 15 years earlier when the late Thane Hroberht had floated the idea of building an irrigation system to deliver water to the Rothbury area. Now there is a growing community. I hugged Reeve Sæthryth and said this was part of her brother’s legacy. Rothbury joins the monasteries at Hexham and Lindisfarne as well as Bebbanburg, of course, as the centers of the Bernicia economy.
In Bebbanburg, Earl Skule and his son were still under house arrest as Lincolnshire hadn’t been able to raise enough funding to pay their ransoms. I released the Earl after gaining a pledge from him and sent him to see if he could speed up gathering the ransom of his son and heir, Torfinn.
Earl Eastmund of Gloucestershire approached me, he had served on the Council of England as Marshal while I had been appointed Steward, a role that suited him much more than Marshal. I not sure what King Gospatric and King Åle were thinking in switching our roles up. Whatever the reason, Eastmund offered to help me with my duties as Steward in exchange for a favor. I was wary, and rebuffed his offer, sensing an ulterior motive.
In Kent, another heresy had appeared, Olaf Estrid, the son of the late King Henrik, had adopted the Adamite faith and their strange customs. They say he parades around his keep naked. So far, his wife and other members of his court had not joined him in his madness. His madness extended beyond Kent as he had founded a faction to place his naked arse on the throne of England. So far no one else has joined his campaign. But another faction is growing in strength. Countess Matilda of Wiltshire had started a faction to install her sister Mary on the throne of England. She had rallied three more to her cause, Duchess Martha of East Seaxe, Earl Eastmund of Gloucestershire, and Countess Ragnfrid of Derby. Was this why Eastmund had approached me? Hoping to recruit me to this faction either through reason, or if that failed, by using a favor I might have granted him.
In either case, I am now faced with a choice, I had 6 months to decide if I would join this faction and placed an English Godwin back on the throne, as my father had done 50 years earlier in restoring Harold to the throne, or sit back and watch how it plays out. Right now, if King Åle didn’t find some allies, the current faction had the strength to defeat him if they were well led. But if he used his two young sons to gain allies, he might be able to gather the strength to defeat them. I could tip the balance in either direction, if I played this right.
