Northern Knight (25 page)

Vikings continued to raid the rivers and isolated villages of England for centuries. There are recorded raid 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 Emperor, 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.  However those events are several books away. Stephen and Matilda are just cousins: soon they will become enemies. I have the Emperor dying in Worms- he actually died in Utrecht.  I am continuing the thread I began in book 2. The other aspects: the Archbishop getting the insignia form the Empress and then Matilda taking her Imperial jewels with her are all true.  Lothair of Supplinburg did hate the two of them and he became Emperor. The Emperor died in May 1125 of cancer.  His heir was Frederick who inherited his estates.  Matilda left her estates in Germany to join her father.  Lothair was elected Emperor and he hated both Matilda and her husband, Henry.  The accounts of the attempts on her life are my fiction. When King Henry died the Empress was in Normandy and Stephen of Blois, the nephew of Henry, sailed for England where he was crowned king. A number of events happened then which showed how the politics of the period worked.  King David of Scotland who was related to both Stephen and Matilda declared his support for Matilda.  In reality this was an attempt to grab power and he used the Norman knights of Cumbria and Northumbria to take over that part of England and invade Yorkshire. Stephen came north to defeat him- King David, having lost the Battle of the Standard fled north of the Tees.

An early Great Helm.  Basically it was a conical helmet with metal instead of an aventail and a fixed mask.  Later on they became more elaborate.

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. I have used hawks in my book as they were a symbol of a knight's status. 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. Similarly all hunting, including that of rabbits as well as deer, was reserved for the lord of the manor. The penalty for poaching was blinding at best and death at worst.

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 had 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!

I realise that some names are used repeatedly.  I am afraid that is just the way it was in the 12
th
Century. There were at least three Matildas.  It might explain why the Matilda who figures most prominently in my books was known, until she died, as the Empress. Matilda herself was the daughter of a Henry, married a Henry and had a son called Henry. There were two Roberts, Henry's illegitimate son and his brother, Curthose whom he imprisoned.  There were a number of Williams: the Conqueror, Adelin (Henry's son who drowned in the White Ship), and Clito, the son of Robert Curthose. Those names were very popular and were given to many children. I have tried to use,
'son of'
etc, whenever possible.

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.

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 fourteenth century onwards.  In the sixteenth century they 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!

Books used in the research
:

The Varangian Guard- 988-1453 Raffael D’Amato

Saxon Viking and Norman- Terence Wise

The Walls of Constantinople AD 324-1453-Stephen Turnbull

Byzantine Armies- 886-1118- Ian Heath

The Age of Charlemagne-David Nicolle

The Normans- David Nicolle

Norman Knight AD 950-1204- Christopher Gravett

The Norman Conquest of the North- William A Kappelle

The Knight in History- Francis Gies

The Norman Achievement- Richard F Cassady

The Times Atlas of World History

Griff Hosker April 2015

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